failed level 1 with band 8

It was $800 for the exam last time I checked. Hard copies of the curriculum books will cost you more. Don’t feel discouraged. Band 8 isn’t too bad.

Sounds to me like you were unlucky. Studying further and bringing your average score up even higher would of course help, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the way you’re doing things right now.

i wonder for the retake of the test, do you have to pay the full $1,200 again or is it something else?

HIi @sweethnr‌  i was in the same position last year. I took the june 2014 exam and failed. By band was also 8. I only used schweser the first time. For the december exam i used both schweser and fitch learning. I passed, my suggestion would be to check out fitch learning also. I Dont think its a good idea to use 2014 material for 2015 exams

Hello Everyone. I am preparing for CFA and need a study Partner. I have put up my schedule and preferences on StudyPal. It would be great if we could study together. 
My best wishes.

Hi @sweethnr‌ I feel for you and know what it is to come so close and not clear the exam. The good thing is you are almost there and I have no doubt the June exam will be a cakewalk for you. If you ask me, I’d say mock exams are the key. I bought Elan mock exams and you may want to invest in those. They are quite highly recommended. As for the CFA mock exams, they churned out the same questions from the section tests. Since I had already done the section tests, I ended up scoring 90+ in the CFAI mock exam. Which 3rd party mock exams did you do?
As for concepts, there is honestly too much to remember every concept. There were certain questions where I too got lost or felt like having read the answer somewhere, but did not know what the actual answer was! Again, the more questions you do, the more confident you are. CFA end of chapter questions are very helpful. It took me a lot of courage to actually open the CFA curriculum given how vast it is, but EOC questions are something that everyone recommends and it is time well invested.
I am based out of Toronto too, and I’d be more than happy to help you if you have any more questions.

Hello @sweethnr‌ do not feel alone on this test failure. I failed the Dec 2014 like you, but with a band 6, which means I totally sucked. Due to lack of adequate time management and last minute work stuff, I had limited time to take enough mock tests. According to 300 hours, six tests give you the best chance to pass. I only took four. Like you, my scores were in the 70-75% range and my last two tests as high as 80% but I knew this was inflated for different reasons.

At home, you are calmer and under less pressure. Also, if you practiced a large number of questions from different sources, some repeats may come up and then you get an “unfair advantage” making your mock score higher than it should be. I used the CFAI materials for my studying and felt the test was close to the CFAI EOC questions. However, in my case, my worst enemy was my not-so-bright memory. I found many questions that “I remembered I’ve seen” but had already forgot how to solve them. As for you thinking that you did better in the calculations than conceptual stuff, well, it is hard for me to be sure you are right since you cannot see your graded test. I noticed the test had a large number of “right wrong answers.” Maybe you get the conceptual items better than you think.  

Since I failed, I’m probably not the best person to give advice, but my plan is to do all EOC questions from the CFAI curriculum all over again. Before even getting the results, I knew I blew Fixed Income so I reviewed Ethics and LOS 54 and LOS 55 throughout January. I’m going to start by reviewing the areas I scored the lowest. 

For the December 2014 test, I used Schweser as my backup and the CFAI books as my main studying tool. I noticed Schweser missed a couple of things although only a few. For example, calculation of semivariance… Just to mention one.

Good luck and don’t get discouraged. I’m sure that you gained a ton of valuable knowledge like me and will pass in June.

@tingwuwang‌ – If I recall correctly, it is like $850 or $1,000 if you want the printed books. You don’t have to pay the first time member fee so it is cheaper. 

CFAI comes up with a  list of changes. If they are not too many, you may be able to use your old Schweser material. Having said that, I’d recommend you tag Zee and Christine, and ask them for their opinion since they’ve been following the space for quite some time.
In so far as Schweser is concerned, they come up with two volumes of 3 tests each. From what I read, the second volume is very calculation-based and may not be very useful for CFA exams the way they are conducted now; questions now are more “conceptual” in nature and require less calculation. I did not touch the second volume of tests for my preparation. So definitely invest in mock exams from another vendor and do CFA EOC questions. Hope this helps!