I got several ethics (are they?) questions wrong. They’re of the same following type: Snoopy talks with Hello Kitty in a weed joint about a new merger. What was the violation? The correct answer is - wait for it, wait for it – DAH DAH “RESPONSIBILITY of iFFFING SUPERVISORS” (queue the balloons and confetti). They put the blame on Snoopy’s supervisor Scooby Do for not implementing proper restrictions. CIA and KGB couldn’t implement such big brother practices over their employees. What the @*#
There is one like that in the 2015 mock. That Asian chick (Kim I think) purchases research from third Party. Turns out she is in violation as a SUPERVISOR because said third Party used material non public Info. I am inclined to think that it’s an error from CFAI.
Is this from CFAI EOC?
Other sets of obscure questions that play with contradicting assumptions to justify whatever arbitrary answer they choose:
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nothing is mentioned about Crystal conducting (not conducting) a proper research , so a violation was (wasn’t) committed.
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Ginger didn’t know that the information was material non public, we’re cool with her
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Angel should have verified whether the information was material non public, bi-atch
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Teffany should not act on the information and conduct the trade.
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Jade can execute the trade as she’s basing her decision on her own research not the information she’d overheard from Saphire.
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2 hours is not long enough for the blackout period
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2 hours is more than enough, hell ya.
One of my biggest issues with ethics is how arbitrary things are. Even something basic like “Is X a violation?” is not clear in common scenarios.
It’s impossible to tell without some Talmudic reading of the code and scenario what the violation is or even if one exists. I’ve spend literally dozens of hours reading about ethics, studying ethics, and answering questions about ethics, and still have trouble viewing the rules as a practical guide.
What good is a code of ethics if the average person who has studied it for hours still can’t tell what is allowed?
And don’t even get me started on the assumptions necessary in the question sets. As Audacious has already pointed out, when nothing is mentioned about an activity it’s a coin toss whether it means the activity didn’t take place or we just assume that it did because that’s what would normally happen.
Here is what we can expect for this year’s ethics:
Bill, a research analyst, decides to recommend X Corp and emails the research report to all of the firms clients. He then leaves the office and drives home.
Did he:
A. Not commit a violation
B. Commit a violation, due to not having a resonable basis
C. Commit a violation for another reason
Answer C. CORRECT - The question never stated Bill was sober: Bill drove home drunk reflecting poorly on the profession.
Answer A: NOT CORRECT - Because f*ck you - See you in 2016 dumbass!
Answer B: NOT CORRECT - You can assume that normal people do normal things… from time to time.
and imagine how this would sound for an Arab.
The CFA is in a quandry here. By level 3 everyone knows the basics, so they have to up the difficulty. This means more convoluted and less clear scenarios, but by doing this they leave themselves open to misinterpretation. I see the ethics as pot luck from L2 onwards, they give you a few easy ones and the others you can cut down to 50/50 and guess. What annoys me is that the importance of these questions is increasing (they can be up to 15% of the exam now, as well as a criteria for people on the pass/fail boundary). I think the questions should be clear, so what if the average is 95% correct, these are the people that will be charterholders soon, they should be getting super high ethics scores.
At least they don’t test us on unnecessary specifics like “Is misrepresenttation standard I B, II A or I C”.
I dunno why I imagine the writers of Ethics questions similar in attitude to Kristen Schaal in “Last Man on Earth”. She asks Will Forte to stop at the stop signs and not to park in handicap spots though they were the last people on Earth.
Oh that would be bad!!
They do however say; “is this is an example of a) misrepresentation, b) loyalty, or c) independence and objectivity” Those kind of questions annoy me…I know that it is a violaiton…but which one…come on!!
A+ rant
This can be a decent Ethics question:
I have a number in my mind. It’s from 1 to 3. What’s the number:
a) zero
b) 1 to 4
c) all of the above
This was a violation because the change was abrupt and questionable, and she didn’t question the abrupt rating change despite the fundamentals indicating the opposite from the last time she checked.
What does this have to do with supervising ? She is a client in this case. Or maybe I remember wrong ?
She was the supervisor and chose to have the research published by her firm if I remember correctly because I read it as she was reviewing it for publication.
EDIT: It wasn’t 2015, I just checked.