Hello Guys,
Hope you are all doing well with your studies so far.
I know that it is not the brand new question:) However, I would like to learn what are your thoughts/plans about mock exams???
As far as I see from the old posts that Kaplan Mocks are relatively easy and not a true indicative of actual exam and also most of the questions in old CFAI mocks are the questions asked in topic tests,
What mocks are you planning to take except the online CFAI 2016 Mock exam?
Can we buy a mock from CFAI. No point of doing third party material.
However, the actual test will be closer to schweser
So, we need to practice hard to expect less difficult (than the most chalenging practice exams)?
Max-Min strategy:)
Not sure what prep provider you guys used for level 1 (if any) but Ill share my experiences.
I have been doing the Schweser Mocks and scoring pretty high which makes me a bit skeptical. I just took the CFAI mock and scored about 10 pts below my averages on the Schweser Mocks (scored a 78 on the CFAI mock). For level 1 did all the Schweser Mocks and the CFAI mock as well and felt that the same sort of thing - I was scoring 10+ points higher on the Schweser mocks. Comparing what actually went down on the level 1 exam I felt that the Schweser mocks were way more on point and closer to the real exam than the CFAI mock. I felt like it was vital to my preparation.
I have also heard from Charterholders that used Schweser (and no these are not employees of Kaplan) that the Schweser mocks are pretty close to the real deal. Similar to what I experienced at level 1. I guess you just have to trust that they know what they are doing.
Are you for real? For level 1 schweser mocks were nowhere close to the real deal. The questions were overly quantitative based. I can’t say for level 2 yet.
Im talking difficulty wise - you can gripe over minutae about it being more/less quantitative or more/less geared toward one topic vs. another. But when sitting for Level 1 last June I felt exacly like I was taking another mock like I did for every saturday for the previous 2 months before that dreaded first Saturday in June. I didn’t feel that the real deal was astronomically harder or easier than the Schweser mocks, but rather pretty close.
Maybe its all just in how you prepared for the exam. who knows. we will see in a few weeks but I am trusting the folks at Kaplan - they didn’t steer me wrong the first time (or others who have used their program successfully).
I have never done a mock other than from CFAI
Hello bfry,
Wow! 78 is already pretty high not mentioning the kapaln ones you did. Hope I can get somewhere close to that.
I am just wondering have you done a lot of Question bank questions, CFA EOC or topics based questions from the website? What approach have you been using? a lot of reading and practice questions or taking some notes and keep revisting…? Do you mind sharing with us?
I am planning to do my first mock next week as I am reading everything in the Kaplan for the 4th time except for ethcis. Just want to make sure I get decent score for the first mock.
Thank you!
This is an interesting article in the WSJ a few weeks back. Back in undergrad, all throughout my MBA, and any other professional designation I have recieved I always read over everything once then went back through the text and took handwritten notes. It worked for me:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-handwriting-make-you-smarter-1459784659
For level 1 - I did the same. Went through the material twice. Reading the first time then taking hand written notes the second. I then took a practice exam every saturday to simulate the real deal. Then during the week I would review ONLY the concepts I missed or questions I guessed on. My results for level 1 were I passed and got above 70% on every topic. Seemed to work fine. If it ain’t broke dont fix it. It may not work for everyone but my brain seems to retain things better when I hand write them versus typing them out or just staring at them for the 5th time - so I hand write everything.
I am doing the same here. Today for instance I am going through all the questions I missed and guessed on yesterday when I took the mock exam. I hand write out why I missed the question and what/how they got the correct answer. I then go back to that section of the text and reread it. Then repeat.
Will this work for level 2? Ill report back in Aug when we get our results - but for now I just have to trust my methods that I have been doing for the past 8 years or so while going through school and picking up other designations/licenses.
There is definitely a plausible point in handwritten notes. Your own handwitten notes are the reflection of your mindmap and memory. In a similar way I came to realize no matter how many video instructions I watch I don’t retain any info unless I sit down to engage in reading. That’s why books will never disappear. Reading was, is and will always be the number one source of information gathering.
Bfry. Lucky you. You may relax and waiting for exam with just easy going repeating. When did you start preparing L2?
Hi bfry,
Thanks a lot for sharing your study method and the artile! I think you will do reallly well on the test.
I totally agree with you on the notes piece since I already have 3 notebooks I have been wrting on things I dont unerstand or keep forgetting. I think it does not matter which way we use as long as we can retain the information in our mind and handwriting is the one working for me as well 
But I am just not smart to retain those information well so that is why I have been reading the doing questions again and again while writing new notes.
Also, for the ehtics part, I never did well on ehtics didnt even bother to write too much notes on it since I just dont like reading ehics. Do you have a quick tip for ethcis? Or you use the same mehtod for ehtics to read a couple of times from Kaplan book and write some notes for it. And keep doing questions and writinging a little more notes on ethcis questions you missed?
I appreciate your answers!
Here is the caveat to my method - IT TAKES A LOT OF TIME!!! I started in October again because I know it takes me a lot of extra work to get all that done. It’s just the reality of the situation I guess.
Ethics is the one that is kind of abnormal. I did the same sort of process but what helps me is actually going through the case study and each question again regardless of it I got it wrong, right, or guessed so I can understand their logic. If I see an ethics problem/situation that I got wrong I will write down what exactly the violation is. Say the case stated - “Bob posts on AnalystForum that XYZ formula wasn’t on the test” and this ended up being the violation - then I will make a note about how posting if certain formulas were on the test on the internet is not allowed.
Like a week or so before the test as long as you have done alot of ethics questions you should have several pages of notes of the concepts/issues/topics that you got wrong. Constantly go back and review these to remind yourself of the situations that were/were not violations - because the ones that you tend to get wrong are usually the more ambiguous ones.
My path is quite similar as yours but I couldn’t start in October because then I was still studying for L1. Since 1st February I spend on average at least 5-6 hours studying each and every day.
So apply backward induction on Ethics…LOL!
Thanks a lot for sharing! I think I will give a try this time on ethics. Didnt spend too much time on it on level 1 so that was the only section in the middle range. Level 2 is more difficult so I want to make sure this is also on the upper range. I will follow your advice on ethics for sure since I dont even have a plan for myself in that section.
Thanks again for your help and hope all goes well with you!