Submitted my final reference on Friday night, and my application was approved on Saturday! 🥹✨
What a wonderful surprise! A huge thank you to CFA Institute for processing applications so efficiently, even over the weekend. Truly impressive! 👏
My fourth professional designation, unlocked! 🎉❤️
One more milestone achieved, and one more step forward in my professional journey.

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I passed L3 and I’ve seen a lot of folks on here be worried or concerned about the free response aspect of the exam and hence wanted to share my experiences with it. Summarized my thoughts in bullets below:

- A few folks on here are worried about hitting a certain word count which is absolutely ridiculous. All you need to do is pay attention to the action words in the question. If something says justify, answer with limited bullets preferably the amount specified in the question. If the question asks for a simple answer just put the answer in.

- Do not gamble with time by trying to type out the formula that gets the answer. I literally put the numerical answer in decimal and percentage for a lot of the questions where there was no justification required and was fine.

- Do not ramble on about bs that you think will get you points. That’s disrespectful to the grader and will get you no points. Try to summarize the overarching concept if you cannot remember the pointed answer but do not talk in circles.

- If tight on time, do not worry about framing the answer perfectly and sounding like a savant. Put your thoughts in bullets and move on. Do not sound stupid while doing this however.

That’s all I got. I wasted time on a two hour seminar about writing good answers and honestly it confused me way more because they were simply doing too much on there. Hope this helps!

Keep in mind the first mock I did twice (67% first attempt). I feel like I have a decent understanding of the core concepts but the niche questions and topics still get me (specific model references or random theory questions)

Any advice going into the last stretch?

Hi everyone! I'm preparing for CFA Level I in May 2027 and would appreciate some honest advice from candidates who've sat the exam or progressed to Level II/III.

I'm using Kaplan Schweser and the CFA Institute Learning Ecosystem (LES). I've been attempting practice questions before thoroughly studying the chapters to understand what's actually tested.

I've noticed that even in calculation-heavy subjects like Quantitative Methods, FSA and Fixed Income, the official LES questions and mock questions seem relatively short and straightforward compared with the depth of the study material.

I'd appreciate your thoughts on 4 things:

1.Actual exam difficulty: Are the real exam questions similar to LES questions, or significantly harder?

2.Calculations: Should I expect more complicated, multi-step calculations on exam day?

3.Official mocks: How closely did the CFA Institute mock exams reflect your actual exam experience?

4.Your experience: Did you feel underprepare

d on exam day despite performing well on practice questions?

I'd particularly appreciate honest feedback from people who've actually sat Level I. I want to prepare efficiently without underestimating the exam. Thanks

I'm seriously considering deferring and would like some perspective.

My scores aren't great. I'm sitting around 65%, and that's mostly because I'm strong in Fixed Income, Equity and FSA. The other areas are pretty weak, and honestly my depth in every subject isn't where I want it to be.

I'm not in a huge hurry to clear this. Apart from the money side of things, there's no real rush. If I defer, I'd end up passing around the time I graduate anyway.

I could push through the next 20 days and have a decent chance of passing. But if I fail after rushing, it'll hurt a lot more. And if I do pass, I'd have only surface-level knowledge and basically scraped through on luck. That's not what I want out of this.

When I started studying, I really enjoyed it. I took my time and had those moments where something finally clicks. Once I started rushing, that disappeared. Now it feels like cramming just to tick a box, and I don't want to treat the CFA like that.
I really do enjoy learning, and I want to actually understand the material in depth. So is deferring and doing it properly the smarter move here? Or is that just a comfortable excuse, and I should push through now? Has anyone been in this spot?

Im still left with quants to study, haven’t practiced anything yet, atp im thinking to solve ques that are more exam like. Pls help me with resources where i can find such questions!

So, I took the CFA exam in August, and unfortunately, I didn't clear it. It's been just over a month, but the failure still haunts me. I've never experienced a breakup, so this feels like my first real heartbreak. Sometimes, I skip breakfast, and sometimes, I hold myself back because the memories of what I went through still weigh heavily on me. No matter how much I try to move on, the pain of this failure still lingers.

Dear all,

I do have a quick basic question about the whole preparation for the exam; I am taking level 1 in November.

How do you do the practice questions? Do yo just do them in your head without notes? Do you take notes everything? How long are they? Do you change the way of taking notes within the process?

I took way longer and more explanationary notes in the beginning and now my notes get shorter and shorter and I am wondering if this is because the concepts are getting more into me or am I just getting lazy.

I am interested on how you organize your "hitting Qbanks". Thank you and good luck to everyone for the upcoming exams.

My CFA L1 exam is in 10 days and my mock scores are stuck around 64%. I keep seeing people say you need 70%+ in mocks to feel safe, so I want to push it to 75% before the exam.

Is that even possible in 10 days or am I being unrealistic? I have my notes done and I’ve covered all the topics, but I keep forgetting the old material when I move on to new stuff.

If anyone has jumped this much in the last week or two, plz tell me what you did. Did you just do mock after mock and review mistakes? Or go back to weak topics? How many hours a day were you studying?

I’m honestly stressed rn so any advice would really help. Plz plz be honest, I’d rather know now 🙏

Thanks in advance

CFA I in 18 days. I did again the Qbank where I scored less than what I did when I was watching MM Videos (worst results attached) My next move is to listen again to the lessons where I scored less than 70%, memorize the formulas and do the mock exams... (Do I have time...?)

Any recommendation? I'm concerned since I scored less in the most important ones.

Should I defer?

IMO Ethics is not at an acceptable level for now. Neither the modules that are <75%...

I have 2 weeks of study leave therefore I can study full time. tomorrow first mock.

I have finished one curriculum mocks and got 68 percent in it . I am planning to keep the other mock for later .

I’m planning to do the kalpan mocks , how are they compared to the curriculum mocks as in level 1 ppl say kalpan mocks are harder but in level 2 they say it easier compared to the curriculum.

Any mocks that you suggest also would be nice .

Hi everyone,

I'm sitting for CFA Level II in November 2026 and have recently completed both official CFA Institute mocks.

For those who have already taken the exam:

1. How did the difficulty of the actual exam compare with the official CFAI mocks?
2. Were your actual results broadly consistent with your mock performance?
3. Has anyone scored consistently above 80% on the official mocks and still failed?

I'm particularly interested in hearing from recent candidates, as I'm trying to assess how much confidence I should place in these results heading into the final month of preparation.

Thanks in advance!

Hello everyone!

My boyfriend is about to start studying for the CFA Level II exam to take it early next year, and he has mentioned how difficult it has been to find a good tutor who offers personalized support.

I’m wondering if anyone here knows of tutors or tutoring services that provide one-on-one assistance, particularly with challenging subjects, or offer a structured study plan tailored to someone’s needs. I’m hoping to help him explore additional resources that might be more effective for his learning style.

I’ll be the first to admit that I know very little about the CFA exam 😅, but I want to support him however I can! Right now, that means helping him discover resources he might not know are available beyond the standard study materials.

I’d especially appreciate recommendations from anyone who has worked with a tutor while preparing for Level II.

Thank you so much in advance for any suggestions or advice!

Hey everyone!

Is there anyone here who has mastered CFA L2 Derivatives or scored well in the May/August 2026 attempt and is confident with the subject?

I’m appearing for the November 2026 attempt and need some serious advice on Derivatives. I’d love to have a quick conversation with someone who’s strong in the subject to clear a few exam-related doubts.

If anyone is willing to help, please comment below so I can DM you, or feel free to DM me directly. I’d really appreciate it. Thanks!

Hey everyone, sitting for CFA Level II in 21 days and looking for advice on how best to approach final stretch.

Just did my first MM mock and scored 67%. I have 4 mocks left (2 MM + 2 CFAI), have completed almost the entire CFAI QBank twice. Have never done the blue box questions before.

I have MM's question bank (also never done before), so I'm trying to figure out the most effective way to spend the remaining 21 days.

Currently considering two approaches:

1. Do and review mocks every 3-4 days, then drill MM questions targeting my weaker areas.
2. Same as above, but buy the CFA Practice Pack and use those questions instead of MM's.

Basically I'm unsure which questions would give me the most value. My main concern with MM is that the questions aren't vignette-based. Given that I've already done the CFAI QBank almost twice, would the Practice Pack be worth buying, or should I focus on MM?

Would appreciate any advice from those who've passed L2. Thanks!

Hey guys i need a lil help with the deferal from nov 2026 to may 2027 i just want to know if this means it'll be explicitly moved to may ? Or will I have to choose it once I complete the payment?

Do we have deep learning and neural networks for cfa level 2 November 2026 ,? Or it’s omitted ?

I'm sitting for CFA Level 1 on November 17th. For a little of context, I have no background in finance and zero experience in the field. I started studying back in January. I planned on taking the exam in August, but my progress was really slow. I blindly followed the UWorld study plan, wich just go forward without going back to what it was previously learned, huge mistake.

Anyway, I’ve completed all the UWorld and CFAI Q-banks and have taken 4 UWorld mocks so far:

• Mock 1: Before starting, I thought I’d score at least 70%... didn't happen. I reviewed all my answers, identified my weak areas, and spent a lot of time reviewing them.
• Mock 2: Felt like it targeted completely different weak areas
• Mock 3: I really thought I was going to crush this one. I scored 72% on the AM session, but then completely tanked the PM session with a 54% (got around 40% in Portfolio Management).

After that third mock, I did a deep dive into each question and my weak spots, and I learned a ton. It made me realize I hadn't truly mastered nearly half the syllabus. The downside is that I got hyper-focused on those specific topics and stopped doing mixed review for heavy sections like FSA.

• Mock 4 (UWorld): Scored 69%.

before taking the first mock, my goal was to be hitting 80%+ by mocks 2 or 3, so seeing these results is stressful.

I still have the 2 official CFAI LES mocks left, which I plan to take over the next two weeks. I'm hoping to score above 70% on those, but I want to ask:

Realistically, how bad is my situation?

How difficult is the exam compared with Uworld mocks and cfai free mocks ?

Any advice on the best way to spend these final weeks? a was thinking of spending the entire next week hammering mixed Q-banks before taking the CFAI mocks

For context, I'm currently studying full-time (about 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM every single day) and I really cannot afford to fail this.

(PS: Sorry for using AI but it's necessary to make it easier to read—English isn't my first language, and to be honest, writing isn't really my strong suit even in my native language!)

Anyone going for Feb Lvl 1, that would like to share study sessions. English or Spanish speakers 🤜🏻🤛🏻

gave my first les mock today it felt easy as a lot questions were already covered in prac pack and les m worried cause some the questions did nt solve just solved with memory as the questions were repetitive my score in premium pack mock is arround 128 to 135 .

p.s - is schweser secret sauce any good ?

Have any of the recent CFA August level 3 passers that applied to the Toronto society heard back yet?