53% pass rate - Looks like CFAI is clamping down

People are still responding on surveys that they are not using the CFAI books. Many candidates are still doing poorly on the exams. Once candidates A. read the CFA textbooks and B. do better on the exams the pass rate will be higher. That’s my take. They are focusing on the CBOK, not on the pass rate, to add value to charterholders.

The CFAI should follow a similar format to the CA…no work experience, no acceptance. The requirements of a unversity degree is too low and has to be stopped. That way they can give a fair exam instead of these crazy changes and lack of disclosures every year trying to limit the amount of designations. Trying to “weed” out all the people flooding the CFA designation in hopes of finding a job one day because they have nothing better to do after university. There are many people working in the industry, who work 12-15 hour days, run a family, and try to study for an exam that is like a dice roll at the end of it all. While a majority of the people passing now are not even working in the field and think writing these exams is like a winning lottery ticket.

the books suck. if i only used the books i definetly would have failed.

passing level 3 much more difficult than 10 years ago. Just look at 1999 exam questions. I doubt most of people grading exam this year could pass level 3 in 2008. I wonder about the credibility of the whole process…

Look - I literally just made it by L2 and am going to kick it up for L3. But seriously, either you buy into the power of the curriculum or you don’t. If you think the CFAI is BS, then stop what you’re doing and enjoy your life. The charter is icing on the cake, it’s the learning that I love. I hear what Cross is saying about non-industry folk with time on their hands messing with things, maybe there’s something to that (e.g. you can’t just take the MCAT and apply to Med School). How much money the CFAI pulls in is irrelevant to our careers and career choices. I for one like the idea of the pass rates drifting ever lower. In the words of Groucho Marx, and I’m paraphrasing, I wouldn’t want to join a club that would have me as a member. Look at the explosion of people sitting for these torture sessions. I’m gonna bust my ass for L3 and I hope I get by with an overall pass rate lower than the years before. The value of (practically) everything increases with scarcity - I don’t want my efforts to be watered down by ever lowering the bar.

I haven’t looked at the CFAI budget, but a rough calculation shows with 140K candidates this year at $600 registration (the avg may be higher due to Dec L1 passers having to pay higher fees) gives $84,000,000. That’s just for the exams & excludes annual dues and other revenues for conferences, etc. Does anybody know how much of that is spent out every year and how much is getting banked for future use? They can’t possibly be spending their entire yearly revenues…Can they?

With the brains they got over there they should be throwing the money into an online trading account - or start the CFAI endowment!

I’l bet they on their way to the endowment. $84 million+ a year in exam fees. That’s crazy!

vanz1212 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I’l bet they on their way to the endowment. $84 > million+ a year in exam fees. That’s crazy! Doesn’t even include the Dues for the members. Can someone explain to me how they are not for profit when they make an insane amount of revenue?

All that money goes into the development of fine exams and their related top-rate grading processes!!

The 2007 financial report is on the website… have fun

mcpass! Great to see you here. I’ll get right on that report!

mcpass Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The 2007 financial report is on the website… have > fun $118million in Revenue. Nice.

Cross1000 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The CFAI should follow a similar format to the > CA…no work experience, no acceptance. > > The requirements of a unversity degree is too low > and has to be stopped. > > That way they can give a fair exam instead of > these crazy changes and lack of disclosures every > year trying to limit the amount of designations. > Trying to “weed” out all the people flooding the > CFA designation in hopes of finding a job one day > because they have nothing better to do after > university. > > There are many people working in the industry, who > work 12-15 hour days, run a family, and try to > study for an exam that is like a dice roll at the > end of it all. While a majority of the people > passing now are not even working in the field and > think writing these exams is like a winning > lottery ticket. I completely agree with this. Don’t know if this is correct but a few older CFAs have told me that you used to have to get accepted into the program first based on work experience and then take the exams. Now anyone can take the exams and only after you pass all three do they look at your work experience. What will happen to all these people who pass all three exams but have no relevant work experience? Plus the timing of the exam is horrible. April 15-May15 is basically earnings season. Why not do the exam July 1 or at least offer all levels twice year!

“They are absolutely artificially f-ing with the pass rates due to the Angoff BS.” JDV, THEY [i.e. CFAI] aren’t “f-ing” with anything. They picked Angoff and stuck with it so candidates could assess the level of grading chicanery for themselves. Sorry but I don’t agree with you bud. They were pretty clear/transparent about their use of Ang. Willy

The program is now populated with 20 somethings that don’t meet the experience requirements but can blow off their current jobs to study for the designation. The program used to be dominated with experienced professionals in the investment profession. Look back at the exam questions from portfolio management in the 1990’s and you will see that they are gaming the pass rates. I doubt the folks grading the exam this year could pass level 3 in 2008

Good time to look at assessment methods-this might contain a clue as to why so many are failing -especially the AM First-the format of the AM session, in CFA’s own words , is “Constructed Response”-not essay:- " The constructed response portions of the Level III examination are characterized by questions of varying structure and point values. Each question begins with a command word that corresponds to the command words contained in the curriculum LOS. As with item set and multiple choice questions, no constructed response question appears on any CFA examination that is not explicitly tied to one or more LOS. www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprog/overview/pdf/IntoOur5thDecade.pdf But then-CFA also says: Although the format of the exams may not lend itself to using the following command words in the actual questions, you should be able to answer the exam questions if you can successfully accomplish the learning outcomes described by these command words in the LOS. http://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprog/courseofstudy/commandwords.html Now -maybe despite this seeming contradiction this sounds all nice and reasonable-but now look at how “constructed response " questions are tested-CFA will not tell us-so I looked elsewhere-essentially-the scoring system is this: -Complete score-indicates a complete and “appropriate” answer. Partial” score - indicates that the response had some, but not all, of the components of an appropriate response “Inappropriate” score- indicates an answer that had none of the components of an appropriate response http://www.edteck.com/dbq/testing/const_resp.htm Now, what is “Complete”, “Partial” and “Inappropriate” depends on the key that CFA examiners use-so-if the words or sentence structure is not the same as the key-you fail. For an example of these types of test can be evaluated see www.pps.k12.pa.us/143110127103415203/lib/143110127103415203/constructed_response.ppt As readers can see-the recommended structure is-answer first, and then show reason or deduction-a rather strange exceptation of persons who are being trained and tested to be financial analyst- So-as readers can see-the essay AM questions are really being marked in a machine marking method-go Google and readers can see that one of the main advantages to testers of using “constructed response” is that is is adaptable to machine marking. Seems to me that the CFAI got itself and all of us into trouble by moving away from real essay answers-maybe that’s why pass rates are falling?

WillyR Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > “They are absolutely artificially f-ing with the > pass rates due to the Angoff BS.” > > JDV, > > THEY aren’t “f-ing” with anything. They picked > Angoff and stuck with it so candidates could > assess the level of grading chicanery for > themselves. Sorry but I don’t agree with you bud. > They were pretty clear/transparent about their use > of Ang. > > Willy ============================================= agree with Willy on this

Angoff=?

a lot of whining going on in here I’m in my early twenties and went 3/3, but didn’t just “blow off” my job while studying. I worked on average 60+ hours/week during the whole process, plus went into work an hour early and stayed two hours late everyday to study. I put in anywhere from 5 (winter/early spring) to 10 (late spring) hours on each weekend day on my own time. I had over 50,000 flight miles YTD when I took the test, so I had to do a lot of studying on planes, in hotels, etc - not to mention all the wasted time that goes along with travel. Don’t forget it is the twenty somethings that do much of the grunt work in the office - stuff that we just can’t “blow off” to study. The rule of thumb here is the lowest guy on the chain is the first one in the door in the morning and the last one out at night. I think it would have been much easier to study if I were more senior level and had more discretionary time.