AM Bizarre Results-One Explanation,Markers Poor English

CFA Level III
#21

monk, no offense but you’ve got a lot of nerve complaining about a “marker’s poor english” when your own english is conspicuously poor. If anything, graders who are fluent in English are probably the ones that are most tough because they will get distracted by poor grammar use, or awkward wording.

The test itself does not require perfect command of the English language. I know a ton of people who do not speak English as their primary language that have passed.

Rather than deflecting blame at any little thing, maybe your time would be more productive by cracking open your books.

#22

Wouldn’t this play out in pass rates by country? There’s data on this, are you using it or looking for excuses?. I wrote perfectly poor answers in plain English on my first attempt at L3 and failed. I had nobody to blame but myself. I focused on writing cogent answers and passed on my second attempt. Try it. It works.

#23

OP’s comments are so absurd, I’m too lazy to even respond to him anymore

#24

dean99

How is the standard of my English relevenat to the matter of problems with marking?

Your comment :

The test itself does not require perfect command of the English language. I know a ton of people who do not speak English as their primary language that have passed;

The issue here is the ability of markers from a non-English speaking background or for whom English is not their first language to comprehend fully different English expressions.

As mentioned in my first post-there are not a few who have commented that CFA seems to require a cut and paste from the text.

Also-interesting to see how many have jumped to CFA’s defense-very interesting.

#25

It’s relevant because by your standard, people like you are not qualified to be a grader (clearly, you don’t qualify, but for other reasons NOT because of your English skill). And by applying your standard, are you suggesting that anyone who is not fluent in English should also not be qualified to teach or grade papers in school?

I can’t speak for ALL English expressions, but I can tell you as someone who was born and raised in the US, your writing style is particularly annoying. And if I were a grader, I would likely give you a lower grade than someone who is not fluent in English. For example, who the f*ck says "There are not a small number who cannot believe . . . " I had to read that three times to figure out what you were trying to say!

The reason we jumped to CFA’s defense is indeed interesting. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but the people who passed all had our brains eaten out in the middle of the night by CFA zombies and we are now only capable of spewing CFA praises and eating brains of potential charterholders.

#26

LOL

#27

by god, i think you stumbled onto something

#28

Keep it coming-dont stop now…

#29

I don’t mean to slam you. But this is so moronic. Get over your fail and do what it takes to pass, as the rest of us did. This post and your continued defense of this idiotic hypothesis really makes you seem like a huge loser. Just move on and accept that it’s your fault that you faied. Some flaw in your preparation, understanding or execution. Stop looking to put the blame elsewhere. If you can learn this lesson at this point in your life rather than later you will benefit.

Not trying to be cruel, it’s reality.

#30

^+100

#31

The reality is you have not answered any of the real issues raised-but instead attacked me.I am happy for you to do this…Like I said-keep it coming

#32

the only issue is that you failed and are making inane excuses as to why you failed.

get over it.

#33

I’ll try then. I think CFAI has a lot of issues in their examination process, such as degrees of ambiguity, lack of transparency, and in my opinion even answers that could be viewed as flat out wrong.

Your issue however is that non-native speakers may lack English comprehension, and that makes them give worse marks to what they don’t understand properly.

I don’t think that’s true, or even of much relevance.

1 - Comparing answers to a Guideline is pretty easy: You just see if they’re the same, or reasonably close, and awards the designated points. Most of us did this with Schweser’s practice exams. My english probably sucks as bad as the CFA graders who are the worst at it, and yet I could write my answers, compare them to guidelines, or read and answer stuff from other people here at AF. If one’s English is really that bad as you imply, they must be really lucky to clear L3, and even more to be selected as a grader.

It is true that it’s hard to decide how tough to grade (partial points and all), but that’s not really related to English comprehension.

2 - You gotta use their words: You know how “unusual” CFAI answers are supposed to be. BlueBoxes use their keywords, EOCs too, and past exam answers do it as well.

Let’s say you can write a literary masterpiece on Black-Litterman, and you do it on the exam, applying it properly to answer a very tricky question. But you don’t actually write “Black-Litterman”. EOCs and Past Exam answers do. CFAI may be afraid that a guy like you will hear the term in a meeting and have no idea what everyone is talking about - now you embarassed the whole profession. So they rather just take your points away.

This is kinda extreme, and we may disagree with it even if done in a lighter way, but the more they like their precious keywords, the more we need to realize that…

3 - It’s CFAI’s darn test: As long as it’s legal, they can do whatever they want. They can hide all those PM answers and don’t give you any decent feedback on that. They can suspend you from the progranm without any proof whatsoever. It’s their game! We agreed with it, and we may suggest different ideas and approaches but, in the end, if you want the charter, you gotta do what CFAI wants you to do - if they want you to write a test that’s very easy to comprehend (like you should do on your job) they can demand it. Right? Wrong? Who cares? Just study more or choose a different path.

And I don’t mean we should all be pushovers refusing to pledge for change in some old CFAI policies. But the one you’re fighting for seems to have very little relevance for most candidates (see this thread) and your intentions may actually may be misread as xenophobic to some extent.

I was really worried that I would bomb on handwriting. I actually tried to wrote keywords in big letters close to my answers in the last half hour so maybe I could get a few points in the case they couldn’t read a thing (hoping to destroy PM and maybe pass). You know what I was thinking these last few days? If I fail, I gotta study more AND work on my handwriting for the exam.

If instead I worried about my English being so complex that graders wouldn’t be able to understand it, for next year I would study more and try to keep my answers clear and concise.

Edit: Lastly, I hardly think that CFAI would be as naive or superficial as you may have implied. Imagine you’re right and they have non-native English speaker Grader #47 giving a 5% passing rate - would they just say “wow, what an interesting coincidence - so let’s fail all those suckers right away cause it’s almost dinner time”?

#34

if you talk to people who know the grading process, what the OP is suggesting in his post is not possible. the graders focus on 1 question and only 1 question. they don’t review your entire exam. they are responsible for only 1 question. so you’d have to have like 10 non-english speaking, illiterate, whatever people grade your exam on all 10 questions, which seems unlikely, if not impossible. there are also double checks in the grading process, if any grader is punishing people at an alarming rate, they also sample and regrade some papers.

original post is basically conspiracy theory nonsense

#35

One of the bizare results guys here…8 of 10 essays <50%, put in over 300hrs. For lined pages answers, i used a new page for each subsection. For example, wrote a few sentences for 1a on front; skipped back. Wrote 1b on front of next page, etc. Any thoughts if this would have led to answers not getting graded? In retrospect, I’ll just stack all answers together.

Anyway, I’m gearing up for June 2013…CFAI books on the way, going to hit blue boxes an EOCs next week!

#36

as long as you numbered everything, you should be fine. Don’t think too much about what if’s. There’s 0 chance it will be re-graded, failed = failed. Focus on next year

#37

Thanks iteracom, congrats on the pass.

#38

United States: no official language, but English is the defacto national language (59% of graders)

UK: official language is English (20% of the graders)

Australia: no official language, but English is the defacto national language (11% of graders)

Hong Kong: official languages are English and Chinese (10% of graders)

How do you conclude there are a significant number of graders who do not speak English?

#39

What I sadi was :

There are not a small number who cannot believe they did as badly in the AM section as their marks suggest.

I did not make any comment on the proportion of markers for whom English is not the first language

#40

No conspricay alleged-this has to do with quality and standards.