Practicing with the best CFA® mock exams is a great way to prepare and study for the Chartered Financial Analyst exam. Working practice exams help test your understanding of the exam concepts and get you familiar with the layout and structure of the exam.
Knowing the layout and structure of the exam is extremely important. The last thing that you want on your exam day is to have an unwanted surprise when you open the testing software and find out you don’t know how to navigate through it. You don’t need any additional stress on your exam day. You want to be comfortable knowing how the testing program works.
Although understanding the layout is important, the biggest advantage of a CFA® practice exam is that you work on your test-taking skills. Using CFA® practice questions in a real exam environment will help you understand how questions are asked, what answers actually mean, and how to manage your time.
It’s no wonder that more than 75% of CFA® candidates use mock exams to prepare for the real thing!
Let’s take a look at a few different practice exams, their pros and cons, and how you can use them to prepare for your CFA® exam.
Best CFA® Mock Exams and Practice Exams
1. Best Overall CFA®: UWorld Analyst Prep CFA® Practice Exams
2. Runner Up: Analyst Prep CFA® Practice Tests
3. Honorable Mention CFA®: Salt Solutions CFA Practice Exams
Here are the top CFA exam prep courses to help you practice for the actual CFA exam and become a chartered financial analyst.
1. UWorld CFA® Mock Exams
UWorld provides some of the most realistic CFA® mock exams available, particularly for Level I and Level II, with growing strength at Level III as well. Rather than feeling like generic practice tests, UWorld’s mocks are built to reflect how the CFA Institute actually tests concepts—through applied scenarios, layered reasoning, and time pressure.
UWorld’s mock exams are written by CFA charterholders and structured to mirror the real exam experience, including question style, topic weighting, difficulty level, and timing. Each mock exam is designed to test not just recall, but a candidate’s ability to apply concepts, interpret data, and make decisions under exam-like conditions.
Depending on the package, candidates get access to multiple full-length mock exams, each paired with detailed answer explanations that break down why an answer is correct and why the alternatives fall short. This makes the mocks useful not just for scoring practice, but for identifying gaps in understanding and improving exam strategy.
Unlike static or recycled practice tests, UWorld updates its mock exams regularly to stay aligned with current CFA curriculum expectations and testing trends. Combined with performance analytics, these mocks help candidates assess readiness, manage pacing, and build confidence before exam day.
In short, UWorld’s CFA mock exams are best suited for candidates who want practice that feels close to the real thing and feedback that actually helps improve performance, not just measure it.
2. Analyst Prep CFA® Practice Tests
Analyst Prep offers some of the best CFA® mock exams for Level I and Level II candidates. In addition to several other helpful study materials, these exams are designed with the aid of experienced financial analysts who also understand effective methods of teaching these concepts. As a result, you’ll get the best of both professional and educational experience when working with these exams!
With 8 Level I mock exams and 2 Level II mock exams, you can print these materials out and practice in an environment similar to what you’ll experience on the day of your actual exams. Each exam contains a full bank of 120 questions, and the instructors at AnalystPrep come up with new practice exams yearly to match any new developments in the field.
And while they didn’t offer Level III CFA® mock exams, in the past, AnalystPrep now has some of the best around!
Mock exams from AnalystPrep are crafted using previous Institute questions, ensuring they align with the current test format and challenge level. Surveys by the CFA Institute indicate that candidates who train with mock exams tend to outperform those who solely rely on revision.
3. Salt Solutions CFA Practice Tests
This unique platform is everything you need to pass the CFA® exam.
Salt Solutions provides three levels of lectures and exam prep. Level 1 includes nearly 70 hours of video lectures and 3000 multiple-choice questions. You get performance metrics, study notes, practice examinations, and the Salt Solutions CheckPoints planner.
Salt Solutions’ CFA® program contains three mock tests at each level. Candidates will have several chances to test their abilities and knowledge, ensuring they’re ready for the real exam.
A bespoke quiz builder with many practice questions, combined with excellent video lecture quality, creates a high-quality training experience. This helps applicants retain content; interesting video courses are easier to recall.
Salt Solutions’ tailored learning experience will help each applicant succeed. The video lectures and study materials use a proven exam-passing method.
5 CFA® Mock Exam Benefits and Testing Advantages
There are a ton of reasons why you should study using mock exams. The main reason is that they just work. Candidates who use them are way better prepared than candidates who don’t. It’s just a fact!
That being said, let’s check out some specific ways mock exams help prepare you for the real exam.
Understand the Exam Structure and Format
Knowing how the exam is structured and how the exam software and interface are formatted is important for any computerized exam. You want to make sure you know how to navigate through each question and each section, so you don’t get stuck somewhere and have to waste valuable time figuring out how to navigate the exam when you should be focused on answering questions.
Mock CFA® exams are designed to emulate the real exam. Thus, the software they use looks and feels like the actual exam. Using a practice exam will make you familiar with the exam, and you will feel right at home when you sit down to take the real thing with no surprises!
Understand the Exam Topics
Practicing quizzes and multiple-choice questions will help you think through the exam topics and understand the concepts. This form of active studying is way more beneficial than simply watching a lecture or reading a textbook.
Plus, there are a lot of different topics covered on the exam, and not all of them are covered equally. Mock exams will help you understand what topics are emphasized more in the exam and which ones appear less frequently.
This will help you focus your study sessions on the more important topics instead of wasting your time studying things that will either not appear on the exam or be weighted very little.
Practice Test-Taking Strategies
Working on practice problems has many benefits beyond helping you learn the concepts on the exam. Simply knowing the exam topics isn’t enough to pass. You have to be able to use your knowledge to solve and make decisions about solutions.
Understanding how questions are asked and how answers are phrased plays a big role in how well you will do on the exam. The more CFA® practice questions you go through, the better you will become at reading exam questions and being able to quickly pinpoint the correct answer. This is where I find UWorld really helpful!
Improve Time Management
Time management is a HUGE problem for many CFA® candidates. Spending too much time on questions could mean the difference between finishing the exam early or rushing through it and answering a large percentage of questions wrong.
Working mock exams will help you work on your time management, so you will have enough time to think through each question and come up with a solution without breaking the clock.
Reduce Stress and Improve Performance
Believe it or not, stress is a big reason why people fail the exam. It totally makes sense, though. It’s just like a musician with stage fright or an athlete with nerves. Test takers don’t perform well when they are under stress.
If you are completely stressed out going into the exam, you probably won’t be able to think clearly and perform as well as you should. Practicing exams will help prepare you for the exam like a rehearsal performance. When you go into the real thing, you will be ready and relatively stress-free. 🙂
How Many CFA® Practice Exams Should I Take?
There’s no real set number on how many practice exams you need to take in order to be prepared for the exam, but more is always better than fewer. I would much rather be over-prepared for the exam than under-prepared.
That being said, most CFA® review courses recommend that you take at least 6-7 mock exams before your exam date. I think this is a good number because it gives you enough experience and knowledge of the exam to be prepared on your exam day.
Since most prep course providers don’t offer that many different exams in their materials, you can either take the same ones multiple times or get two different test banks, so you have access to 6+ different full-length exams. Both are great strategies.
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