Hi monk
I’ve been following your posts and having considered the points you make, I don’t think there is much that can really be done to improve on the information currently provided. I failed my level 3 in 2011 and again this year. Last year I was shocked at how badly I had done in the morning paper and my first reaction was that there had been some sort of mistake, there were questions I felt I answered well which I did badly in. When the am paper was published earlier this year and I saw the sample answers, I realised to an extent where I had gone wrong, and on attending classes this year saw further that I hadn’t approached the questions in the right way. This may help - be sure and answer the question fully dependent on the number of minutes assigned. This may sound obvious, but if for example you are asked to give advantages and disadvantages, don’t just list these, but for each one, say why it is an advantage or disadvantage, that way you’ll get something like full marks instead of 1/2 or 1/3rd of the marks. This may sound like something very obvious, but I found taking this into mind greatly improved my score in the mocks I took. In the actual exam this year, I did ok in the morning, but had a bad afternoon score, not sure why as I thought I’d done well, but that’s the reason I failed. My approach for next year will be to get a better knowledge of the syllabus to tackle the multiple choice questions. Although to an extent there is some subjectivity in the am paper, and given the number of candidates, the possibility can’t be excluded that a candidate may fail when another marker or reviewer might have passed them, the chances of this happening are statistcially insignificant in my view, and I’d be surprised if this even happens once a year. I don’t think there is an inherent bias or lack of robustness in the marking process There are things the CFAI could do which may improve transparency whch I list below, but having thought about these I don’t think they are fully feasible (happy for other posters to agree or disagree on these points):
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Provide each candidate with their percentage score - this would end up revealing the MPS, soemthing CFAI is keen to avoid. Also, I guess you could get two candidates with the same score where one passes and the other fails. For example, if the MPS was 65% and two candidates scored 64%, but one did well in ethics, they could pass and the other one fail. The failed candidate might try and appeal to the CFAI and ask for even more information as to how much weight is given to ethics. Also, I like the idea that the CFA is recognised as being hard to get, and that once you pass and get the Charter, you’re equal to all other Charterholders. If percentage scores were made available, you might end up with multi-tier CFAs, those who scored very highly, perhaps because they studied full-time, and those who passed more narrowly. Publishing percentage scores could also lead to accusations that one year the exam was particularly easy to pass or fail, and I think its important to avoid that.
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Return copies of exam scripts to candidates - for the am paper this could potentially cause problems as soemone who failed by one or two marks could then start poring through the syllabus, Schweser, or even dictionaries and say that for a particular question what they meant by their answer actually means the same as the given answer. Given the amount of work that goes into the CFA, I’m sure people would do this and the CFAI could end up facing legal challenges over things like this, meaning their would be no finality to the marking process. Someone made a very good point in an earlier post where they said that if you could stand over the marker during the am session, anyone could try and reason that the suggested answer was what they actually meant, etc., and I think the only practical way is for the examiner’s discretion to be used, especially given that marking is reviewed. Returning a copy of the pm answer sheet, together with the questions, might be useful, it would be in my case for this year’s exam, there can’t be any disputing the validity of the result as the answer sheet is scanned and it would be useful for me to see where I went wrong, but it won’t change the result, and my feeling is that the CFAI have a limited number of questions and don’t want past papers for pm to be available for this reason.
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Make the am past paper available sooner than it is currently - perhaps there could be a case for this, but if it becomes available very soon after the exam when people still remember very well what they answered in the exam, the CFAI would be inundated with phone calls from candidates saying they are sure that their answer to question x was correct, and demanding it be looked at and remarked. I think there needs to be a finality to the results process somewhere.
I don’t know what other way could be used to help failed candidates - maybe expand the ten fail bands to 20, although I’m not sure how much this would help, and imagine how you’d feel if you scored a band 20!
I think you’re genuinely feeling hard done by at failing the exam, perhaps you thought you’d passed, and I think some of the personal comments posted about you are unfair (laughing at someone for failing the exam when the person posting that themselves knows how much work is involved, for example), but if you take a step back and consider, I don’t think much can be done except retake next year. Some people have also advised you and given good advice.
In terms of a petition, I don’t think you will get much support - more than half of the candidates passed the exam, and very few people who passed will sign up to a petition saying the exam marking process is unfair. My view as a failed candidate is that there isn’t unfairness in the marking process, yes it is horrible to fail given the amount of work involved and the thought of having to do it again, but you’re judged on your exam performance and versus other candidates, not availability to write English or anyhting else. I also feel that I wouldn’t want to see anything which makes the exam easier - its one of the toughest financial exams there is, which means its a great achievement to get through, and if I pass next year I wouldn’t want to see the exam being made easier for anyone else sitting it after me.
My advice would be to take a break until December/January and start studying for next year’s exam then. Realistically, I don’t think there is much else you can do - there is insufficient support for an organised protest to the CFAI from candidates, and I can’t see any legal basis for challenging the status quo, and even if you could, it could take years to get a decision, certainly after next year’s exam. This time next year you could either have passed level 3 or you could be bogged down in trying to get this year’s result challenged with no guarantee of success.