Worried about CFA...retaking it next week. Last minute tips?

Chockstock

Chockstock

The Stars and Stripes Forever
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I got an LOA last weekend contingent on the CFA, nomination, and medical qualification and so today I immediately scheduled to take the CFA next week with my coach. But it worries me the most. I attended SLS last summer and I did so godawfully bad at the practice CFA, I wont tell anyone how I did. All I will say is that my situps, pullups, and mile run were the worst.

What Im wondering is...

What the average scores for each test are (if I do a bit better than average, it should be ok, right?)

Any last minute tips for situps, pullups, mile run and

Whether your LOA can be withdrawn for really poor CFA scores :frown:


Thanks! Im scared!
 
I will give you advice on the two events I maxed:

1) On the sit-ups, when you feel like you cannot do any more, rest for five seconds and then try again rather than try and crank one more out- you'll get more by resting for a second and coming back.

2) On the push-ups, I recommend cranking them out as fast as you can do them, because even if you rest on push-ups you're still putting weight on your arms. It is not worth it! Just keep going till you drop!

The mile is NOT my best event, so I will wait for others to chime in on that event.
 
The mile is a pretty hard event, especially after doing the rest of the test. Remember that you probably won't get your best time ever. My coach (who administered multiple tests to me) recommended a few things to me. The first is to properly warm up. Most people think this is kind of dumb and just skip it (which I did my first few tests). Do a good warm up, maybe a couple easy laps around the track and some good stretching. The second thing is to go slow your first lap (not really slow, just comfortably hard) many people try to keep up the pace that they make on their first lap and that just isn't going to happen. So lets say you are going for a 7 minute mile (just guessing), your first lap would be 1:55, second 1:50, third 1:45, and fourth at 1:40. By going slower on your first lap you can shave almost 30 seconds off your total (like I did). It wont feel like you are speeding up on your later laps and it will be a lot harder, but much easier than going all out your first lap. If you want to PM me with the time you are aiming for I can try to help you out (get some times to aim for).

Good Luck on your CFA, I'm sure you will do great.

Later,

Brian
 
If you fail the CFA they will call you and ask you to take it again. It is safe to say that if you hit average on every event you will pass.
 
You should have been told during SLS what events you didn't pass - I'm guessing those are the ones you listed? Here is a link to give you the max and average scores:

http://admissions.usma.edu/prospectus/CFA_Instructions05.pdf

I will say that my son found that the passing scores (which aren't published, but they were told if they didn't meet) were much lower than he expected. If you already have the LOA, that's really all you need. He was coming of a week at NASS, and was sore and tired when he took the WP CFA and did significantly lower than the week before. He was amazed it was still all passing though - including 34 pushups, and 6 pullups. He was surprised that his mile run there though was much faster than the week before.

I'd shoot for the averages and hope that even if you're a bit below them that you'll be fine. Good luck!
 
As long as you pass the CFA you should be fine. Just try to get above average on all the sections if possible.
 
This is just my opinion, but I don't understand what your rush is all about. My guess, and it is not trying to be judgemental, is that you are not currently working out. My other guess is that you have no idea what your score would be if you took the CFA today.
What I would suggest is that you go take the CFA today. Either solo with a stopwatch, or with a friend. Set it up correctly and just do it.
Now you have an idea of how you will score. Do some light training. Take the CFA with your coach next week. DO NOT SEND IN THE SCORE. Continue to train. Retest with your coach or another legal proctor at the end of the month. See how you are doing then.
Your score should improve with regular training. If you pull a muscle, break a leg, or somehow injure yourself, you will still have the score from next week.
You have an LOA. Don't send in a possible failing score. HOWEVER, get something official (next week). An injury would be a problem right now so hedge your bets.
Good luck. Don't forget to stretch.
 
^
good points. If that is true and you are not in shape then don't rush this. You have time to train for a few weeks if you need to and get it right.
Definitely do a full practice CFA - simulate the test.

BTW - after you have taken and passed the CFA - continue to get/stay in shape and show up in excellent physical condition.
 
Chockstock, here's what I can add (from the sides lines). I have to agree with jscam87 and Mom, train, you'll need to any way. My DS downloaded the requirements and took it to his gym trainer. They worked on it together for a few weeks building it into his regular training (which at the time was a soccer focused regiment, speed and agility) but with an understanding of getting to the goal (no pun intended). It made him stronger all around.

He did well, as expected (at NASS), but, and this is where I comment on vampsoul point 1) [sit ups] DO NOT REST ON THE DOWN STROKE. (at least the SEALS there won't let him continue on those) His numbers stopped there. Rest, if you must, on the up stroke (at the knees, they want to keep you in the stressed position).

Otherwise, just train. It'll be good to just go out slowly and ramp up to where you want to be. You'll get the numbers.

And good luck on the other items, you may find them equally stressful.
 
definitly take a practice test on your own. try and get a general time line from your admissions rep about when you have to take the cfa, and plan out a training schedule. I failed the pullups at sls, but i got an extension to retake it. i ran 2 miles 6 days a week, or at the very least 5, and went to the gym monday through friday and did sets of 20 pushups, 30 situps, and sets of 5 pullups where when i couldn't do one anymore, i switched to negatives. it worked for me at least, and going to the gym kind of forces you to work out if you have motivation issues. anyways though,
TAKE A PRACTICE TEST AND SEE HOW MUCH TIME YOU HAVE TO TRAIN
-my overall advice right there
 
Thanks for the advice and best wishes. Ill definitely keep everything posted here in mind and I really appreciate it.

Now, to answer a few specific points...

Someone inquired as to why I was sort of rushing the CFA. I am not sure if the dates for the deadline for getting everything in is the same for all LOA recipients, but for me at least, the deadline is Jan 23, 2010. Winter break is still three weeks away, but for a senior in high school, Im sure you can understand that time goes by super fast. January is a hectic time of the year at my school too because (we have two semesters) the first semester ends in January and there's finals and annoying stuff like that. Im just scared that I might be unable to get everything in before Jan 23.

Also, I guess I should talk with my gym teacher. She kind of wanted to do it early as well and get done with it quickly, and doing a practice CFA (thanks again for the advice) had never even crossed my mind, so I should talk to her again.

No, I'm not working out at the moment. Besides the daily pushups and situps I do at home, I dont portion out a time of the day to seriously work out at my school weight room like I used to. The reason why is mainly because Im hungry - I dont eat lunch and all Im thinking about after school ends (which is when I used to work out) is mom's cooking. I guess I sort of should have done something about it, but no sense in regretting.

Do you think it possible for me to get the CFA results in before Jan 23 by doing the CFA in early to mid January? I know the test only takes an hour and everything iin admissions is done electronically now but Im just extremely worried that something might go wrong. Im also worried that I might get injured or something happen to me in this time period so I assumed that doing it as early as possible was best.


Thanks for the link. I will shoot for slightly above average on all events.
 
Well, I'm thinking you're doing all this for West Point, and while AF just allowed you to input the info online and Navy allowed my son to fax the results over, I know that WP you had to provide the contact info and have them contact the test administrator. So I'd add a few days in there - for admissions to actually contact your teacher and the teacher to reply.

I think you can do nearly all the tests on your own to practice, even if it's just with a friend and not an official one. Maybe get someone to do a few of them with you for a week after school and then take a "real" one with the gym teacher and if that's not good enough, then you can focus on whatever is low over the break and take another one in early January. I probably wouldn't put it off much more than that.
 
As you have an LOA, from what I've read and heard from various people, West Point is just looking for you to pass it, not necessarily get a crazy high score.
If you're still planning on taking the test this week, the best thing you can do at this point is juat relax and do your best.
In the days leading up to the test, do not, and I repeat DO NOT attempt to make up for lost training and go extremely hard. I tried to do this. The result: I pulled a muscle and ended up pushing my test back over a month. Just do your best and trust that you can pull this off. If you want it bad it enough, trust me you can do this.
Good luck and hopefully I'll see you in June :smile:
 
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