I recently read a post on this forum where someone said the MPS was around 63% according to one scoring matrix that passed. I purchased the 300 hours CFA exam analysis last night and they believe with several thousand observations that the MPS for 2014 was 67% (or 81 questions). There was also a higher number of passing candidates last year (46%) with a higher MPS than previous years.
If the mps is 67% this year, I’m f****d. Oh well, back to this 5th of Jack and 1998 Stone Cold Steve Austin clips on youtube.
Anyways, take this for what it’s worth. Good luck everyone!
why go through all this trouble to establish an “MPS” if its going to be within 1 or 3 questions of 70%? I’m sure there are hundreds of people that pass or fail based on that small difference but I’d rather the line just be set objectively. I’d also be OK if they passed the top 45% regardless of the score… I think I scored around 65% so I’m going to need some luck, its hard for me to believe that 45% of candidates are scoring higher than me Lol at paying $20 for that…
I ain’t even trippin bro. LOL @ us for wasting hundreds of hours of our time, thousands of dollars on the exam and exam prep, etc. Sure I could’ve bought a lapdance at a seedy gentlemans club for $20, but I would’ve had to spend another $0.10 to find a clothespin to put on my nose.
thats exactly why I don’t believe a word they say, I bought it a month before the exam and I can sum up the book in one sentence, do well in Fra, equity, corp fi and ethics … If knowing that somehow gives me a better chance of passing then you are basically saying everyone else writing is stupid as we all know that. I don’t believe anything that website says regarding mps
I’m certainly not defending 300 hours as I’ve spent $20 on a lot dumber things in my life.
But I’m curious as to why you don’t trust their MPS? What did you score last year and what did you anticipate you would score prior to the exam? I’m thnking I’ve failed Band 8, but I was surprised at how straight forward the exam was.
How can u estimate u failed band 8?? How many sections did u project u would get <50% how many 51-70% range and how many >70% range?? Just want a rough idea so that i can benchmark mine. Too stressed out about it.
But I’m curious as to why you don’t trust their MPS? What did you score last year and what did you anticipate you would score prior to the exam? I’m thnking I’ve failed Band 8, but I was surprised at how straight forward the exam was.
How can u estimate u failed band 8?? How many sections did u project u would get <50% how many 51-70% range and how many >70% range?? Just want a rough idea so that i can benchmark mine. Too stressed out about it.
They gathered the data by promising you giving your score on the 40/60/80 method. I am not sure if that is suitable at all, but I think it tries to emulate a range and average of your final score, so at least they gather the data in a relatively trustable way (the candidates in order to get the most accurate idea of what final score they got they put their bands correctly). Then they graph the individual results and plot the results of all surveyed, when the lines start becoming failed there you know what the MPS is in a pragmatical way.
They also use that data to diferentiate what candidates do better or worse, in the passing and failing groups, thats really useful for me. There are some CFA charterholders working for or supporting 300hours, so maybe you should give it a chance.
Does a charter holder have information the rest of us don’t have regarding the level 2 mps? My personal opinion is nobody will ever really know the answer. If you like the website I didn’t mean to offend you, just my opinion, but you can’t tell me that after reading the guide you were surprised to find out that people who pass generally do well in ethics, equity, fra and corp fi
I agree with you. It’s simple logic-- if you do well on the large portions of the exam, you’re more likely to pass. I’ve not read the 300 hours stuff (so I’m not knocking them/I don’t intend to), but I would imagine they’re not an independent researcher when it comes to the claim that “(more) people pass when they buy our book!” For all you know, they also did a study and found that, out of the people who passed, the candidates with more categories >70% (on average) were candidates who didn’t buy the book. However, you wouldn’t find them publishing this information…always consider the other angles…
The biggest variable, IMO, is the validity of submitted results which they claim to intensely filter. However, N is “overstated” as I would think the only submissions that really matter are band 10 and passing candidates with the lowest breakdowns… All considered, I don’t think it would be hard to get within a percent or two of the exact score. The most interesting finding to me was the Level 1 results. L2 may have had a really high MPS but the pass rate was also high so it kind of makes sense. For L1, the most recent results imply the CFAI has made a decision to make passing Level 1 easier. June & December '12 and June '13 had an MPS between 62-64 and 37 and 28% pass rates, but both December 13 and June 14 have an estimated MPS of 56% and pass rates of 42 and 43%. If that’s a true MPS they just need to make the exam easier and raise the MPS… I don’t want word getting out you only need 55 to pass a 3 option multiple choice exam ha… No one will believe how “hard” that 55 actually can be…
On another note, I heard a story of one candidate who was randomly selected to give feedback about the exam. She purposely stretched the truth about everything, claiming she studied over 500 hours but found the CFAI material didn’t adequately cover the tested topics and made a bunch of other particular claims. She was careful to make sure her innacurate feedback wasn’t to the point of being unbelievable… If people were to collude and do the same this probably could have a significant affect on the MPS, although I personally wouldn’t want the value of the exam to be degraded in such a way, I wonder if others who were asked thought and acted in this manner…
I’m pretty sure the MPS is not 55% or even close that. If you understand the curriculum and are well prepared, you can score 70% or above on a mock exam. The real exam is not systematically harder than the CFAI mock exams. Therefore, without analyzing any result sheets (which does not seem to be possible with any great degree of precision anyway) I’m quite sure that the MPS is between 65% and 70% in most years.
I don’t want to shatter any hopes here, but if the MPS were in the low Sixties or even below that, we wouldn’t have a pass rate of just 40-50% on L2.
if you look at people that fail “55%”, my guess is that more than half of those did not adequately prepare (zero mocks or practice exams/ did not cover full curriculum/ did not do enough practice problems or BB). That covers 25% total candidates… My guess is that 30% of people that fail by definition “Band 7-10” are close and failing may be based on final week preparation… Band 10 is certainly unlucky and within 1-3 question of MPS
In fact you must score good in all topics in order to secure a pass. What I found in that book is that many people did bad on quantitative and economics which are around 20% of the exam both (for Level 1 in that time), you don’t talk about those. Many people take care about the “important” topics and still fail.
I would say it’s a bit of a stretch to say you need “good” performance at a minimum (especially if you can pass with <70% overall). I would say “good” performance would land you an 80% on the entire exam, at least (assuming we could know the score).
