I actually always raised my hands in the air during the last 5 seconds as if I was in a hold up scene. I got some weird looks, but at least I’ve never been accused of writing after time was up.
BTW, does someone automatically fail for writing post exam? That is harsh if it’s the case. I would give a 10% penalty for every 5 seconds with an automatic fail after 20 seconds.
^ Why is that harsh? Its a pretty simple black and white rule. Times up, pencils down. Pretty straightforward.
Because in a hypothetical situation, if someone killed the exam and got 100% and was caught writing 1.0157 seconds passed the limit, he would get a fail. I understand it’s a black and white rule, but in this extreme case writing passed the limit did not determine whether the candidate passed or not. I think the investigation should take into account the final grade. Someone with a borderline grade should receive a fail.
It’s more about the ethics of it all. Someone guy willing to cheat some here and there is a bad sign. Say he decided to cheat and leak that he was going to upgrade/downgrade something right before he did. Even if that person buys $3000 worth of stock, and gains a mere 5%, that’s still illegal
^ Writing for 1.5 seconds more could simply mean someone finishing a word he started writing in the L3 morning session. Hardly a case of someone being unethical.
In any case, I avoided ever being in that situation so this isn’t my battle.
^ Finishing a word after time is called is against the rules and, therefore, is unethical to try to get away with. I’m glad they are as strict as they are.
I can see where FT is coming from, but I don’t like the idea of creating gray areas (or grey for our European friends). There’s no mystery when time will be called, so there’s no excuse for not dropping your pencil when the invigilator says stop.
+1
+2
having a grey area is like giving a mouse a cookie.
lwayer up bro, dont listen to these amateurs
so i have also been just alleged doing the same, ’ bubbling one extra question after time was up’. I was wondering how did you pursue your matter and what was the final decision by the CFAI then ? Plz let me know at the earliest, really freaked out…it was my level 3. 
Only just?.. you mean that they told you this today?.. Your screwed mate… Really sorry. Best of luck next year.,
I wanted to give you some insight into my situation in Dec 2013 and what transpired. I don’t want to bore you with all the details but here is what happened to my case.
In my Dec 2013 Level 1 exam, I was suspected of cheating by one of the proctors on the spot. After going home I immediately wrote a detailed email to CFA about the whole situation, I did that thinking that I had the best chance to defend myself when the event was still fresh.
On Jan 2014, they sent me an envelope officially letting me know my case was under investigation by the PCP and I could provide an explanation about the incident. From the letter I recieved it was clear that my email from Dec did not sway their decision whatsoever.
In August, I recieved another envelope showing their entire report of the investigation with reports and emails from the proctors who reported me. Once again, my email from Dec did not show up anywhere in this report. Citing the responses from the proctors, they decided to void my results. At that point, it was too late have enough time to study for the Dec 2014 exam. I was also tired of this issue being suspended by factors outside my conrol. I decided that although my 5-10 second mistake in Dec 2013 cost me 4 months of time spent of studying, I WAS NOT going to let this incident delay my progress in my career and my life any longer. As many people have said, the odds are always stacked against you and you are guilty until proven innocent. i did not appeal, signed up for the June 2015 Level 1 exam and studied my butt off. I am happy to report that I passed! Looking forward to tackling Level 2 in June 2016.
If I had to relive the whole situation again, knowing what I know now, I would have admitted to the PCP that it was my fault and ask for them to resolve the case as soon as possible ex. beforeJune 2014. This way, I still would have enough time to study for Dec 2014. Deep down inside, I still don’t think I cheated. My advice to you is: don’t let this negative event waste more of your time then it already has.
When life throws you lemons, don’t throw them back. Collect them and start a lemonade stand.
TL:DR The investigation will take quite some time. Since you are considered guilty until proven innocent in the eyes of the PCP, it may be wiser to just let it go and move on to the next challenge (or the next CFA exam)
^ Congrats and thanks for posting, I always wondered how these turned out.
But this is like extremely unfair on the basis of if someone actually didn’t do anything wrong. Like proctors are at the end of the day humans as well, they get paid to do their job but no matter how hard they try, they too are still prone to errors. I know for sure that no matter how hard I try to tell others that i didn’t bubble one extra mcq after the time was up, no one is gonna believe me cuz obviously, I do not have any proof. But deep down my conscience is clear and I have no words to describe what it feels like to be about to get robbed due to something u dint even do. I swear it’s 100 worse than failing ur exam at band 10. It just starts to kill you from inside.
And after all that, the worse thing is you can’t even do anything about it. It’s just ur word against proctor’s word. And that is it. Which by itself means u have almost zero chance to successfully defend yourself. I think if one can ever come up with the most demotivational scenario, he should ask someone to pass level 1 and 2, and then make his level 3 result void due to something he dint even do. But well…this is gonna be a life long lesson that at times no matter how hard u do…there are forces that dictate the result and you dont have an iota of control over them . At least I m gonna learn some valuable lesson out of it I guess…thats the only positive im gonna take from this situation…aahhh
Bumping this because I see people making posts about PCP investigations again…
i wonder if the penalty is harsher if you actually admitted to cheating?
When does a proctor say, five seconds to go?
He just says 5 minutes, right?
How are you to align his watch with yours?
Why can’t i be allowed to completely fill the half filled circle i was trying to fill, when the proctor called out. If they had done countdown, i would not have started filling that circle altogether. Now since i have half-filled, why not allow me to complete it, matter of milli-second. Isn’'t it?
They should mention 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2…1 stop -> That is fair my friend, i would survive, matter is not intention of cheating. It is a matter of reflexes
The world you are living in (CFAI’s) means you and them trying to find out victims not cheaters.
This reminds me of the joke on why pre-med students have to take a physics class. If you can’t manage to budget your time with a 5 minute warning and a watch, you don’t really deserve the CFA. And yes, continuing to shade a bubble after time is called is an advantage over everyone else who can actually follow instructions / and is cheating.