Above is a pass last year which appears similar to my band 6 fail below:(
We sincerely regret to inform you that you did not pass the June 2016 Level III CFA exam. 54% of candidates passed the June 2016 Level III CFA exam. A summary of your exam result is provided below. The three columns on the right are marked with asterisks to indicate your performance on each topic area.
We encourage you to consider registering for the June 2017 Level III CFA exam. Registration will be available tomorrow, 10 August after 9:00 a.m. ET on the CFA Institute website. (Please note that you must have a valid international travel passport to register. Learn more about the identification policy.) Kindly contact us if we can answer any questions about the CFA Program.
We have divided the group of candidates who did not pass into 10 approximately equal score bands. Your score band below shows how your overall score on the exam compares with the overall scores of candidates who did not pass this exam. For example, a score band of 1 indicates performance in the bottom 10%, a score band of 10 indicates performance in the top 10%. Your score band: 6
A disclaimer: I had poor time management in AM last year. As a result, the last 3 questions were left completely blank, that was 54 points in total. Although I was expecting miracle, I was also mentally prepared to see a fail. What actually shocked me was not a fail but a band 6 as I thought I could at least fall into band 8+. I guess I needed at least another 20 raw points to pass. As August 8 is coming, honestly no idea how much I improved lol, this year I tactically left 14 points blank in AM.
“We sincerely regret to inform you that you did not pass the …”
Just reading these words from your email last year gave me heart palpitations. God I hope I don’t read these words next week.
Regarding your question, keep in mind that the score bands are really wide. As said above, the passing matrix could have been on the high end of many of the ranges while yours had many on the low end.
All the best next week. I hope you pulled through this year.
It is difficult to tell for Level 3. That person may have had 6 topics below 50% for the AM section but they could be in the high 40s, while some other people may have only 4 topics below 50% but got a zero.
“We have divided the group of candidates who did not pass into 10 approximately equal score bands. Your score band below shows how your overall score on the exam compares with the overall scores of candidates who did not pass this exam. For example, a score band of 1 indicates performance in the bottom 10%, a score band of 10 indicates performance in the top 10%.”
So if MPS is 60%. Band 6 should be 30-36%.
My understanding is it does not refer to candidate percentiles.
If the candidates are crowded around MPS (with a pass rate of 54), l would probably think Band 10 could make up for the 35th-46th percentiles, Band 9 may be 28-34 and so on. Probably Band 1-8 could make up for the bottom quartile of candidate distribution although Band 8 score could be around 42-48 marks.
BTW, my min score in PM was 78% and a Band 8 fail means i scored around 15% in AM.
Hedge: I have to respectfully point out that your understanding is totally wrong. Based on your words, band 6 means the totally score is just 36%, which is around 130 points in total. Based on my matrix, even I use the most conservative estimate, my raw score can easily reach near 200 points, which is between 50% to 55%. (Also based on your understanding, band 1 candidates should have scored nearly 0, however even a pure guessing on PM can easily exceed) The band is, IMO, just divided by candidate percentile. Even it’s something else, it’s almost impossible as you said. I believe band 10 candidates are percentile 41%-46% and band 1 is percentile 0-5%, the score range can vary sharply, with band 10 very close to MPS while the raw score of band 1 maybe very miserable but no way under 10%(or even 20%)
“We have divided the group of candidates who did not pass into 10 approximately equal score bands. Your score band below shows how your overall score on the exam compares with the overall scores of candidates who did not pass this exam. For example, a score band of 1 indicates performance in the bottom 10%, a score band of 10 indicates performance in the top 10%.”
the thinking is that band 10 is 100 people that got 62.5% -near the mean ~50/50 pass-fail
band 9 is 100 people that got 61.5-62.5% (1% wide)
band 8 is 100 people that got 59-61.5%(2% wide)
band 7 is 100 people that got 56-59%(3% wide)
band 6 is 52-56%…(4% wide)
>>the “range” is wider at the lower bands given the shape of the distribution curve… 200 people between band 9-10 “20% of the people that failed” missed the MPS by upto 1.5% IN MY EXAMPLE…
band 1 at the bottom might include 100 people that scored 0% - 35% (35% wide)
"For example, a score band of 1 indicates performance in the bottom 10%, a score band of 10 indicates performance in the top 10%.”
based on the above quote from the same CFAI statement… it has to be based on the number of people… band 10 is "top 10% which would be the a narrower score range on The distribution curve compared to the “tail” at band 1-2
