June 5 - Sunday - War

This date is approaching! A day where I have to 'pour out' the knowledge I learned in my entire degree life and with reinforced with 6 months of daily hard work onto an exam. The CFA level one exam. This exam passing rate is based on a curve where the CFA Institute only select around 30% of candidates to pass. I failed in my first attempt last year in December and I do not hope to repeat it this time (I am trying hard!). I hope that there will be more people taking it this time because that will increase my probability of passing it, of course it comes with the assumption that there are more unprepared candidates than those who prepared well! Haha!

In order to give myself less pressure handling this exam. I need to learn how to accept failure even if this is going to be my second attempt. If I learned that it is okay for me to fail it, there will be lesser anxiety when I am actually handling the exam in the exam hall. Because I know if I fail again, I will definitely retake the exam in December this year assuming my ambition holds strong!

But there are really too many reasons for me to think not to fail. Like how will people judge me, my motivation to take the third attempt will be lesser and my dream to be a CFA charter holder will be darker.

The truth is, this exam is really hard due to its wide coverage. It is not easy to remember and memorize materials of 6 text books! One of my professor actually told me that this CFA exam is actually competing based on memory capacity; who remembers the most will pass the exam. On the second thought, I cant agree more.

In my realistic career goal, I have set to achieve CFA Charter holder by the age of 27. Now I am 23 and I am sitting for the level one exam. I am going to sit the level two next year and level three the year after. (FYI, availability of level one is half a year once, level two and three once a year). So by right I will be able to pass all at the age of 25 (ideally). But I know that it is really too much for a person of my level. Basically, I am allowing ONE failed attempt on each level.

The reason of saying that is passing rate of level one is 30%, level two is another 30% and level three is 50%. Probability of a person passing all of them in their first attempt is 0.3 x 0.3 x 0.5 = 4.5%! Meaning out of a hundred people taking it, only 4 to 5 people will pass all three levels in their first attempt. FYI, only degree holders are eligible to take the exam. In another words, they are as smart as I am or not smarter. It seems that I have optimistically set my goal given such information. But I do know there are many people taken more than 3 to 4 attempts to get a level passed. This is o-m-g.

Like I said, I will be studying always. Really hope to achieve the title before I get married. There goes my life as a young adult! But somehow I feel satisfied each time I learned something, so it will keep me motivated.