CFA CFA General 6 Tips To Guess Intelligently In the CFA Exams (& Tips to Avoid)

6 Tips To Guess Intelligently In the CFA Exams (& Tips to Avoid)

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    • Avatar of Zee TanZee Tan
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        6 Tips To Guess Intelligently In the CFA Exams (& Tips to Avoid)

        Posted by Christine In the final run-up to the exams, I know you’re most likely up to your eyeballs in practice exams. Probably completely tired of anything CFA related and just want it to be over…

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        If you choose the same letter (doesn’t matter if its a, b, or c) on all the questions you have no idea what the answer is, statistically speaking you should get 33% of all the ones you guessed.

      • Avatar of Zee TanZee Tan
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          Thanks for the tip @radon999!

        • Avatar of benben
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            Many questions have answers where the two distractors are each one step in the wrong direction, which may hint at the one in the middle (that shares one characteristic with each of the other two) being right. Obviously it doesn’t always work, but if you’re guessing, you’re stuck anyway, right?

            Example:
            a) buy x and sell y
            b) buy x and buy y
            c) sell x and buy y

            Two answers have buy x, and two answers have buy y, so guess b. This can also help if you know one but not the other, so you can eliminate one choice (i.e., I know I need to buy x, but have no clue about y).

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            @Alta12 it means that if 2 of the options are given are both indicating the same type of position they are both probably wrong.

            For example a question ask which type of option has the largest delta and two of the options are deep-out-of-the money the in is probably safe to assume that the third option is the right answer.

            Something I like to do to avoid circling the wrong answer is to write a short reason why the answer is wrong (sometime the reason is only a word). This forces me to consider all the options. I also cross out the option that is obviously incorrect. It helps, visually.

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            @christine for some reason I get a lot of C’s that I get wrong. I mean for me personally whenever I am confused about a question and I end up choosing the wrong option, the correct answer is usually C. And no I am not saying choose C in doubt because I believe the same as you that the choices are pretty random.

          • Avatar of SnippySnippy
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              Nope, it doesn’t. I tested this theory when i started doing practice exams. Varies every single time.

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              I don’t get #2. Thoughts?

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              Many questions have answers where the two distractors are each one step in the wrong direction, which may hint at the one in the middle (that shares one characteristic with each of the other two) being right. Obviously it doesn’t always work, but if you’re guessing, you’re stuck anyway, right?

              Example:
              a) buy x and sell y
              b) buy x and buy y
              c) sell x and buy y

              Two answers have buy x, and two answers have buy y, so guess b. This can also help if you know one but not the other, so you can eliminate one choice (i.e., I know I need to buy x, but have no clue about y).

              I do the same thing if I am stuck in Mocks..it has worked for me many times 😀

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              sometimes in numerical questions i purposefully do the wrong calculations to rule out an option. those kinds of questions come rarely but it has helped me in a few exams

            • Avatar of SnippySnippy
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                Thanks for this! Already used 1 or 2 of ’em during practice exams.

              • Avatar of Zee TanZee Tan
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                  Many questions have answers where the two distractors are each one step in the wrong direction, which may hint at the one in the middle (that shares one characteristic with each of the other two) being right. Obviously it doesn’t always work, but if you’re guessing, you’re stuck anyway, right?

                  Example:
                  a) buy x and sell y
                  b) buy x and buy y
                  c) sell x and buy y

                  Two answers have buy x, and two answers have buy y, so guess b. This can also help if you know one but not the other, so you can eliminate one choice (i.e., I know I need to buy x, but have no clue about y).

                  I’m not sure if that works in the CFA exam though…thoughts, others?

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                  hmm I don’t think it really works that well….

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