How're you doing on the Mocks?

[tuse]

Hey Folks,

Have you started out with the mocks yet? I just took a Schweser one
today and scored 75% on that. How's everyone else doing on the mocks?

My primary focus till D-day will to be to attempt as many mocks as
possible and review the topics that I didn't do well on in the tests.

[adam johnson]

I just got 78% on AM and 68% on PM for Schweser mock#3. On the afternoon mock there were two problem sets where I was completely clueless, thus the 10 point dropoff. This is my great fear on the actual exam. On the positive side, I have been steadily improving going from 63% on Mock 1 and 69% on Mock 2. 

Any idea how these Schweser exams translate to the actual exam? My plan is to continue learning the things that I am getting wrong and by the time the exam comes around, my weaknesses should be few.

On analyst forum it sounds like people are using past CFAI mocks to practice. I wish I had these because I am just not sure if the Schweser mocks are challenging enough. 

[Sonal Thakor]

I have a couple years copies of past cfa exams and I find them more difficult than Schweser exams. Not necessarily because of material tested (seems relatively similar) but on how calculation intensive it is or the extra steps required in the CFA mock. For example, Schweser seems to have rounder numbers and gives you more information (like return on equity or required rate of return) in an exhibit. CFA exam makes you calculate these pieces by asking you to give the intrinsic value but separates all the other items. Plus, they seem to make you do more financial statement analysis. I seem to be scoring 5 - 10 percentage points higher on Schweser compare to CFA. My last score on CFA was 69% while schweser was around 75%. 

[Laura Noonan]

Hi 

Hope everyone's getting on well. Just wonderin where do people get the old CFA mocks from? Is it just if you know someone who's already done it, or is there a grey market out there of wonderful people faxing/emailing them? Haven't done any Schweser mocks yet, have been ploughing through the end of questions in the CFA textbooks, I figure the six parters are similar enough to exam questions, though maybe someone who's done exam questions would have a better idea? 

Thanks and good luck,

Laura 

[Frank Jiang]

58.3% for the first one :(

[Ben Jones]

Frank-

 

Im in same boat, got roughly 60% on first schweser(im assuming that's what you took).  The only reviews I've done are FRA and half of equity though and I haven't looked at ethics at all, so I'm still optimistic after reviewing everything it'll look better. 

--

Ben Jones
5210 Milam St.

Dallas, TX 75206

(214) 600-9012

[Frank Jiang]

Thanks, Ben. Actually ethics helps me in the test. In another words,
my other sections are really really bad. I understand most of the
concepts, but in terms of doing questions, nothing is crystal clear.
Ideally, I should review the topics twice before doing exams. I wish I
can spend more time ...

Sonal, based on your experience, what's score in mock exam is
relatively a safe indicator for real test? 75% Anyone did the search
on Analyst Forum?

[Sonal Thakor]

I think if you should just start targeting 70% for right now for improvement's sake. I started at 60% on the mocks and have improved just within a week by almost 10 percentage points. From the forums, looks like everyone is looking at 70% as a breakpoint. If you start getting over 70% then it seems that you are better off than the majority. I'm trying to push to getting over 70% consistently and just review review review! Then, hope for the best ! 

[Frank Jiang]

Yeah, nobody can guarantee that you can pass, even with a 75/80%
score. Not that I like cheating myself, but I like what you said about
70%. Let me just try to improve the score little by little. There are
so many concepts and formulas,

A couple of topics I found challenging
Currency Exchange topics: currency arbitrage, currency forward,
especially there are different quoting method
GAAP and IFRS different treatment in many topics. asset impairment, goodwill
Anything related to numbers in financial statement, especially when
some cases income statement is affected, but other time owners equity
is affected
...
Any suggestion will be helpful.

[Laura Noonan]

I think 70s a good water mark too. For things like currency arbitrage, torture yourself for a day with all the CFA book questions, all the hard level Schweser ones, check every one after you do it, then keep on doing the same type of question until it becomes second nature. I find a couple of hours of soul destroying practice is a lot better than memorising formulas - though I also write out the relevant formula at the start of every question so it becomes second nature 

L 

On Monday, May 14, 2012, Laura Noonan wrote:

I

[Shreyas Tonse]

From the mocks that I've attempted (Schweser), I see that the FRA
questions aren't all that calculation intense. If you can figure out
the broad concept being tested, you can correctly guess on the
direction that a ratio is going to change, whether you are going to
realise a gain or loss & that sort of stuff.

The currency rate stuff when thrown in with the international asset
pricing material as was the case in one of the schweser tests was
particularly tough to tackle.

I'm not scoring well on the ethics portion, especially in the new stub
material that has been included in L2 the prudent investor, RoS etc so
sitting down to review it now.

Sent from my iPhone

[Sonal Thakor]

I'm having problems with ethics too, not scoring that badly usually averaging 4/6 for every item set I take, but I really want to get a higher score. Anybody have any tips for ethics? The questions are trickier and more obscure than level 1 ethics. 

[Frank Jiang]

For ethics, I would recommend reading all CFAI questions/examples.
There are limited amount of variations for each subject, for example
material non-public information, client fair handling, etc. If you can
go through the samples and questions once, then the wrong questions
you did the second time, you should be getting what CFAI is testing
you in the ethics.

[Frank Jiang]

Good tips, thanks!

[Sonal Thakor]

Portfolio management is my actual big weakness. It's the last study session and too many random theories and models. Any tips? I've just been doing problems, but it's not sticking as well as I would like. 

[Laura Noonan]

If practice isnt doing it for you, there's always memory tricks for the key concepts. Sometimes I find it helps to link real life examples to the theory, like when I do the differences between GAAP I think about how the different methods would pan out for companies I know. For portfolio management, though, I find it's mainly about understanding it and then the stuff doesnt merge together so much. For level one I tried to memorise what all the theories were, but they were just random formulas, this time round I've spent more time thinking about what they actually mean and that's made it easier 

[Frank Jiang]

I am from technical background and quant is not that bad comparing
accounting stuff. Did you go through Schweser Video class, I found it
helpful. I can probably share with you CD16 content over some p2p
network. It's big download though. Let me know.

[Frank Jiang]

65% in Schweser 2 morning session. 5/6 wrong in the FSA merger
question. Time to go to bed.

[Laura Noonan]

Best of luck to everyone taking schweser mock tomorrow, will finally have a score to report - unless I chicken out that is! 

L