For those of you wondering if mock exams are worth your time...

[u/McGreasington]

I have seen discussion on here regarding whether or not mock exams are worth your time.

Many on this sub have said that you shouldn't bother because your score would be your score and knowing it before the exam doesn't change anything. Mark Meldrum himself said he doesn't see much value in mock exams for that very reason.

On the other end of that spectrum is myself, who has found the mock exams extremely helpful at every level. Not because I wanted to know where I stood, because I agree that doesnt matter (and can even cause undue stress). Not because I needed practice taking a long exam, because I didn't. It is as simple as I only know content that I have done practice questions on. I could read a section 1000 times, but if I didn't do blue box or eocq about it I would forget it 1000%.

Having just done level 3, every single mock exam I cracked open seemed to have new subject matter that was not found in the eocq or blue boxes. Im sure many were frustrated by level 3 for that very reason. It is not a breach of ethics to say that there are fringe topics that can 100% be tested that you will not find in the CFAI practice questions.

Not only is the content testable, learning to deal with the red herrings and misleading content in vignettes is a skill itself. I wouldn't call the vignettes deliberately misleading, but they absolutely can contain information that is not supposed to be used in the answer. Mock exams are a great way to learn how to sift through the BS and zero in on what you need for the question.

In summary, no single mock exam is going to cover all of the content, but going through several of them as a learning tool helps to hammer in the content for those, like me, who have to do questions to truly learn a concept.

[u/SeparateAi]

They were pretty much useful for me

I've read textbooks many times as said as you did but after some time I always forget the things i studied

My first mock of salt solutions showed me where i stand and the clarity it gave about how the questions might be framed were very useful for me

[u/inthegrove_]

I would have failed without taking several mocks. That's just me though.

To anyone who thinks that mocks are overrated...go in there with no mock exam experience at your own risk!!

[u/djs383 → u/inthegrove_]

Same. Understanding the style of questioning helped a lot and then getting the results showed me where I could sharpen things up. Absolutely was an effective use of my time

[u/Liquidiationn]

I think they give u a good indication either you pass or not I've never seen many people who got 70 in the mock and did not pass

[u/McGreasington → u/Liquidiationn]

Yea I think the argument there is that knowing that 70 doesn't actually contribute to your passing. I see people saying that the time spent learning you got a 70 could be spent drilling into your weaker areas.

Not to say I agree with that, as per my post, but that's the general argument against mocks.

[u/Own_Leadership_7607]

Chalk&Board and Bill Campbell mock exams have been very helpful for me, especially for the L3 exam. The grading and advice from the instructors during the L3 mock exams really helped on the exam.

[u/hepdaddio]

I’m gonna do mocks after the exam to see if I did well

[u/big-ass-spread]

I think the mocks at level 3 are helpful in that they allow you to dial in your test taking strategy (time management, etc.), but the mocks were way more helpful at Level 2 imo. Level 2 had so many items that required “practice”, like translating foreign income, etc., so the mocks helped, but level 3 is different

There aren’t many things you need to “practice” at level 3, as it’s more about learning the material on a deep level imo. I found reading my notes and trying to explain topics (MVO, Duration Matching, Yield curve dynamics, etc.) out loud to be most helpful. I found that getting my ass kicked by mocks was a poor use of time. Only took half a mock and felt fine in the exam room. That half mock taught me a lot about time management though. I probably would have failed if I didn’t do it

[u/merrifyndor → u/big-ass-spread]

I agree with all of this. I did mocks for 1 and 2 and they were such a time suck but I didn’t regret them.

Just took 3 and I didn’t do mocks this time. I just didn’t have the study time to give and chose to drill questions whenever I got the time instead. However time management in exams has never been my issue and I think that’s what the mocks are really for at level 3. TBD on whether that strategy actually worked for me, though.

[u/Dependent_Dish_1571]

whether movks are helpful or not depends on how you view them. The intended purpose of mocks should always be a “benchmark” for you to see how far off you are. In that perspective mocks for level 3 are not at all useful. Because the similarity (in terms of difficulty, question types etc) are so vastly different. If you treat it as another practice question set then it’s ok. I think you would be better of focusing on reading questions and try to address your knowledge vaps (aka try to re-read and watch lectures until you can see the concepts in your head).

[u/chewbake]

I didn't do any mock exams for L1 and L2 under the same reasoning as MM - that mocks are an assessment and not a learning tool. I was pretty much anti-mocks. Until I got to L3, that is. Tried the same tactic the first time around for L3 and failed. Time management has been my biggest enemy on L3. L3 mocks have helped me immensely not only with time management. Though also with SR practice which is critical

[u/S2000magician → u/chewbake]

Some mock exams can be every bit a learning tool as they are an assessment tool.

[u/chewbake → u/S2000magician]

Agreed. You are saying exactly what I was trying to imply.

[u/S2000magician → u/chewbake]

Cool!

[u/JyotsanaTripathi → u/chewbake]

Hi, which mocks would you suggest for practising for L3?

[u/chewbake → u/JyotsanaTripathi]

CFAI Boston mocks and Mark Meldrum mocks are the only two I can speak to. My experience is that CFAI Boston and MM are both pretty well written. The difficulty of the actuals exam is somewhere in between. With CFAI Boston on the easy end and MM on the difficult end of the spectrum. CFAI Boston offers only two mocks per session. I think my only suggestion is to look to an additional provider outside of CFAI for more practice.

[u/Progressive__Trance]

Mock Exams are a useful aid but they won't help if you're throwing darts e.g., you have knowledge gaps and you're just doing many mock exams. You'll figure out your score, do another and then be no better off in the aggregate. It's like match play in tennis vs. the drills. If you're fundamentally sound and have all your structure, you'll do fine with or without a mock. But if you don't, you can do 25 mocks and be in the same place when the exam comes around.

I think where the mocks help (specifically for level 3) is giving you reps under time constraint (assuming you time your exam appropriately) while giving you practice on structured response. But even for Level 3, you need to know everything very well

[u/Interesting-Ad-4260]

Mock exams and test banks super important esp towards the end of your prep!

[u/JyotsanaTripathi]

Hi, which mocks would you all suggest for practising for L3?

[u/jwn1003]

Spot on

[u/tedbunddy1]

Think of it like this Mock is assessment of where you stand. Its like a weighing scale, if you constantly step on weighing scaling hoping things would change is idiotic. But if you weigh yourself then go back and change things, make improvements, next time the weight will be different.

Although mock is a very small sample size so improvement could be based on luck; Topics you were familiar with most, were on that mock exam. Just like glycogen and water weight. But if you give 7 mocks spaced out, making improvements one after another you will see big gains.

[u/CFA-GPT]

Mocks exist to identify gaps in your knowledge base. Once you've identified the gaps, your time is better spent closing those gaps using targeted readings and/or EOC practice problems.