@swift
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Up5
Really? Im sure I’ve read somewhere that the actual exam has the questions split by topic area like you get in the mocks.
Up4I think mixing Schweser and Elan is a good strategy. I also think that its good to do practice exams from a different source to your study material. One of the reasons I probably found the Schweser exam to be easier was because I’ve been using their study material so am probably more used to the way they ask questions and more familiar with the material that they think is important.
Up4I found the first Elan exam (both the AM and PM) to be quite tricky too. To put things into context I’ve done 2 Schweser practice exams so far and scored around 80% in each so I think its fair to say that its a pretty difficult practice paper.
I struggled most with economics, which was expected, and fixed income which was a surprise for me as its one of the sections I feel more comfortable with.
Up4I’ve currently done 51% (2185 questions) of the level 1 qbank. I’ll probably end up around the 70% mark but I’ve been a little slack lately.
Up4I find the Elan mocks to be harder than the Schweser mocks. They tend to use a lot more conceptual questions which require more understanding of the LOS rather than just plug & chug. They’re good for testing your understanding of the material I don’t think that they’re representative of the actual exam difficulty (based off the CFA mock anyway). One of the things that I find really annoying with the Elan mocks though is the number of “consider the following statements” questions. Its a cheap strategy to include two topic areas in one question and make the exam seem more difficult than it probably is.
Schweser mocks seem to be more well rounded, possibily with a slight skew towards plug & chug/memorization questions. The CFA mock probably sits between the two so its probably a good strategy to do mocks from both.
Up4Its yet another example of economists being backwards. MRS(XY) = Delta(Y)/Delta(X) so is the number of units of good Y that they will give up for an additional unit of good X.
Up4The blanks are for the arrow keys. In your example Nom = 10, C/Y = 12 and then you compute EFF. Its probably just as quick to work it out though.
Up4There are two sections to the IMC. The first deals mainly with regulatory issues and has pretty much no overlap with level 1 as it is very UK focussed.
The second part however has a lot of overlap and if you can pass level 1 of the CFA exam then you can pass it easy. From memory though I believe that passing level 1 can provide you with an exemption from the second part of the exam.
Up3I’ve done Schweser mock 1 and Elan mock 1 so far and definately found the elan mock to be more challenging. I found the schweser mock to be quite easy as there was a high number of plug & chug and memorization questions. Elan on the other hand had a lot more conceptual based questions which I found more challenging.
It’s difficult to say which one is closer to the real thing as I haven’t done the cfa mock yet but I definately found the elan mock to be the more useful one for revision purposes. I have read that the second practice exam book from schweser gets more challenging though.
Up3Yeah I don’t feel that my Schweser exam performance is representative of my knowledge of the material. I know for a fact that my understanding of the economics material is horrible but I’m still averaging around 75% in the economics sections of the Schweser exams. I think this is because I’ve done so many Qbank questions so know the types of questions that Schweser like to ask.
I got 70% in both the AM and PM sessions of the first Elan exam. Weak areas were economics where I got around 55% and fixed income where I think I got around 60%.
Up2Yeah thats what I would have done. Giving 2 years of balance sheet data is usually the give away for needing to use an average for the balance sheet item in a formula. Schweser can be a bit inconsistent with it though…
Up2I didn’t like this question either. I think the “persistently” bit is misleading but I guess they get around that by asking which answer is “most likely” to be correct.
Up2Passed level 1, big thanks to the community here.
– Your indicated grade: Pass
– Materials used: CFA Institute Practice Questions & Exams, Kaplan
Schweser, Elan Guides– Your 40/60/80 score is: 79.3%
– Your minimum score is: 70.3%
– Your maximum score is: 99%Up2A 1% chance of success is better than the 0% chance of success that you’d have if you did nothing. If nothing else it will be a good learning experience for the future.
Up1Thanks! And yup, level 1 this June.
Up1I work in strategy development for an asset manager. Basically do the research around new products, distribution channels and market entry strategies.
I’m quite new to it up, until around a year ago I was a management accountant.
Up1I did the CFA mock today and got 80% across the two papers. Scores in each of the topic areas were quite consistent between the two papers which is a little reassuring. Going to go through the answers in more detail tomorrow and pick out the areas I need to work on more. But then I think I might take the rest of the weekend off…
For anyone interested in the difficulty I would say that its more Schweser level than Elan.
Up1I wasn’t that impressed by the free test that Simplilearn offer. The questions felt like they were written by someone whose first language isn’t English.
Another cheap option is http://www.soleadea.com. I haven’t taken any of their tests but they offer a benchmarking system similar to Schweser where you can compare the results of your test to other candidates that have taken it. Looks like you can pay as little at $15 too and they also offer a free mock too.
