smartpants

I got 67% on the CFAI mock exam 2 weeks before the actual exam. I got 71% on the Boston Society mock exam one week before the actual exam. I felt I did somewhat better on the real exam than on the Boston Society mock exam. Amazingly, I passed with >70% in everything, even the sections I felt most nervous about. I hadn't dreamed I'd clear 70% on everything - I felt certain I'd fall short of that in ethics and quantitative. Getting >70% on quantitative was a miracle, because I had trouble clearing 50% on the mock exams. This section gave me the most difficulty - there was SO MUCH stuff to know. (I was lucky that the exam didn't delve into the obscure stuff.)

In the last 2 weeks before the exam, I thoroughly went over the questions I got wrong or felt uncertain about in the mock exams and made sure I knew the right way to solve them. I made sure to take notes on things to remember for the ethics questions in the textbook, self exam, and mock exams that I had trouble with. (Ethics is a major part of the exam. Also, doing poorly on ethics would have looked bad.) I made sure to refamiliarize with the calculator problems. I made a final push to learn leases and taxes. (FRA is a big part of the exam, and I'm a value investor. I barely cleared 50% on the Boston mock exam. Doing poorly would have looked bad.) I really studied up on derivatives (only got 2/12 on the first mock exam).

smartpants

ph00bb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> mona_porsche_targa4s Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > CFAI mock 54%
> > And schweser mocks ( book 1 only ) never
> exceeded
> > 68%
> > And I passed
> > I felt the real exam was more straight forward
> > plus no tricky questions
>
>
> Totally agree with you
>
> I only used CFAI textbooks for my preparation.
> Just reading the text and taking notes but it took
> me a lot of time and I finished all the text about
> 3 days before the exam
>
> I did CFA sample exam on 2 days before the exam,
> got 55%
>
> I did CFA mock exam the day just before the exam,
> got 59% for AM and 62% for PM
>
> But I passed , as the real exam was way straight
> forward


Be careful with this. Just because the exam was more straightforward in 2009 doesn't mean it will be in 2010. I took L1 in 2008 and the exam was just as, if not less straightforward then the mock exams. I thought the ambiguity of the 2008 exam was somewhat extreme until I took L2 in 2009. It's extremely difficult to determine what you're going to get with the CFAI.

The best advice I can give you is just to know the information. That's it. Just know it and you'll be fine.