Something has been troubling me a long while, but it is now time to make this public, and seek other views. First-let us not forget that a number of colleges and universities offer the CFA curriculum in their courses . Second finance courses are becoming more common-and so it is likely that the quality of candidates is improving, not declining even as enrolments grow, as CFA would like to us to believe. I have read the comments of those who have passed and those who have failed. I have my own experience with this exam, as well as other exams in areas of finance, law and science. I have also written academically. Given this background, I have always wondered how it is possible, especially at Level 3 , to determine what the precise right answer, or “range of answers” is. Then, how do CFA markers account for different interpretation of questions? Exam setters at CFA may well be experts in finance but are they experts in English? It is well and good to say that the difficult part about the CFA exam is trying to figure out what CFA wants-but really, is this not just proof of poor English? And given evidence of poor English in the setting of questions-what about the actual marking? For anyone who feels that the above is a matter of sour grapes; let me ask you this-how many times have you read, Schweser, Stella or even the CFAI material , looked at the questions, and thought-this cannot be right? So-what I am getting at is this –something needs to be done about the above –maybe a popular protest via this forum which I understand CFA reads. Otherwise, I fear that many of us are going to remain here a long time trying to find reasons/excuses for blaming ourselves for failing-and not CFA. Comments?
I have posted about this before - the essay questions are marked extraordinarily carefully with accounting for a wide range of interpretations and ability with English, grammar, punctuation, handwriting, etc… Essay graders are charterholders from around the world, but a large percentage are from the US (as are a large percentage of charterholders). An entire day is spent by the graders assigned to a problem coming up with an answer key. The answer key is deived from discussions about what is the right answer, what is the range of right answers, and how many points should be awarded for partially correct answers. The grading itself is then checked at least once for each question and often multiple times. Protest if you want, but you are barking up the wrong tree.
Being a charteholder does not say anything about one’s level of English comprehension. Also at Level III one is looking at areas somewhat removed from traditional finance-eg behavioural finance which is really physcology. It is also interesting to see that so many charterholders can reach a consensus on “the right answer” and “the range of right answers” within a day-I think many here would have had the experience at work or university where arguments about interpretation can go on forever.
Imagine that, before your first post, still on the other thread, you were asked:
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Explain the issue with CFAI exams (3 points)
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List two possible solutions (4 points)
I think you would have failed this question, no matter how much English your grader knew.
I still can’t figure out what you really want, besides protesting against something. Do you want the graders to go through high level English tests? Do you want to ban non-native speakers, even though their English may be even better than the natives? I really can’t tell.
If they ask you for X, you don`t build a long philosophical tale about how “arguments about interpretation can go on forever”. You answer “X”. Then you get the points.
If I’m your client and I ask you if I should sell a position, I want you to take a stance - and then you may justify it by showing all the pros and cons. You may give me a 400 page book for that, as long as you answer the question.
What I really don’t want is to have my analyst telling me that “arguments about interpretation can go on forever”, which basically is evading the question (that may work great to appear on CNBC - not as much for the job)
For the thread, just give us “X” (what’s your goal?) and then some of us may want to join you.
I want some transparency in the grading process -at this point there is none, and there are a number os issues that keep arising including this one.That has been made clear in the first line of my first post.
And others are already joining me-either on their own directly with CFA-or mor epublicly, like the other guy on AF who has asked for a petition requesting CFA provide raw marks.
And-dont real life with a CFA exam-you’ll end up paying for it.
For the love of god, stop being a baby and man up. CFA is not an english exam and you are probably the biggest idiot ever if you wrote academically for cfa exams. psst, it is a finance exam, not a freaking PHD. Study harder, practise more mock exam and you will see the key words to use for exam. Use bullet points and write as simple as you can. They didnt ask to write a freaking essay. They just want to know whether you know the materials as well as you should.
And now im going to insult you further. Youre the biggest idiot if you think you cant figure out what CFA answers are. The only subject that is required for intepretation is probably just ethics, GIPS but those two have a preset answer hence the only two are Individual and institutional. Economics, asset allocation, fixed income equity, alternative investment derivatives, execution, monitoring have an exact answer. Thus, you can really fucked up AM which most candidate whom pass did fucked up am but ace the pm paper thus passing.
Conclusion: You didnt study hard enough or youre putting your money on something that is uncertain while sacrifising something that is for certain to pass the exam.
I really hope you do protest and make the biggest fool out of yourself. Yes I do agree CFA isnt perfect especially the way they organise their morning question and it is marked by a chartered holder whom probably by their best interest to fail you as that would make CFA charter more valuable BUT I DID PASS despite of that and so did other candidates as well.
You want the designation so you have to play by their rules. Dont like it? Do a phd then or create your own designation.
From the bottom of my heart, I really hope you man up, blame yourself for not being good enough and ace the next exam. If youre keep blaming other factors for your mistakes or incompetency, you have a lot of growing up to do.
Pretty much agree 100%. When we make mistakes, the best way forward is to own them. Sometimes it is hard, and sometimes we fail to do so, but always, someone else is going to notice which path you took.
Monk, we all think youre an idiot on the last thread you created crying about the markers, you think making another one will make you less of an idiot? Please man
Monk, I know how you feel. I failed level 3 last year band 9 and I was sure I put the right answers for some of the questions, but I guess I didnt. The exam is just stressful and it’s easy to make silly mistakes. It is annoying that you can study for months and still fail because of the random and obscure subjects they choose to test but, at the same time, thats how they ensure that you’ve read every page. So there is a method to the madness and I just tried to keep that in mind my second time around. Needless to say I passed this time, thank God and I’m sure you will too once u just accept that the CFA is what it is. Not you or anyone is gonna change that. It’s prestigious for a reason because everyone in finance knows the effort, persistence and intelligence one must have to pass all three exams. Best of luck.
No not everyone-and that prestige is slowly being eroded.
Also-very, very happy and grateful for the comments from those who claim to have passed Level III . Please keep your comments coming-be sure to stick the sytle adapted this far
No -while the general matter is the same-the issues are different.The latest is more specific
name of patient: monk
symptoms: mistakes responses to his posts as a sign that he is on to something, when in fact, we all just love watching a car wreck (see popularity of reality tv), so we egg him on.
diagnosis: narcissistic personality disorder with trolling tendencies
like i said keep it coming-especially looking forward to comments from those who claim to have passed L3
You have two very similar threads going here, and whether you intended it or not, they both very strongly paint a picture of someone looking for external reasons for their failure.
I had to write level 3 twice. The second time I was much better prepared and very concise in my answers. The first time I THOUGHT I had did better, but there is a lot of nuance in the curriculum and it is easy to make mistakes, especially under exam conditions. Oh, and in “my” year, there were a lot of people posting about how “unusually” bad they did in the AM session. It is marked hard, no doubt.
You have received some excellent responses in your threads, such as the one by JdV (first reply here), but you have not seem to acknowledged any of that (as far as I can see), and keep circling back to your original hypotheses.
I think most candidates would like more transparency with the grading process - many would like raw marks as well. If I had to choose right now I would probably support both ideas, depending on how they will be planned and executed.
This seems very different than your apparent prejudice against non-native English speakers and a possible tendency to prefer subjective academic debate rather than clear answers for the exam.
Maybe you should tackle one point at a time. If you make a thread on “how can we improve the transparency of the exams?” maybe we could all exchange some valid ideas on that - maybe a few would please CFAI.
I just noticed that this was a 2008 thread that I inadvertently brought back to life (the first 2012 post was mine). Since there’s a similar thread already, I apologize to everyone.
The release the entire AM section of the exam every year. Why not read that and figure out how you answered incorrectly?
Just because you can debate ‘your’ answer with your ‘superior’ english skills does not make it the ‘best’ answer for the question.
FYI - we don’t ‘claim’ that we passed Level III…we did pass Level III
why? because we studied and wrote answers that were correct.
if you think the prestige of being a Charterholder is eroding, please stop trying to be one
i see a CFP in your future
hey I just started studying but would this be an example of self attribution bias?
i did notice that monk uses a hyphen in every sentence that he writes…everyone knows that a hyphen is only used by English speaking folk, so he might have a valid agrument here and should contact CFAI immediately to have his exam regraded.
Q: “Is it true that the CFA is a useless qualification in Investment Banking?” – from Yahoo/Answers
A: CFA is “mickey mouse”?! Yeah right, try it. I know brilliant people who have failed a CFA exam, even though they tried hard. It takes the average person WHO FINISHES 4 1/3 years. Less than 1/4 of the people who start finish. Many of the people taking the exams have lots of experience and credential. Anybody who says CFA is mickey mouse does not have the faintest clue.
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http://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprogram/Documents/1963_current_candidate_exam_results.pdf
Since 1963, 1,665,898 CFA candidates have taken the exams.
403,269 passed L1 216,012 passed L2 152,035 passed L3
In last 50 years, less than 10% of CFA Candidates have passed all three levels of exams. Note: the percentage(effective passing rate) could be higher if considering a candidate could take L1 more than once.