Exam Format Question

Here’s a dumb question for you guys…are all 120 questions on the exam in an item set format? Or are only some in an item set format? And if so, what would you say is the breakdown between the number of item set questions and single questions? Lastly, do item set questions cover different topics in one set? Meaning, is it possible to get FSA, Quant, PM questions in one item set? Thanks in advance.

All item sets, they can (and will) be mixed.

20 item sets. 10 in the morning, 10 in the evening Each item set - 6 questions. Total questions 20*6 = 120 Yes they can be mixed…

Ok, thanks guys. For some reason, this answer makes me more nervous…

True. In L1, there were 36 Qs for Ethics and even if you answer 26-27 correctly you still get more than 70% but in L2 there will be only 12 Qs for Ethics and if you answer 4 incorrectly…it is gone and you wont be able to score more than 70s. Rule is to make less errors and increase accuracy.

cfaboston, i don’t understand… is that good or bad that ethics is much smaller? are you basically saying it’s NOT a key driver on CFA2?.. my thoughts on ethics is that almost everyone would be getting similar grade on it, so it wouldn’t be a huge differentiator even if it’s big… but you seem to be implying it was make-or-break on level 1? p.s. i wrote level 1 a few years ago (FYI, i’ve never written level 2 before)

Everything is bad when less questions are asked. It is possible that you will be asked the few questions that you don’t know from each section. To take it to an extreme what if you were asked one questions from each section and they happened to be the questions you don’t know. This would be after putting in months of prep and knowing basically everything except those few questions. It seems that is why everybody was so pissed about Treynor-Black last year. Almost an entire vignette on one little piece ending up blowing up the entire exam. Just the law of large numbers thing.

mwvt, if you have confidence in your studying and your ability, isn’t it better that the questions are hard? now, of course, those are famous last words from me LOL my intuitive side would say fewer questions on a subject would mean more basic questions, but you say that’s not the way they do it.

Have you seen last year’s pass percentage?

westbruin Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > mwvt, if you have confidence in your studying and > your ability, isn’t it better that the questions > are hard? now, of course, those are famous last > words from me LOL > > my intuitive side would say fewer questions on a > subject would mean more basic questions, but you > say that’s not the way they do it. Here is a silly scenario…which would you rather have? 1 question to pass level II or 500? If you have already studied and learned everything to the best of your ability you would pick 500 of course. Someone who didn’t study at all would pick 1. This is exactly the point. The smaller the sample from the CBOK the greater the chance that someone that is really prepared will fail. In my case no amount of questions, big or small, is going to help this time around. LOL.

“1 question to pass level II or 500?” If time is a pressuring factor and I’m limited to the same amount of time, I’ll pick 1 question.

mcpass Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Have you seen last year’s pass percentage? maybe i don’t understand pass percentage… so if they somehow write an extraordinarily hard exam by accident, they could theoretically have a zero per cent pass rate??? i assumed they bell curve it. but you seem to suggest that they require 70% correct, which i vaguely remember… if that’s the case, why don’t they just give you a score. or too many headaches from those who scored 66-69 to the other poster, good point on 1 vs. 500 questions

They certainly won’t give scores… that would only lead to people complaining when they just missed out on a pass by 1% (or less…) Level 2 is just a big pain, my point is that a 40% pass rate for a level in which people participate who already survived a 40% pass rate exam the year before… that’s tough. The vignette style questions are probably partly to blame.

westbruin Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > vaguely remember… if that’s the case, why > don’t they just give you a score. or too many > headaches from those who scored 66-69 Then jobs could have a requirement of “Must have scored at least a 90 on all 3 CFA exams”. CFAI does not want that.

but people who scored 69% (with passing at 70%) on a horribly worded exam have every right to complain. and no, the “everyone wrote the same exam” argument is irrelevent IMHO.

From what I read last year from the CFAI, the minimum pass mark is set at 70% of either: - the top mark achieved (could be 97-98% if Rainman takes the test, but likely around 90-95%) - the average of the top 5-10 marks - the top 1 percentile mark. So it doesn’t matter how good or bad the majority of candidates perform, only how well the top 1% perform. In theory, 100% of candidates would pass if we all get >=70% on the exam. They also state that there is no weighting toward any one section - ie. you could get a big donut on the Ethics section and still pass the exam if you ace the rest of it.

Not according to the CFAI. They create the test and set the rules, you either live by them or don’t take the test. That is why we should try and get 90% on this test and not worry about a 70% mark. Then there is no need to complain since you would know your isht and pass.

Regardless, if the passing score is 65%, then everybody with 64% will complain if the exam was horribly worded. That’s probably the reason why CFAI doesn’t release the scores… they are not willing to discuss specific questions or results which make their life a lot easier.

From CFAI c. 1997: The Board of Trustees of the ICFA is responsible for establishing the pass-fail mark for each level of the CFA Program. The initial pass mark is 70% of the top 1% of papers. The final pass mark is determined by the Trustees, who look for guidance to psychometric consultants employing the modified Angoff Method, a standard-setting method widely accepted throughout the education testing field. -------------------- This is 10 years old, but they said basically the same thing last year. I agree that we all should aim for 100% on the test - why aim to get 30% wrong? I guess my point is that there is no benefit in hoping other candidates perform badly in the exam, just so that the bell curve helps out those who do better. BTW, the part where they say they “look for guidance to psychometric consultants” cracks me up - sounds almost like one of those late night psychic hotlines.

westbruin Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > cfaboston, i don’t understand… is that good > or bad that ethics is much smaller? are you > basically saying it’s NOT a key driver on > CFA2?.. my thoughts on ethics is that > almost everyone would be getting similar grade on > it, so it wouldn’t be a huge differentiator even > if it’s big… but you seem to be implying it > was make-or-break on level 1? p.s. i wrote level 1 > a few years ago (FYI, i’ve never written level 2 > before) I am trying to say that there is less chance of making errors and I am just putting Ethics as an example. FSA had 72 Qs in L1 and now there will be only 30-36 Qs. So accuracy level should be higher than L1.