Is this Proof that Band 10 is B.S.?

CFA Level II
#1

So I failed level 2 this year with the following scores:

40-60-80 method: 56.0%

Worst/Best Scenario: 31.5%/68.3%

My estimated score: 58.3%

If I managed to not fail ethics (which I wouldn’t have had I not changed two of my answers in the final seconds of the afternoon exam!), I probably would’ve passed…having failed 6/10 topics…

Granted I could’ve gotten (or very close to) my best case scenario score, but the chances are, I probably scored 60% max. Is that suffice for a band 10 score would you say?

It does seem like there is a significantly large number of people with band 10 compared to say a band 5, 3, 7. Or is it just a case of people who get band 10 tend to be more vocal.

#2

No, you just shouldn’t rely on the 40-60-80 method for a single observation due to outliers. 40/60/80 is a N=10000 kinda measure

#3

Were you a band 10 fail with 6 topics <50%? That seems like a much lower band number to me unless you scored >70% in the 4 largest topics. Can you post your results in the typical format?

#4

what was your EXACT score? there in lies your answer friend. seek and you shall find.

#5

I’m new here so not sure how to attach files.

Failed 6 topics, including ethics.

Greater 70% in Equities, Quant, Eco

50-70% in FRA

<50% in the rest (PM, Corp., Ethics, FI, Derivatives, AI)

Granted I feel I may have gotten very close to 100% in Equities and Quant and close to 70% for FRA, but even then, seems unlikely I would’ve scored greater 60% unless I literally hit 50% in the 6 failed topics…

#6

You failed 6 topics and got band ten? I got band 10 and only failed three.

#7

You scored well in some highly weighted categories. Failing ethics was your downfall but Band 10 does seem high with your score.

#8

I think the band 9 and 10 folks are probably more vocal because they were just that close to passing. So makes sense to get more griping from them than those that got in the lower bands. Also, CFAI does say they break the bands into somewhat evenly divided groups, so for the most part there shouldn’t be that many more in one group vs any other.

Also, for all you know, in some of the areas you scored <50, you could’ve been one question from being in the 50-70 group. You get one or two of those and while that doesn’t mean you would’ve passed necessarily, it could perhaps change your picture of how you did a bit.

#9

No, there should be equal number of each band according to desciption from CFAI. But the the number of correct answers that separate each band would be different. So 1 - 3 correct answer difference might be separating band 9 and band 10 while band 3 and band 4 might be separate by 5 plus of correct answers. This thing is much more mysterious than FICO scores.

#10

the distribution of score is likely leptokurtic…i.e. most people are scoring “around” the same thing… 55-65%

when CFA sets the MPS (maybe 63% or whatever)… there are thousands of candidates that miss it by a few points… more rare are the very low scores (below 40%)… band 10-9 might very well be 1-3 questions on the exam… while the difference between band 5 and 4 could be 5 questions… you can see it in the image below. they set the MPS to max pain