For People With Elan Mock Exams into, difficult, principles, practice, detailed

YouCanDoIt

What do you guys think so far of these exams? I have only taken Exam 1 AM Session (got a 70%). Here is my opinion for any who wants to hear it...

The exam is hard. No doubt more difficult than Schweser. And I definitely like the idea of going into the actual CFA exam having taken a couple practice tests that are said to be MORE difficult.

Some of the questions seem to be extremely detailed, asking about some of the most minute differences in principles. All in all, i think that they are good to have under your belt so I would recommend them. I am not kidding though, they are much more difficult than Schweser.

What do you guys think? How have people been scoring? Do you think we really should be happy with scores >65% like they say? Thanks for the inputs! Good luck with your studies!

amqata

@ beathecfa

I went through the morning session of the Boston for 2010 - I don't think that's it as good as Elan. Their questions do not follow the same format as the CFAI mock in 2 ways:

1) They lump together multiple sections under one heading (Ie Equity, FI, and Derivatives all under Asset Valuation) - which makes it difficult to see where you scored on (I noticed Schweser does this too - Elan does not).

2) The way they asked their questions did not follow the same wording format as the CFAI mock (using tables, statements, etc).

Also, as mentioned earlier - their answers are not sufficient to be a learning tool. A lot of them are one sentence answers and were very vague in my opinion. They do reference the text, but still I think they could do better.

As for difficulty - I thought it was pretty average, but some of their questions were harder than using Elan (as in I had no clue what was going on). Some of the ones that i was stumped on included:

1) P/E decreasing due to investors turning cautious
2) plowback ratio
3) ROE = ROA when the company has no debt
4) increasing D/E ratio initially decreases the WACC due to using less expensive debt first

In all, as a first timer, I thought that it was good to do, but that I didn't really learn too much from it. Also, since it doesn't follow the format of the mock, it's not exactly great prep for the actual exam. I only paid $35 for it though the Vancouver CFA society, so I think it was worth that - but i certainly would not pay the $100+ the BSAS asks for on their website! I'd stick with Elan for sure.

chetan86

Have any of you taken Elan's and the Boston society's exams? I would be interested in knowing which ones are better.

cchang

I took the AM session of the Elan mock yesterday and got a 71%. Maybe its an indication of learning more material but it was right about what I had been getting on Schweser and I didnt really think of it as being tremendously harder. In fact I made several easy mistakes...going to take the PM session today. I really hope I should be happy getting over 65% and this exam is tougher than the actual one. Skeptical though

Kiakaha

What's your percentage score on Elan if you leave out the Ethics questions?

johnnyBuz

took the PM session of exam 1 yesterday and scored better then the AM. I think one of the biggest things is that the Elan exams will get you if you dont read the question carefully enough. So for those taking these mocks, be sure to ready the question thoroughly before you answer.

FVPV

Their Ethics questions are easier than the actual exam. The rest of the questions are excellent in my opinion.

waldziuchna

They send the answers along too.

evolsteevol

Sweet. Thanks guys...once again I am disappointed by Kaplan (Schweser).

draz

I have also taken the Exam 1 AM Session and scored 68. Felt it was representative of the real exam, sat in December (Band 10). Will be taking Exam 1 PM tomorrow. Overall I like the Elan materials and feel they are a great compliment to the CFAI materials. Used Q Bank before and would NOT use it again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 09:52PM by ohnomrbill.