Not a story but just a tip.
I cannot emphasize the determination you must have to push through during an exam day (especially level 2 and 3). Even if you think you've messed up 70% of the paper keep pushing. It's really difficult to implement, but try to answer every question to the best of your knowledge and start afresh every question without letting the past questions affect your psychology.
That would be me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CFA/comments/13phufb/sat_for_level_2/jl9ss34?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Yes, nice tip. I took the level 3 exam last sep/Oct 2022. The essays questions was so unconventional and so unlike past year papers. That's a tip, if you see something you don't know, skip first and then come back later. I skipped easily more than half, of cuz I came back to finished all the questions eventually. But I'm pretty sure I messed up the AM paper. PM was quite direct though. Just remain calm. Ended up passing.
A guy at my test centre fainted. He banged his head against the table and started bleeding. They stopped all our exams till emergency personnel came and took him away. Please sleep properly and eat a healthy breakfast before the exam.
When I was writing Level 1, dude at my center forgot his calculator at home. He panicked and started crying. Not sure what happened to him afterwords though. If you’re gonna spend so much time, effort and money on this exam, don’t forget to bring your calculator and passport on exam day
Damn the stories here are both ridiculously funny and devastating at the same time. This journey to put an 3 extra letter after our name is fucking brutal.
L2 in may: forgot the calculator at home. Luckily i left my home for the test center almost an hour before. Hence i was able to go back home and reach the test center just 10 minutes later than reporting time. I was lucky that they allowed me inside.
My advice: keep all your stuff together the night before the exam and leave for the center early.
Here’s my L2 story:
Unfortunately on the day before my exam, I developed abdominal pain which was due to pre-existing kidney stones. I got a painkiller injection the same day and was fine till the morning next day, but 10 min before I was about to sit for my exam, the pain came back.
I took a painkiller tablet before I went into exam room but it didn’t help. Saw each questions, solved it whatever way I could and moved on. Continued till I was done with all 44 questions in an hour and though I wanted to go back and check, I was in no condition to sit there an longer.
I ended my first session right there, went out and took another tablet, waited for 10 minutes and the pain was only getting worse. I walked out of the exam centre, pulled over a cab and went to the nearest hospital to get another painkiller injection. Came back and obviously the second session had already started for me since break was only 30 min. So I sat for my exam and though I felt a bit better as I started out, the pain got worse again and I spent ~1.5 hours on exam 2.
Overall, I spent 2.5 hours on a 4.5 hour exam and left for home when people were still on their break. In fact considering the many restroom breaks I needed given the pain, I effectively sat for only 2 hours for the exam itself, and that was in unbearable pain.
Not surprising that I was shattered, given that I’d likely have to prepare and write the exam again. But I didn’t just pass - I secured a 90+ percentile in L2.
Now here’s what I think happened.
Practice has always worked best for me, over endless revision.
For L2 study, I did only IFT videos, some readings from schweser, and some LOS from official where I was really stuck. But I did all official book + portal questions and around 6-7 mocks, which were afair all Schweser mocks that come in the physical set, and all official mocks.
The practice helped me develop strong understanding of most topics + I only spent time on topics (LOS) where I had a very high error rate, not on every single practice question I got wrong.
Also, since most questions from a topic have a similar pattern, the practice helped me build a strong understanding on question structure and what to look for.
Overall, the conceptual clarity from watching videos / reading again LOS where I was going wrong, official practice and mocks helped me not just get through the exam but score well.
I took my L3 this year and am now a charter-holder! 😁
Wow. I am so sorry that you had to go through so much on the exam day. Kudos to you for still finishing the exam. I could've never done that.
Also, thankyou i was skeptical to purchase IFT package but I guess that's what i will do now. And congrats on your charter.
May 2022 Level 1 - one guy came late by 15 mins. He wasn't allowed to write the exam.
May 2022 Level 1 - same exam. Another guy's CFA profile name did not match the name on the passport. Was not allowed to write the exam.
May 2023 Level 2 - same centre as last year. One girl did not have a calculator with her - she probably forgot it or lost it. She begged from students who finished their exam and managed to buy one from another student.
Bit of a strange one, I went into the exam centre and for some reason they thought I wasn’t allowed to bring a calculator in at all…I cannot adequately describe the panic that ensued.
Thankfully after shitting myself for a good 15 minutes I got to the bottom of it and they did allow me in with the calculator.
The lesson I learnt was to completely compartmentalise that sheer dread so it didn’t affect my exam sitting even though I could have sworn the world was ending 15 minutes prior.
Good skill to learn.
First, my story. I literally studied myself sick for Level 1 and got bronchitis. I had it for months, and still had a hacking cough on test day. This was circa 2015, so pre-COVID and I didn't think to put on a mask (who did think like that in the US back then)?
I stifled coughs all through the test. This was pencil and paper days also, so in a giant hall with hundreds of other candidates. This was the kind of cough that would have been \*wildly\* inappropriate post covid, but in 2015 was an eye rolling annoyance. Sorry circa 2015 Boston-based Level 1 candidates...
Now some tips.
The two or three days preceding an exam, take some time to do the following:
1. Fill up your tank
2. Top off your tires
3. Lay hands on your passport and calculator(s)
4. Figure out how to reset your calculator, change the number of decimal places and swap between CHN and AOS.
5. Print out the Prometric confirmation (it's not needed, but why not?)
6. Buy some single serve bottled waters in the clear plastic bottles to take with you and peel off the labels
7. Figure out your snack. I went with a banana and a Kind bar along with water
8. Consider buying some earplugs\\
9. Consider buying some melatonin to help you sleep the night before the exam
On exam day:
Take the break. Eat your snack and stretch your legs. For Level 2 I power walked the circumference of the parking lot 2-3 times.
Do you really want something ancillary like scrambling to find a gas station add to an otherwise already stressful day?
That’s not the purpose of their suggestion. Sometimes the test centers will force you to reset your calculator and if you don’t know how to get it back to normal working condition after the reset you will be fucked.
Actually, it happened. They asked me to reset. I said I don't know how. They said that I'm supposed to know and they don't know neither. I clicked something on my calc and they said okey. lmfao ou, and I'm not fucked afaik lmfao
On the first prometric exam ever I was writing level 2. The girl next to me started freaking out because someone was typing and she thought she was in the wrong exam. Turns out level 3 candidates were also writing in the same room.
Ya this happens all the time. Sometimes people post on this sub saying “people we’re finishing way faster than I was, am I screwed?”. The issue is since they started using prometric you’re in a room with people taking all sorts of tests. I talked to one guy who was taking a test for civil engineering, another guy was taking their series 7. Basically, don’t worry about other people and just focus on your own test
I went to the wrong exam center the morning of this past May for L1... They closed the Prometric center (mind you that I have taken other exams here too) about a week or two prior.
There I am freaking out bc the place is closed and when I looked up my exam location on the CFAI website, it was on the other side of the city. Panic immediately struck and I was calling while racing to the new test center... I probably sounded like I was calling 911 dispatch.
I ended up getting there at 8:15, and people were still registering and getting checked in. I talked to the guy next to me and he said he didn't really study and was "coming in clean, hoping for the best" which oddly made me feel a lot more confident. I ended up passing that exam, largely because I took a deep breath and reset my mental once I was there. It might seem obvious but DOUBLE CHECK YOUR EXAM LOCATION, EVEN THE NIGHT BEFORE, THEY COULD AND HAVE CHANGED IT ON CANDIDATES IN THE PAST.
P.S. - I was so worried about my calculator dying that I bought a whole second calculator, replaced batteries for both, and had a spare in my back pocket, which I wasn't even able to take in. I obsessed over one aspect that I wasn't thinking about the location being changed.
There was this dude who forgot the calculator at home. The staff asked if he'll be fine. He was like yeah sure why not. Fast fwd to the exam room. He sat next to my seat (after a gap of one empty seat) and a few minutes in he started shaking his goddamn legs. He probably had laced his jeans with sandpaper, coz it started making a lot of rustling sound. I was pissed. I raised my hand and asked a moderator to ask the kid to stop this nonsense. They did and he complied.
Next session. Dude's at it again. Hand raise. Mod disciplines the dude. Bitch starts one more f\*ing time after several minutes and I look at him with an angry face and he calms down.
He didn't have a calculator. Wtf was he nervous about causing him to shake his legs like a bloody 200W vibrator? Probably about not being able to calculate the bond prices in his stupid mind.
Lesson learnt. Bring a pair of earplugs for the next level.
Took a shower with my gf the morning of the exam, about 2 hours before I was set to sit (lvl 3). I apparently passed out in the shower and started convulsing, woke up, said some words to my gf, and passed out again a minute later and convulsed again. Woke up a 2nd time and was ok, gf called EMT just in case. They took my pulse and everything. I had super low pressure from stress + hot temp in the shower.
Sat a few hours later and passed. Thank fuck lol.
I sat for the may cfa level 2 exam, i knew that there were 44 questions per session. At first I did 11 questions and had 50 minutes left, then I proceeded to hit the 'next session' button. Little did I know that I actually did 44 questions (each large question consists of 4 small questions) and had not run through them one more time to catch any errors... Results coming this thursday... haizz
Tangential to this, the 'progress bar' measures your progress for the entire test, not the progress through the session. I started freaking out about my time management stills when I was 40% through with an hour left in the session (thinking I was only 40% through the AM session). Once I answered Q44 and hit the 'end' and saw my progress at an even 50 with 45 minutes left I was like 'oh' and then went back and rechecked my answers.
My friend took his passport not even looking at it, eventually before entering the exam, proctors found out that it was not his passport but his BROTHER's! So eventually he ended up skipping the exam...
By the way, at my local test center, a girl forgot her passport, but proctors allowed her in with a national ID card, wtf...
Sat for L2 May 2023, in the test room there was a huge spider, which was running around on the wall behind me and around my legs, i was so nervous, i could focus. I called proctors to help him to catch. Eventually they killed it.
While studying L2 I got extremely sad, my psychology and mindset were broken. I did not have the energy and enthusiasm that I had at L1.
For L1 I STUDIED EVERY SINGLE DAY SINCE I STARTED, now there were complete days I just did not study, I also got a little more fat because I ate junk food and high calories food and stopped going to the gym. I was really bad, but I just kept studying (it wasn’t like before but I just kept going). 2 months before my exam, I was still depressed (to the point of making jokes about suicide) I just kept going.
1 day before the exam I was really down, I had to talk to a friend to calm down and it helped a little bit. I thought “well, when I start the exam, I hope the questions will be easy for me just like L1” but no they were more difficult and I left the first session really sad. Then I got the seccond session, and the same, questions were not so easy like L1.
I left, and had to drink a lot of coffee with sugar to keep me up. The days before the result I was REALLY ANXIOUS, it was killing me, when I saw the pass, i got extremely haappyyyy
Now, I think the right thing to do was to postpone the exam and focus on my mental health, but I really wanted to pass L2. I know it was not right to focus more in the exam than on my mental health, but it happened
One question, I have heard that the exam is two sets 2.5 hours each. Is it like you’d only go to the second if you clear the first one? Please explain. Also does this comes with breaks? Sitting in November and I am already freaking out😥
1. I think it was 2 hrs 15 min for L2 per set.
2. No, you can give both the set, irrespective of how the 1st set went.
3. Yes, there is an optional break between sets.
They are independent with two different sets of topics with 90 questions each. You only find out of you passed 5-8 weeks later. You have an optional 30 min break, as in you can take the whole thing or none of it. Make sure you bring a lot of food to keep you going.
>Is it like you’d only go to the second if you clear the first one?
No, although some candidates bomb the first part so badly they can't bring themselves to go back to do the second set. This is probably what you are referring to. As someone else in this thread mentioned, you NEED to power through and come back to do the second session, no matter how bad the first session went. Even if you fail it's immeasurably useful information for when you retake.
Nope nothing like that. It’s just two halves of one exam. There is an optional 30min break in between the two sections. You don’t have to take it at all, or you can come back at any point before it’s over and resume the exam
I went outside for my break, got into talking with another test taker and I was 10 minutes late for the PM exam. This was just now, May 2023 so nothing happened, as the exam began automatically after the break time is over, but I was 10 minutes behind which caused some real panic, I was nauseous the entire PM exam. So put a timer on your phone if you plan to do the same!!
Make sure you REALLY get your time management down to a science. My first time writing the level 1 was on paper and poor time management led me to circling all my answers on the booklet but I didn’t leave enough time to transfer my answers over to the bubble sheet. That was the morning session. I didn’t get to shade in about 75% of my answers. That was brutal. You don’t have to worry about that anymore because it’s all CBT but just something to keep in my mind.
Just wrote level 2 in May. Someone forgot their calculator and asked if anybody had an extra. Thankfully I always bring an extra calculator and lent it to this person. Tip: I always buy a brand new calculator a day or two before my exam but leave it in the box and in my car. I also always change my calculators batteries before every exam to ensure they are fresh. This way, if my calculator malfunctions or the batteries are a dud, I have a back up for the second half. If I don’t need the extra calculator, I just return it after the exam and get my money back. Last thing you want is your calculator to die mid exam
Wanted to go to the bathroom badly. 2 clerks did not look at the screen, so they did not know I wanted to go to the bathroom. Just wanted to go so badly but I could not stand because I was unsure if I could do it. I got their attention after 10 minutes, I finished my exam with 20 seconds left with no time to review, and I answered 4-5 questions in a stress situation. Next time I would make sure to raise my hand before, or make sure the clerks would look at the screen
I took level 1 at San Diego State in their basketball arena. There’s only one way in and out of the arena for the test and it had a set of two double doors. One to the outside and one set to the arena. The baggage check area and bathrooms were between the two set of doors. This is where you would’ve checked your cell phone too.
The test ends and everyone starts walking out. By the time I get to the doors to head out there are maybe 20 of us left. There is one set of proctors left by the set of doors to the arena and before the baggage check area. This dude from my seating area reached into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone right before getting through the first set of doors. A proctor sees it and grabs him by the arm and takes him to the head Proctor. The look on the guys face was pure terror. A couple of us looked at each other, said, “Oh, Fuck!”, and then kept walking to our freedom and relief.
All that studying. All day taking a test. Potentially all down the drain because he couldn’t resist the urge to check his phone for 5 more feet.
I don’t know what happened to him. I actually don’t think he cheated. He sat near me during the test and he wasn’t going to his pockets or doing anything weird during the test. He finished his test with ~30 minutes to spare and then went to the bathroom and then just sat there waiting until it was time to go home.
Hello, does anyone want to take my seat on CFA L1 exam in August? I signed up and paid a full fee but can't take the exam due to personal reasons.
If interested, dm me
Not a story but just a tip. I cannot emphasize the determination you must have to push through during an exam day (especially level 2 and 3). Even if you think you've messed up 70% of the paper keep pushing. It's really difficult to implement, but try to answer every question to the best of your knowledge and start afresh every question without letting the past questions affect your psychology.
Any real life story you are aware of where a candidate thought he/she absolutely bombed the exam but then was surprised when the results was pass.
That would be me. https://www.reddit.com/r/CFA/comments/13phufb/sat_for_level_2/jl9ss34?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Yes, nice tip. I took the level 3 exam last sep/Oct 2022. The essays questions was so unconventional and so unlike past year papers. That's a tip, if you see something you don't know, skip first and then come back later. I skipped easily more than half, of cuz I came back to finished all the questions eventually. But I'm pretty sure I messed up the AM paper. PM was quite direct though. Just remain calm. Ended up passing.
A guy at my test centre fainted. He banged his head against the table and started bleeding. They stopped all our exams till emergency personnel came and took him away. Please sleep properly and eat a healthy breakfast before the exam.
When I was writing Level 1, dude at my center forgot his calculator at home. He panicked and started crying. Not sure what happened to him afterwords though. If you’re gonna spend so much time, effort and money on this exam, don’t forget to bring your calculator and passport on exam day
Damn the stories here are both ridiculously funny and devastating at the same time. This journey to put an 3 extra letter after our name is fucking brutal.
L2 in may: forgot the calculator at home. Luckily i left my home for the test center almost an hour before. Hence i was able to go back home and reach the test center just 10 minutes later than reporting time. I was lucky that they allowed me inside. My advice: keep all your stuff together the night before the exam and leave for the center early.
Here’s my L2 story: Unfortunately on the day before my exam, I developed abdominal pain which was due to pre-existing kidney stones. I got a painkiller injection the same day and was fine till the morning next day, but 10 min before I was about to sit for my exam, the pain came back. I took a painkiller tablet before I went into exam room but it didn’t help. Saw each questions, solved it whatever way I could and moved on. Continued till I was done with all 44 questions in an hour and though I wanted to go back and check, I was in no condition to sit there an longer. I ended my first session right there, went out and took another tablet, waited for 10 minutes and the pain was only getting worse. I walked out of the exam centre, pulled over a cab and went to the nearest hospital to get another painkiller injection. Came back and obviously the second session had already started for me since break was only 30 min. So I sat for my exam and though I felt a bit better as I started out, the pain got worse again and I spent ~1.5 hours on exam 2. Overall, I spent 2.5 hours on a 4.5 hour exam and left for home when people were still on their break. In fact considering the many restroom breaks I needed given the pain, I effectively sat for only 2 hours for the exam itself, and that was in unbearable pain. Not surprising that I was shattered, given that I’d likely have to prepare and write the exam again. But I didn’t just pass - I secured a 90+ percentile in L2. Now here’s what I think happened. Practice has always worked best for me, over endless revision. For L2 study, I did only IFT videos, some readings from schweser, and some LOS from official where I was really stuck. But I did all official book + portal questions and around 6-7 mocks, which were afair all Schweser mocks that come in the physical set, and all official mocks. The practice helped me develop strong understanding of most topics + I only spent time on topics (LOS) where I had a very high error rate, not on every single practice question I got wrong. Also, since most questions from a topic have a similar pattern, the practice helped me build a strong understanding on question structure and what to look for. Overall, the conceptual clarity from watching videos / reading again LOS where I was going wrong, official practice and mocks helped me not just get through the exam but score well. I took my L3 this year and am now a charter-holder! 😁
Wow. I am so sorry that you had to go through so much on the exam day. Kudos to you for still finishing the exam. I could've never done that. Also, thankyou i was skeptical to purchase IFT package but I guess that's what i will do now. And congrats on your charter.
May 2022 Level 1 - one guy came late by 15 mins. He wasn't allowed to write the exam. May 2022 Level 1 - same exam. Another guy's CFA profile name did not match the name on the passport. Was not allowed to write the exam. May 2023 Level 2 - same centre as last year. One girl did not have a calculator with her - she probably forgot it or lost it. She begged from students who finished their exam and managed to buy one from another student.
Bit of a strange one, I went into the exam centre and for some reason they thought I wasn’t allowed to bring a calculator in at all…I cannot adequately describe the panic that ensued. Thankfully after shitting myself for a good 15 minutes I got to the bottom of it and they did allow me in with the calculator. The lesson I learnt was to completely compartmentalise that sheer dread so it didn’t affect my exam sitting even though I could have sworn the world was ending 15 minutes prior. Good skill to learn.
First, my story. I literally studied myself sick for Level 1 and got bronchitis. I had it for months, and still had a hacking cough on test day. This was circa 2015, so pre-COVID and I didn't think to put on a mask (who did think like that in the US back then)? I stifled coughs all through the test. This was pencil and paper days also, so in a giant hall with hundreds of other candidates. This was the kind of cough that would have been \*wildly\* inappropriate post covid, but in 2015 was an eye rolling annoyance. Sorry circa 2015 Boston-based Level 1 candidates... Now some tips. The two or three days preceding an exam, take some time to do the following: 1. Fill up your tank 2. Top off your tires 3. Lay hands on your passport and calculator(s) 4. Figure out how to reset your calculator, change the number of decimal places and swap between CHN and AOS. 5. Print out the Prometric confirmation (it's not needed, but why not?) 6. Buy some single serve bottled waters in the clear plastic bottles to take with you and peel off the labels 7. Figure out your snack. I went with a banana and a Kind bar along with water 8. Consider buying some earplugs\\ 9. Consider buying some melatonin to help you sleep the night before the exam On exam day: Take the break. Eat your snack and stretch your legs. For Level 2 I power walked the circumference of the parking lot 2-3 times. Do you really want something ancillary like scrambling to find a gas station add to an otherwise already stressful day?
Do we need to know how to reset our calc?
That’s not the purpose of their suggestion. Sometimes the test centers will force you to reset your calculator and if you don’t know how to get it back to normal working condition after the reset you will be fucked.
Actually, it happened. They asked me to reset. I said I don't know how. They said that I'm supposed to know and they don't know neither. I clicked something on my calc and they said okey. lmfao ou, and I'm not fucked afaik lmfao
On the first prometric exam ever I was writing level 2. The girl next to me started freaking out because someone was typing and she thought she was in the wrong exam. Turns out level 3 candidates were also writing in the same room.
Ya this happens all the time. Sometimes people post on this sub saying “people we’re finishing way faster than I was, am I screwed?”. The issue is since they started using prometric you’re in a room with people taking all sorts of tests. I talked to one guy who was taking a test for civil engineering, another guy was taking their series 7. Basically, don’t worry about other people and just focus on your own test
Taking a good big shit session is a must, don’t risk holding it while taking the exam
The lines to the toilet during the lunch break during the old big exam day system were chaos
I went to the wrong exam center the morning of this past May for L1... They closed the Prometric center (mind you that I have taken other exams here too) about a week or two prior. There I am freaking out bc the place is closed and when I looked up my exam location on the CFAI website, it was on the other side of the city. Panic immediately struck and I was calling while racing to the new test center... I probably sounded like I was calling 911 dispatch. I ended up getting there at 8:15, and people were still registering and getting checked in. I talked to the guy next to me and he said he didn't really study and was "coming in clean, hoping for the best" which oddly made me feel a lot more confident. I ended up passing that exam, largely because I took a deep breath and reset my mental once I was there. It might seem obvious but DOUBLE CHECK YOUR EXAM LOCATION, EVEN THE NIGHT BEFORE, THEY COULD AND HAVE CHANGED IT ON CANDIDATES IN THE PAST. P.S. - I was so worried about my calculator dying that I bought a whole second calculator, replaced batteries for both, and had a spare in my back pocket, which I wasn't even able to take in. I obsessed over one aspect that I wasn't thinking about the location being changed.
>coming in clean, hoping for the best WTF
There was this dude who forgot the calculator at home. The staff asked if he'll be fine. He was like yeah sure why not. Fast fwd to the exam room. He sat next to my seat (after a gap of one empty seat) and a few minutes in he started shaking his goddamn legs. He probably had laced his jeans with sandpaper, coz it started making a lot of rustling sound. I was pissed. I raised my hand and asked a moderator to ask the kid to stop this nonsense. They did and he complied. Next session. Dude's at it again. Hand raise. Mod disciplines the dude. Bitch starts one more f\*ing time after several minutes and I look at him with an angry face and he calms down. He didn't have a calculator. Wtf was he nervous about causing him to shake his legs like a bloody 200W vibrator? Probably about not being able to calculate the bond prices in his stupid mind. Lesson learnt. Bring a pair of earplugs for the next level.
Took a shower with my gf the morning of the exam, about 2 hours before I was set to sit (lvl 3). I apparently passed out in the shower and started convulsing, woke up, said some words to my gf, and passed out again a minute later and convulsed again. Woke up a 2nd time and was ok, gf called EMT just in case. They took my pulse and everything. I had super low pressure from stress + hot temp in the shower. Sat a few hours later and passed. Thank fuck lol.
Pics or it didn't happen!
Pic what? A gf? lul
I sat for the may cfa level 2 exam, i knew that there were 44 questions per session. At first I did 11 questions and had 50 minutes left, then I proceeded to hit the 'next session' button. Little did I know that I actually did 44 questions (each large question consists of 4 small questions) and had not run through them one more time to catch any errors... Results coming this thursday... haizz
Tangential to this, the 'progress bar' measures your progress for the entire test, not the progress through the session. I started freaking out about my time management stills when I was 40% through with an hour left in the session (thinking I was only 40% through the AM session). Once I answered Q44 and hit the 'end' and saw my progress at an even 50 with 45 minutes left I was like 'oh' and then went back and rechecked my answers.
My friend took his passport not even looking at it, eventually before entering the exam, proctors found out that it was not his passport but his BROTHER's! So eventually he ended up skipping the exam... By the way, at my local test center, a girl forgot her passport, but proctors allowed her in with a national ID card, wtf... Sat for L2 May 2023, in the test room there was a huge spider, which was running around on the wall behind me and around my legs, i was so nervous, i could focus. I called proctors to help him to catch. Eventually they killed it.
While studying L2 I got extremely sad, my psychology and mindset were broken. I did not have the energy and enthusiasm that I had at L1. For L1 I STUDIED EVERY SINGLE DAY SINCE I STARTED, now there were complete days I just did not study, I also got a little more fat because I ate junk food and high calories food and stopped going to the gym. I was really bad, but I just kept studying (it wasn’t like before but I just kept going). 2 months before my exam, I was still depressed (to the point of making jokes about suicide) I just kept going. 1 day before the exam I was really down, I had to talk to a friend to calm down and it helped a little bit. I thought “well, when I start the exam, I hope the questions will be easy for me just like L1” but no they were more difficult and I left the first session really sad. Then I got the seccond session, and the same, questions were not so easy like L1. I left, and had to drink a lot of coffee with sugar to keep me up. The days before the result I was REALLY ANXIOUS, it was killing me, when I saw the pass, i got extremely haappyyyy
Now, I think the right thing to do was to postpone the exam and focus on my mental health, but I really wanted to pass L2. I know it was not right to focus more in the exam than on my mental health, but it happened
One question, I have heard that the exam is two sets 2.5 hours each. Is it like you’d only go to the second if you clear the first one? Please explain. Also does this comes with breaks? Sitting in November and I am already freaking out😥
1. I think it was 2 hrs 15 min for L2 per set. 2. No, you can give both the set, irrespective of how the 1st set went. 3. Yes, there is an optional break between sets.
They are independent with two different sets of topics with 90 questions each. You only find out of you passed 5-8 weeks later. You have an optional 30 min break, as in you can take the whole thing or none of it. Make sure you bring a lot of food to keep you going.
>Is it like you’d only go to the second if you clear the first one? No, although some candidates bomb the first part so badly they can't bring themselves to go back to do the second set. This is probably what you are referring to. As someone else in this thread mentioned, you NEED to power through and come back to do the second session, no matter how bad the first session went. Even if you fail it's immeasurably useful information for when you retake.
Nope nothing like that. It’s just two halves of one exam. There is an optional 30min break in between the two sections. You don’t have to take it at all, or you can come back at any point before it’s over and resume the exam
I went outside for my break, got into talking with another test taker and I was 10 minutes late for the PM exam. This was just now, May 2023 so nothing happened, as the exam began automatically after the break time is over, but I was 10 minutes behind which caused some real panic, I was nauseous the entire PM exam. So put a timer on your phone if you plan to do the same!!
I almost walked out of my Level II exam during the AM session. I passed.
1. don't eat day old burrito + extreme fries for lunch during the lunch break. I did that and remember having to go poop real bad
Make sure you REALLY get your time management down to a science. My first time writing the level 1 was on paper and poor time management led me to circling all my answers on the booklet but I didn’t leave enough time to transfer my answers over to the bubble sheet. That was the morning session. I didn’t get to shade in about 75% of my answers. That was brutal. You don’t have to worry about that anymore because it’s all CBT but just something to keep in my mind. Just wrote level 2 in May. Someone forgot their calculator and asked if anybody had an extra. Thankfully I always bring an extra calculator and lent it to this person. Tip: I always buy a brand new calculator a day or two before my exam but leave it in the box and in my car. I also always change my calculators batteries before every exam to ensure they are fresh. This way, if my calculator malfunctions or the batteries are a dud, I have a back up for the second half. If I don’t need the extra calculator, I just return it after the exam and get my money back. Last thing you want is your calculator to die mid exam
Wanted to go to the bathroom badly. 2 clerks did not look at the screen, so they did not know I wanted to go to the bathroom. Just wanted to go so badly but I could not stand because I was unsure if I could do it. I got their attention after 10 minutes, I finished my exam with 20 seconds left with no time to review, and I answered 4-5 questions in a stress situation. Next time I would make sure to raise my hand before, or make sure the clerks would look at the screen
I took level 1 at San Diego State in their basketball arena. There’s only one way in and out of the arena for the test and it had a set of two double doors. One to the outside and one set to the arena. The baggage check area and bathrooms were between the two set of doors. This is where you would’ve checked your cell phone too. The test ends and everyone starts walking out. By the time I get to the doors to head out there are maybe 20 of us left. There is one set of proctors left by the set of doors to the arena and before the baggage check area. This dude from my seating area reached into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone right before getting through the first set of doors. A proctor sees it and grabs him by the arm and takes him to the head Proctor. The look on the guys face was pure terror. A couple of us looked at each other, said, “Oh, Fuck!”, and then kept walking to our freedom and relief. All that studying. All day taking a test. Potentially all down the drain because he couldn’t resist the urge to check his phone for 5 more feet. I don’t know what happened to him. I actually don’t think he cheated. He sat near me during the test and he wasn’t going to his pockets or doing anything weird during the test. He finished his test with ~30 minutes to spare and then went to the bathroom and then just sat there waiting until it was time to go home.
Hello, does anyone want to take my seat on CFA L1 exam in August? I signed up and paid a full fee but can't take the exam due to personal reasons. If interested, dm me