Practice exams! Who wants practice exams?

Marc

I have posted copies of the morning portion of every Level 3 CFA exam going back to 1999 here. The official CFAI answers are also there.

Level 3 is a bit of a special case because CFAI does not publish any actual exam materials for Levels 1 and 2. However, they do publish sample questions for all three levels every year. I have posted the sample questions for all three years, although I suspect that most if not all of you have already seen these.

I would be happy to post any copies that people may have of CFAI sample questions from earlier years, but I will only post materials that have been made available freely by CFAI (ie. I will not post any Schwesser practice exams or anything else that must be purchased).

So, while the materials posted here are of most relevance to Level 3 candidates, the Ethics materials are of value to all candidates. And there is actually considerable overlap between the Level 3 curriculum and that of Levels 1 and 2, so it would never hurt to skim these for familiar topics, but I understand if you would prefer to avoid any potential confusion in the weeks leading up to the exam.

Also, if your search within the site for a specific term that is in the curriculum at every level (for example, "bond duration"), the results contain all of the exams in which this term appeared.

AjFinance

Brilliant! Thanks a lot @Marc.

Zee

Holy crap. Thanks for saving all of these!

lulu123

so is the ethics part safe enough to look at for a Level 1 person?

if so, any help with how to identify where the ethics question even is? lol the format is very different

Zee

@lulu123 look for ethics questions in the item set papers. Actually even the format of the multiple choice is different from Level I so I'm not sure if going through Level III papers is going to help much.

lulu123

@zee

I'll refrain from it until the end (if I still have issues with ethics - hopefully not!)

Zee

You can also always post Ethics questions here. That's something I should be able to help with

Marc

@lulu123

I would suggest the following: Read the answers to the ethics questions and only look at the questions if the answer doesn't completely explain the situation.

Also, it appears that Ethics hasn't been tested in the morning version of the exam since 2000, so you can be safe in making this a low priority.

Jon

Thanks a lot for these! Although I'm only a Level I candidate, these will come in handy in a couple of years time :-)

connectconnect

Are the older versions of the exams still valid? or has the exams evolved?

Sophie

@connectconnect - @Marc has kindly shared the past papers for Level 3 as somehow it's hard to find Level 3 practice papers to try. The Level 3 syllabus has evolved slightly, but not that much, it's great practice for IPS/essay questions

M_K

@Marc Thanks so much for this, I'm definitely going to do the ethics and IPS questions.

@Sophie and thanks for all your summaries on IPS, helped me a lot. Thanks!

Sophie

No problem @M_K, glad you found it useful! Oh, and welcome to the community!

daharmattan1

Just FYI, the CFA Institute explictly stresses to only look at the last three years of exams as things change. That said, when I did L3 I definitely used exams dating back to 2001. They were helpful, with the occasional problem that made me go "WTF"

CFAI_wont_stop_me

Should I download all the files now if Im oging to take Level 3 in like 3 years from now? Or the site will be still availble in 2017? =D Ure notes are genius! 

Stuj79

Awesome stuff, thanks for sharing!! I am just on level 2 but will hopefully put these to good use next year!

dodo

Aha! Great stuff to stumble on

Omnias

Are these exams still available? I do not see anything

christine

Omnias said:

Are these exams still available? I do not see anything

Unfortunately it's likely that CFA Institute has requested that they be taken down, as the copyright to those exams are owned by CFA Institute.

jenova

@Marc do you have the same site for CFA L2?

Marc

@jenova Unfortunately, I didn't get around to creating a similar site for Level I or Level II. The content that I have written for those levels is available from AdaptPrep.

@Omnias The exams were taken down because the copyright to them is owned by CFA Institute.