Just passed my CFA — here's what actually worked

Congrats on passing! Can I ask — how many questions did the actual exam have compared to what the practice tests simulate? I've seen different numbers online and want to calibrate my timing during practice.

For what it's worth — I've taken the CFA twice now. First attempt I underestimated the exam prep questions. Second time I focused almost exclusively on applied practice and passed comfortably. The difference is real.

Coming back to this thread — just passed my CFA yesterday. Everything about the cfa practice test section is accurate. For anyone still studying, the cfa first assist surgical roles was the closest thing to the real exam I found.

Quick update for anyone still grinding. I started doing full timed practice sets a couple weeks ago and just hit 78% on my last one, up from like 61% when I began. The jump came from actually redoing every question I missed instead of just reading the answer and moving on. That's it. Sounds dumb but it's what moved the needle for me.

I'm planning to sit the real exam in about three weeks once I get a couple more practice runs above 80. Still nervous, ngl. But the gap between where I was and where I am now is wild, and most of it happened in the last stretch when I stopped passively reading and started testing myself every single day. If your scores feel stuck, that's probably the thing to change.

Working full time made this brutal, honestly. I'd wake up at 5am before my shift and squeeze in 45 minutes, then hit another session on my lunch break if I could. Weekends were basically just study days. The thing that saved me was stopping the passive reading early and switching to pure practice — I'd drill questions on whatever I had time for, even cfa perioperative assessment topics I thought I already knew, because the gaps always showed up.

It's not glamorous but consistency beat everything. Some days I only got 20 minutes in and that felt pointless, but it added up. If you're juggling a job and a life, don't wait for a perfect study block that never comes — just keep the reps going whenever you can.

Congrats on passing — 15 weeks is seriously impressive. I'm about eight weeks in and currently drowning in Fixed Income, specifically the valuation of bonds with embedded options. The binomial tree stuff is clicking okay but when it comes to OAS versus Z-spread interpretation I keep second-guessing myself on the exam-style questions. Did you find that topic as brutal as I'm finding it, or was there a specific way you worked through it that made it finally stick?

The switch to active practice you mentioned is exactly what I've been trying to do lately. Starting to feel like just reading the curriculum is basically comfort food — feels productive but isn't. What I'm curious about is how you handled topic areas where your mock scores were still stuck even after drilling problems. Did you go back to the readings, or just keep hammering practice questions until the pattern recognition kicked in?

Honestly, I almost rage-quit around week 8. My practice scores were plateauing and I started convincing myself I just wasn't cut out for it. What kept me going was drilling really specific topic areas instead of reviewing everything broadly — like I'd find a weak spot and just hammer it until it wasn't weak anymore. I remember struggling hard with clinical positioning concepts and working through cfa/questions/surgical positioning draping 2 a few times until it finally clicked.

It's not glamorous advice but that's what worked. Don't give up when the scores aren't moving — it doesn't mean you're failing, it just means you haven't found the right angle yet. Keep going.

Working full-time while studying for the CFA is brutal, honestly. I didn't have long study blocks, so I'd squeeze in 30 minutes during lunch and another hour after the kids went to bed. What actually moved the needle wasn't reading more, it was drilling specific question sets over and over until the patterns clicked. I found cfa/questions/surgical positioning draping 2 really helpful for nailing down some of the trickier procedural concepts that kept tripping me up.

The biggest thing I'd tell anyone studying part-time is don't waste your limited hours passively reviewing material you already know. If you're getting a question right consistently, move on. Focus your time where you're weak and just keep grinding the practice questions. It's not glamorous but it's what works.

Quick update from my end — I've been drilling practice questions for the past three weeks and just hit 74% on my last full mock. Honestly didn't expect to jump that fast. I was stuck in the low 60s for a while and switching to timed question sets made a bigger difference than anything else I'd tried.

Sitting the real exam in October so I've got a bit of time to shore up my weak spots, mostly derivatives and fixed income. If you're in a similar spot just keep pushing through the mocks, it's kind of miserable but the score gains are real.