Exam Recap

OK, so it is over. I took the test in Tampa on Saturday. Now comes the hardest part of being a CFA candidate - waiting for the results. The test center was at a local catholic school and wasn't as big as Chicago or Atlanta but still much larger than Jacksonville. The test itself was tough but fair. Ethics was much more difficult than the practice item sets they have given before, but last year I got in the left column and I think I improved on that not so much because I did well, but because I didn't do bad. Quants was pretty much right down my aisle. My biggest fear was that they would ask about time series, but they asked about regression so I am sure I got at least 4 right. Right now I'm thinking economics is structurally unfair. It is such a long study session with both conceptual and calculation stuff, it seems at lot to effectively cover in 6 multiple choice questions. Of course, I would probably feel different if I felt that I got more than 3 or 4 right. 4 if I'm lucky. The CFA exam is not for lucky people.

FSA was an area I believed I had to over perform and I did. There is no question I got the right hand column there. Corporate Finance is the standard problem. I feel pretty confident, but from my experience that is where they use the biggest tricks. There are some subtle differences between cash flow numbers and accounting numbers and corp fin features those differences more than anywhere else in the level 2 cirriculum. Now equity on the other hand is pretty straight forward for me. I think out of 4 item sets I may have missed 4 questions total. They have to work hard to beat me in equity. This year I expected them to come correct with fixed income because of the whole economic situation and they did. They didn't even give me a question on binomial valuation. That was a major surprise. However, I am pleased to say I felt prepared overall. I know I got most right and maybe even more than 70%. The same thing with portfolio management. I think I was able to work my way up to a 4 of 6 right. That really the best I could have hoped for walking into the exam. The one area where I really screwed up was the item set for study session 17. I thought I would be ready, but the CFA intsitute had other ideas. I don't really remember the specific questions, but this is the one area where I can definitively say that I performed worse than last year.

I am in a weird position here. Last year I got better than 80% of the people who failed according to the institute. Logically, I know I performed better than last year. In economics I think I stayed the same and most likely went down in derivatives. Just about everything else I improved in - I think. However, emotionally I am scared to death. I never really recovered from failing last year and failing again this year would be devastating. I have spent the last few days on an emotional roller coaster that promises to make the next two and a half months last even longer than last year.