Hi Guys..
I strongly believe we should all comment on the high level of ambiguity and poorly worded questions which marred this exam and the upcoming post exam survey is the best way to communicate these issues with CFAI.
I do not believe (and I am not alone here) that answering unclear questions with inadequate information is a credible way to test knowledge: We all have at least 1 university degree/professional qualification and we sure as hell did not go through a maze of vagueness to acquire the degrees.
Comments are welcome.
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Tru say, this exam was more ambiguous than the ending of Lost.
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+1
There were at least 2-3 questions where I looked up in shock after thinking “Wait, do they mean this or that? Maybe I’ll ask a proctor… oh, that’s right, it’s fruitless…”
Pretty sure CFAI would structure the worst benchmarks imaginable (get it? S.A.M.U.R.A.I.? little ambiguity joke right there)
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CFAI ran out of ways to test their curriculum and started to make up traps and rediculous distractors
tru dat passme….. very soon, the zeal about the CFA Charter will fizzle out….
I actually found myself writing: “Assuming ____ then the answer is this, otherwise the answer would be this” on two of the AM sub-sections becuase the specfics of the question was not very clear, and I figured it would cover my bases for at lease partial credit
+1, I was away from the program for a while and when I came back to take L3 this year, it was altogether a different world!
I so agree with you papiCFA, it will fizzle out. Finance was the place to be 10 years ago but its bubble has burst. Too many regulations, too many blow-ups at firms, etc. This exam is only for young people either in school or right out of school because it is not a test of knowledge but traps. In order to be confident with it, you have to make it almost a full time job.
if Finance will fizzle out..what will fizzle in?
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You must be the square root of two cause i feel irrational around you
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I got the pre exam survey so will gladly complete the post exam one. After studying as much as I did, (wanted to just seal the deal and be done with CFA), I was left very disappointed with the actual exam itself. Questions were either overly easy or ambiguous. The exam felt like 35% portfolio management, 35% IQ test, and 30% questions that were meant to be tricky but just came off as meaningless and confusing. Perhaps this is their way of making the exam more “real world” but I think they need to greatly improve this exam.
Also, I stil do not understand why I’m hand calculating a return requirement for a private wealth client for whom I’ll be using software to look at cash flows and monte carlo simulations for retirement. I am pretty sure at level 3 we all know how to add inflation to get a nominal figure. Just saying…
Isn’t it too late to make comments? Wasn’t the deadline the 8th?
No.
Those who got post survey link can express their disappointment.
Assuming that CFAI wish to keep the number of the charterholders limited in order not to diminish the value of the charter leaves CFAI with very limited options.
On one hand, they cannot allow the exam to be too exact and specific (e.g. what does line 14 on page 299 in the fixed income book say?) because this a) would scare off any potential candidates and b) would be unetical towards candidates who expect fair treatment for their money.
On another hand, a fair exam, i.e. the one which covers all LOSes equally and does not require you to learn the book by heart is not very effective. 70% of the material is common sence and it would be hard to come up with fair and complicated questions. This leaves CFAI with the remaining 30% workable material, which was and will be rigorously and repeatedly tested.
Now, in the past few years, the 70% questions started drifting towards ambiguity and inprecise wording to present the concepts in a way not easily understandable or which requires time to decipher.
For the 30% core material the CFAI way is to exploit the “bugs” such as: blue boxes, stuff usually not covered by EOC questions (is the duration of cash 0 or 0,25?) etc. Other (less common) strategies is to ask several questions about the same concept, e.g. so if you did not pay close attention to micro attribution calculation, you may bomb 3 or 4 questions.
The whole thing is very borderline, but I dont think that CFAI will allow an independent third-party audit anytime soon.
+1.
band 10, here i come
Maybe it’s just me, but after the first 2 levels, the way this exam was worded and structured was on par with what I expected. Of course there are distractors, of course there’s always some question that has information designed to catch you on what seems to be an easy calculation and makes you spend 20 minutes because you just must get it right, of course there’s some question on some obscure part of the curriculum you just said “there’s no way they’ll test on that” when you studied it, of course there were Ethics questions that had you flipping a coin between the 2 last answers because there was nothing obvious in the verbiage to make you decide one way or the other.
Are you guys seriously surprised at this point? Especially if you’re a retaker? Was Level 2 any different?
Folks, the test is designed to separate the men from the boys. Yeah you memorized the formula and did every QBank question on it. Does that mean you really understand? If so, then the small wrinkles shouldn’t have caught you off guard.
Level 2 caught me this way and although I passed on 1st try, I remembered that experience and knew Level 3 would be no different. I thought test was fair and “reasonable” by CFAI standards, and I wasn’t surprised by the level of difficulty. Doesn’t mean I passed by any means but I was able to finish morning session(except one question) and do a review as well as finish afternoon and do a review.
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I’m with jlive1975…was difficult, and I haven’t a clue if I passed, but I thought it was representative as to difficulty and general trickery as Level II.
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a lot of people are not complaining about difficulty, but about poor test structure and intentional ambiguity. writing questions that are a test of reading comprehension and not a test of CFAI material is a waste of time and degrades the value of the process and credential. that’s what I see most people complaining about. not that we got tested on XYZ subject and oh boy that’s such an obscure topic that we all failed to study.
band 10, here i come
I agree. The content of the exam per se appeared easier than Schweser mocks, just like Level 1 and 2, but some questions (and even the curriculum to some extent) seem to have no right or wrong answers, because the curriculum disagrees with itself, and then we gotta choose which part of the curriculum is somehow more important. I think lucky relatively unprepared candidates have a better chance of passing, while unlucky relatively prepared candidates may fail in some instances.
very well said and I agree 100%.
i suppose poor test structure and intentional ambiguity is a very large part of the exam..no way out
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You must be the square root of two cause i feel irrational around you
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^+1. Testing knowledge and application is OK. But questions should be worded clearly. b/c in real word we can get things clarified using different communication mechanism. For example when a question say prorata allocation for clients and sizable allocation for a relative, since relative size of relative’s account is not given, the sizable allocation may come as a result of prorata allocation or favor. If this was real world we could easily get this clarified.
What’s “poor test structure”?
Hey, if you haven’t noticed by now, in real life not everything is structured properly and the very nature of real time events means you deal with ambiguity on a constant basis. The fact the test reflects this is in how it presents the material shouldn’t be looked in a bad light. This charter is supposed to represent how a finance/investment professional is “prepared to meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving profession.”
There goes your poor structure and ambiguity for ya. The tests at Level 2 and 3 are designed to test application, not just direct knowledge and you cannot test application in any real world setting, simulated or not, without including poor structure and ambiguity.
I’m sure if they actually released the test scores with detailed breakdown and with answer keys, most of those questions you swore were just poor and ambiguous were actually quite fair and reasonable if ranked on a easy/normal/difficult scale and you could probably find the direct answer or the steps to get to the right answer in the actual CFAI text with some application of the concepts. I think this is what trips up everyone. They get locked in to learning how the material directly presents everything, but as soon as that’s turned 45% or some information is added(or withheld) panic sets in.
They’re going to have the plug and chug and if this then that type questions. Then they’re going to sprinkle in the 2 to 3 step questions. Of course there’s going to be a few questions where they stretch what can be considered reasonable for someone at the MPS level. That’s how these things are structured though, that’s what helps them calibrate everything. There is a method to all this madness I’ve come to accept and all the hand wringing over it, especially at this point since it’s out of your hands, just isn’t worth the effort.
This is the game we signed up to play, we knew the rules well in advance if we’ve been using this board for any length of time. There’s no way you are passing all 3 levels without knowing the material well no matter how the questions are asked or presented.
And I think you are undervaluing what the Charter means. It’s not just whether you know financial concepts that are taught in any college course and tested over 18 hours. It’s the committment to the Ethics, the sacrifice you showed by committing your personal time to study, the endurance test of having to pass 3 levels over multiple years and balance that committment with changing life circumstances, the discipline showed in balancing what is basically a full time college load on top of your 9-5(or 8 in my case). That’s why people respect the letters because they directly know or have heard what it takes to make it through.
Give it a bit more credit, I would hope you’re not going thru all of this if you feel the Charter is a short.
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agreed agreed agreed…i think most of us understand that…just venting a little frustration thats all!
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You must be the square root of two cause i feel irrational around you
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nuked
band 10, here i come
jlive1975-I don’t disagree with a lot of what you said, but one question. If life is filled with ambiguity that inherently means different individuals will arrive at different conclusions based on the information they have and how they interpret it. Some might be right, some wrong, and some partially right. I’ve been in investment mgmt for over 12 years and have seen people right for the right reasons, right for the wrong reasons, wrong but the reasoning was right, and wrong with faulty reasoning.
The issue is, does/can a test that filters down to one correct answer (in most cases, assuming the CFAI doesn’t give credit for multiple answers in a vague question) and in itself is filled with those ambiguities, really then test real world application? Unlikely, it becomes more about the test itself which is the reason the CFAI refuses to release actual tests and, wrongly, prohibits the discussion of actual questions.
As for signing up and knowing rules. If you were ever in the military, I knew guys who volunteered and griped the whole four years. Volunteering for something doesn’t take away your right to criticize it.
The CFAI preaches equity,ethics et al, yet there’s an interesting parameter called “MPS” derived using a concept known as the “angloff method” to rank and evaluate the level of difficulty of questions tested AFTER the exam. SMH
CFAI test structure/scoring is flawed: the MPS changes from year to year i.e. a candidate’s exam score of 60% in YR 1 may exceed the YR1 MPS but fall below the MPS in the following year: This is a moving target. I still wonder why the institute prefers to publish qualitative scores for candidates rather quantitave ones.Too many secrets. If the CFAI published a benchmark index, it sure as hell won’t pass the transparency and objectivity tests cos they will not communicate the rules of adding and removing securities from the benchmark.
CFAI utilizes another grading concept known as “ethics adjustment” for borderline scores whereby candidates with scores at the exam cut-off mark that also pass ethics, are given a pass result in the exam and otherwise for candidates who fail this subject. SMH (Again). This clearly does not reflect equity and fairness in exam grading.
Having passed L2 on the second attempt I found the ‘ambiguity’ I complained about after my 1st attempt vanished on my 2nd attempt when I knew the material inside-out…
Lets face it, the CFA material is not very challenging… I think the test makers have to be somewhat cryptic in the questioning in order to test a) that you actually understand the concept and haven’t just memorized a formula, and b) that you can cut through the irrelevant information and solve complex problems… just like you’d be expected to do ‘in the real world’…
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.
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