Just got out of my CTA exam and need to vent somewhere. I've been trading forex for 6 years, studied for about 14 weeks before sitting the exam, and the Elliott Wave Theory section still caught me completely off guard. I thought I had a decent grasp of the patterns but the questions were testing edge cases I'd never considered.
My prep routine was structured - 2 hours every morning before work, which added up to somewhere around 168 hours total. I used the official IFTA study materials plus a couple of supplementary textbooks. The technical indicators section felt manageable, but market breadth analysis and intermarket analysis were trickier than I expected.
Ended up passing with a 73% which isn't a score to brag about but a pass is a pass. The candlestick pattern questions were mostly fine. It was the more obscure wave counting scenarios and Fibonacci retracement applications to real chart situations that cost me the most points.
If you're preparing now, I'd strongly recommend actually charting historical data rather than just reading about wave theory. Application is where the exam really tests you.
Passed with 81% but I came from a chartist background so the technical analysis was mostly review. The risk management and portfolio construction questions surprised me - make sure you don't neglect those sections.
Same experience here. Passed on my second attempt after failing the first at 64%. The wave theory questions require a level of application that's hard to get from reading alone - I actually started charting real historical data during my second prep round and that made a huge difference.
The IFTA mock exams are pretty representative of the real difficulty. I did about 400 practice questions total and still found question types on the actual exam I hadn't seen before.
I'm 6 weeks into studying and the Elliott Wave material is already making my head spin. Good to know I'm not the only one who finds it disproportionately difficult compared to the rest of the syllabus.