My First Sample Exam

I took the free sample exam provided by the CFA Institute this morning. I scored 56%:

Ethics 78%

Quantitative methods 29%

Economics 100%

FSA 54%

Corporate Finance 25%

Equity 57%

Derivatives 67%

Alternative Investments 100%

Fixed Income 33%

Portfolio Management 33%

The exam was very helpful. It helped me identify my strong points (Economics, Alternative Investments and Ethics) and my weak points (Corporate Finance, Quantitative methods, Fixed Income and Portfolio Management). I've decided to study each study session in order from weakest to strongest subject. I will take mock exams after every few study sessions to see if I'm improving at a decent rate. I want to be getting around 80% by Friday the 5th.

Another area of slight concern was the time taken. I finished with 22 minutes to spare, but the exam gives you 30 minutes more than what you have in the proper exam. Since I was looking at the explanations between questions when I got a question wrong, this could be why. I wont know until I do a properly timed mock exam.

I also need to read the questions more carefully. I got a few questions wrong simply because I did not spend time reading the question. These kind of marks cannot be thrown away.

Today I'm planning on revising SS2.

18 days until the level 1 exam.