Just wanted to randomly share how happy I am to have finally given Reddit a try 😂 and stumbled upon this sub, daaamn, this is good! I think I’ll quit other socials for a while now. I feel like IG is waaay too toxic. Bisouuuuus
I wanted to share my unfiltered CFA Level I experience because I feel like a lot of the discussions online are becoming unnecessarily binary (“it was easy” vs “it was impossible”).
First, I think people need to remember that not everyone gets the exact same exam version. That alone probably explains a lot of the conflicting opinions after the exam. On top of that, exam-day stress can distort perception quite a bit.
Personally, I averaged 80% across 4 mocks. Even though the mocks themselves were not fully consistent with each other, I still felt there was an overall framework/style behind them.
The actual exam felt different to me, especially Session 2. More than the difficulty itself, I struggled with understanding exactly what some questions were asking and what I was supposed to calculate. English is neither my first nor second language, so maybe that had an impact ? But I didn’t struggle much with the mocks so Idk. It also felt much more time consuming than the mocks, and I think realizing that during the exam affected my focus (so maybe a domino effect here)
So honestly, I can’t say I’m sure I failed, but I also can’t say I’m confident I passed.
Off-topic but important: bring a spare calculator. A guy in our group realized right before the exam that his calculator stopped working, and luckily I had a backup one with me (apparently I was the only one). I gave it to him for the exam. Seriously, don’t underestimate this.
Best of luck everyone! You got this 💪
Hi all, I’m sitting for the CFA Level I exam in five days and I’m honestly not sure whether I’m truly ready. I’d really appreciate some advice from people who already passed.
So far, I’ve done four mock exams. The first one was mainly diagnostic before starting revision, and I scored above 70%, but it felt unrealistically easy. The second mock was much harder, although I scored slightly better after some revision. Still, I had the feeling that many answers were educated guesses.
By the third mock, I scored very well, but I started worrying that it was becoming more pattern recognition than actual understanding. I then did a fourth mock in a public library, intentionally after a tiring morning, to mimic real exam conditions since I’ll have to travel to Belgium for the actual exam. My score dropped slightly in the second session, but overall I still scored above 80%.
Despite that, I still have this feeling that maybe I’ve just become too familiar with CFA question styles and that the real exam could expose gaps in my understanding.
At this stage, what would you recommend doing to genuinely test knowledge and not just repeat another mock?
Many thanks in advance.