Practice Exam Stagnation

LeChiffre

I've done 9, 120-question Schweser practice exams and scored the following:

65, 63, 67, 62, 68, 68, 67, 64, 67

Average: 65

I'm not sure if I'm learning more and the exams are getting tougher, I'm not retaining as much material and the exams are staying about the same, or a combination of the two. My scores tend to move in the direction of the peer group, but still haven't had that breakthrough practice exam. I plan on primarily spending time on Ethics, FRA, Equity, and Fixed as I progress towards test day. It's a little frustrating spending time doing practice questions, then scoring just about the same as I did before and the same as the peer group.

Anyone with similar experiences?

fabian

Ouch. Is there any topic specifically tripping you up? Usually I find my scores to trend upwards, assuming they're of similar difficulty. Also, are you reviewing as you go, or doing practice exams back-to-back?

LeChiffre

@fabian, surprisingly, equity and fixed income (and deriv, but at 5% of the exam it takes the backseat) have been two of my lowest. Econ and FRA were struggling at first but now econ is one of my strongest and FRA has pulled up as well.

I take a couple days to review between sets. I also find that scores can have a pretty dramatic shift from the AM to PM section. For example, practice exam 3, quant AM = 50%, quant PM = 79%. On the upside, my overall scores are consistent, on the downside they are about 8-9% away from where I'd like to be.

Even with this, I feel good about approaching exam day. I'm only 8 or so questions away from low 70's, and a couple of those before test day will leave me feeling confident going into the exam.

Current strategy is to target the worst areas with substantial weight. So this week I'm going to hit equity readings 45, 46, 48, and 50 since those are currently less than 70%. From there, if there's a LOS I'm solid on, I'll skim it, focusing on the tougher ones. I feel like I am right on the cusp of crushing an exam.

fabian

LeChiffre said:

Even with this, I feel good about approaching exam day. I'm only 8 or so questions away from low 70's, and a couple of those before test day will leave me feeling confident going into the exam.

Current strategy is to target the worst areas with substantial weight. So this week I'm going to hit equity readings 45, 46, 48, and 50 since those are currently less than 70%. From there, if there's a LOS I'm solid on, I'll skim it, focusing on the tougher ones. I feel like I am right on the cusp of crushing an exam.

@LeChiffre there's still quite a lot of time to go, so yeah I agree with you!

rsparks

My friend is level III and has said the schweser exams are harder, so keep that in mind. Also, equity and fixed income get a substantial increase in lvl 2, so always good to review.

I just finished all the readings this week (I've spent 4-7hrs per reading) and quit my job. I scored an 85 on my first mock but not sure if that was a fluke. Just keep focusing like you said and keeping reviewing weaker topics. Fra and ethics will be half the passing score!

Ron

RoyD

I don't think it's true that practice paper results trend upwards (although they should). In my level 1 practice exams I used to get pretty much the same scores. I guess in my first test I got 72 or something and ended up averaging pretty much that. That is why your first practice paper is usually the most significant. I honestly feel that the first paper tells you whether you will pass or not and it's difficult to get anything much better than that score.

LeChiffre

Just had a mini-breakthrough on a practice (120-question) exam and scored a 75.8%. Peer average was a 72.6% so clearly it wasn't the most difficult one, still feels good.

RoyD

Yeah mine went up to 82% though that was a clear outlier.