Post Exam Survey : Please take the survey and comment on the exam

Alladin wrote:

if Finance will fizzle out..what will fizzle in?

Protesting in an attempt to get everything in life handed to you.

Crazyman wrote:

I like the CFA program. I like most of the content and most of what CFAI promotes and produces.

And I’m all for had deep questions. L2 and L3 have a bunch of them in EOCs, mocks and exams where you have to remember and integrate several relationships and, if you didn’t understand any piece of it, you would be lead into the wrong answer.

I could easily regret these words, but sometimes I even wish the test was much harder. But it is of course already challenging since most of us have long work weeks and other obligations.

However, that doesn’t mean they’re perfect by any means. I think GPM nailed it with the ambiguity comment. Yes, the real word is ambiguous, but if something doesn’t have a right answer,  they may be very careful about the why they ask it in the test.

What really bothers me is when they can’t make up their minds. The Covered Call question in the mock easily comes to mind. Curriculum says they’re downside protection. Real world doesn’t see it that way (even though one can argue they technically are). The mock disagrees with the curriculum. Most of us know all sides of this question - why it could and why it could not be considered downside protection and how effectve or innefective this protection is - but if CFAI gives me a multiple chice on this today, I have no idea what they want me to do - and there are many cases like that.

Not to mention the entire IPS exam/mocks/EOCs/whatever, while an useful learning tool, is an extreme simplification where CFAI arbitrarily chooses what’s important and what’s not (as in children are cost-free until college).

I think we have the right to whine a little bit about what we think could be improved. Some of us may be carried away and I do think there are more unfounded complaints than well based ones, but this is just free speech and a way to enjoy the forums a little bit more.

Maybe if the questions weren’t ultra-secret  and CFAI actually released the official answers a couple days after the exam we could be discussing the actual questions and have a much more objective way of looking at the exam, but then again any hypothetical screwup by CFAI would be easily picked on  - that may be one of the reasons they rather have the Angoff method and only decide what counts afterwards.

Very well said.  I agree and sometimes wish the exam was more difficult, but more direct.  Ask me describe a covered call and whether or not it is an appropriate strategy to use in a certain situation, but don’t force me to guess what the question is asking. 

The ethics section is the worst tested topic, imo.  Shouldn’t it be enough to know if something was an ethical violation or not?  Do we really need to point to a specific paragraph in the standards to show our knowledge on the subject?  I don’t care how well you have studied the Ethics material, there’s still a good chance you get 50% of the questions wrong.  That’s not right. 

Received and done. 10 mins? 30 more like…

Said my piece, though.

i didn’t this time.

Guys, my first post!

I found the exam quite easily understable and by and large quite straight forward. However, I ran out of time in the AM session and could not complete the last portion of the last question. I only read using curriculum material and I must admit that I know (and enjoy) the material quite well.

I received the survey and gave my opinion.