CFA Mock Exams: When to Start, How Many to Take and How to Review Them

A full mock exam is the most honest feedback you will get before the real one. It shows which topics are costing you points, whether you can keep the pace for four and a half hours, and what kind of mistakes you make under pressure. It only helps if it comes early enough to act on and you review it properly.

This guide covers when to start, how many to take, how to sit them and, most importantly, how to review them.

When to take your first mock

Six to eight weeks before your exam date.

Most candidates wait until they have finished the curriculum and feel ready. That usually means a first mock with three or four weeks to go, which is too late to fix what it finds. Taking it earlier, with a topic or two still unfinished, is fine. You will lose points on those topics, but you already know that. What you want to find out is everything else: the topics you thought you knew, your timing and your reading errors.

Expect the first score to be lower than you would like. That is normal, and it is the point. A low score with seven weeks left is information. A low score with one week left is just stress.

How many to take

For Level I, three to five full mocks work well for most people:

More is not automatically better. Each mock needs about as much time to review as it took to sit, so five reviewed mocks will raise your score more than eight unreviewed ones. Between mocks, the work happens in targeted question sets on the topics the last mock showed you.

Registered candidates also get practice material and mock exams from CFA Institute through its learning platform. Use them: they are written by the people who write the exam, so they are the best guide to its style. Many candidates save one for the last two weeks.

Sit it like the real exam

A mock taken in pieces, with notes open and a phone nearby, tells you very little. To get a score you can trust:

• Real timing. Level I is 180 questions in two sessions of 2 hours 15 minutes. Run a timer and stop when it ends, even if you have questions left.
• One sitting. Take both sessions on the same day, with only the break you will have on exam day. Stamina is part of what you are testing.
• Your approved calculator only. The Texas Instruments BA II Plus or HP 12C families. No phone calculator, no spreadsheet.
• No notes, no phone, no interruptions. Tell the people around you that you are unavailable for the morning.
• Use the skipping rule you will use on the day. If you have no clear route to an answer after about a minute, make your best guess, flag it and move on.

How to review a mock

This is where your score actually goes up.

Go through every question you got wrong, and every one you guessed. A lucky guess is a gap you have not found yet.

Give each one a reason:

• Knowledge: you did not know the concept or the formula.
• Misunderstanding: you thought you knew it, but had it wrong. These are the most important to catch, because you will not go looking for them yourself.
• Reading: you knew the answer but misread the question, a unit, a sign or a "least likely".
• Time: you rushed this one because an earlier question took too long.

Fix by type:

• Knowledge and misunderstanding: go back to the specific section of the reading, not the whole chapter, then do 10 to 20 questions on that concept.
• Reading: slow down your first read of each question, and find the question at the end of the stem before reading the details.
• Time: practise timed sets at 1.5 minutes per question and stick to the skipping rule.

Record your score by topic. A simple table with one row per topic and one column per mock is enough. After two or three mocks, the pattern is clear: which topics are stuck, which are improving, and whether your score drops in the second session.

Keep an error log. One line per mistake: the topic, what went wrong and the fix. Read it before each mock and in the final days. It is the best revision material you will have, because it is made of exactly the points you lose.

Reading your scores

Mock providers differ in difficulty, so a score on one provider's mock is not directly comparable with another's. CFA Institute does not publish the minimum passing score either, and it can vary from one exam to another. That makes two things more useful than any single number:

• The trend. Are your scores rising from one mock to the next, on similar material?
• The margin. Candidates usually aim to be comfortably above the line they believe is needed, not just over it, because the real exam includes topics and question styles you will not have seen.

If your scores are flat across three mocks, the problem is usually how you are using the time between them. Check your error log: you may be re-reading chapters when your real problem is reading errors or timing.

The final week

Take your last full mock seven to ten days before the exam, not the day before. A bad score two days out gives you nothing to act on, only anxiety.

In the last few days, go through your error log and your formula sheet, do small sets of easy questions to stay in rhythm, and check the practical details: your appointment, your identification and your calculator. Then rest. Our last four weeks plan covers the final month in more detail.

How JephAi helps

• Timed mock exams with a question navigator and flags, so you can practise the skipping rule.
• Results by topic, weighted by how much each topic counts on the exam, which builds the score table for you.
• An explanation for every option on every question, for the review step.
• Full study chapters with a formula sheet each, for when a mistake sends you back to a specific section.

Try JephAi free for 7 days, no card needed. Start your free trial.

Sources: CFA Institute Level I exam format and calculator policy.