I just received word today that I passed Level III, which makes me 3 for 3. Level I June 2014, Level II June 2015, and Level III June 2016. I’m pretty smart and an excellent test-taker, but wouldn’t have been surprised to have failed any of the 3.
It’s easy for someone to say the test should be harder after they passed it, but in my case if it was any harder I would have failed.
People who have failed think it’s hard, people who haven’t think it’s too easy. Now that I’m in the club I want to make it harder obviously to protect the value of having passed.
Judging by pass rates and number of charterholders, I would say they’ve got a pretty good set up right now and I wouldn’t recommend any changes.
I found the Level 1 and Level 2 fairly easy too - what is hard to getting through all the contents in the materials and I was studying for 3 weeks before each exam, so couldn’t study all the materials. Passed both.
But Level 3 - the AM/Essay - I messed it up this year. Need to find a way to fix that. Otherwise it would be have been just as easy since my PM/MCQ marks were all high.
I know people (clients or ex-clients of mine) who have no idea what a 3-stage FCF model is, yet they are able to assign a value to a company, make a decision to invest and create or add value.
People who don’t even have secondary education but have a vision and build successful companies from a garage shop.
I doubt many of them would be able to study and pass these exams. (They wouldn’t be interested that’s another thing).