Yes, you can always say “get it all right and you will not have to worry about partial credit”. Reality is, however, that our average score on essays will be considerably lower than on MC questions. So every point will matter.
Having that said, I was wondering how are CFAI graders going to award us partial credit on the essay portion of exam. We know essay part is worth 180 points (equal to minutes) distributed among different topics.
Consider this example: you are to list three items (i.e. reasons for high risk tolerance) and the whole and correct answer is worth 6 points. What do you get if you answer 2/3 questions correct? Is it 4 points? Or worse if you score 1/3 do you get 2 points?
Yes that is how I exactly grade myself too - no partial credit for incorrect calculation even when I make silly mistake but get everything else correct.
But it would worry me if their way of calculating score was something like this: is the question fully and accurately answered? If yes, give full credit. If no, give only 10% of the allotted minutes. This would make the test way harder.
Y’all are getting wrapped up in grading nonsense, which you shouldn’t be worrying about at this point. If they as you to list 3 items and you get 2 = 4 pts. Stop trying to complicate this.
CFAI graders do give partial credits. For example If question asks to identify 2 biases and carrying 5 points, then most probably 2 points will be given to identifying biases and 3 for justification. So even if justification is wrong and names of Biases identified are correct, 2 points will be awarded. Same goes for calculations. Steps carry points, so if candidate has first 2 steps correct he/she will get points for them.