DC Zanini Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > This is ridiculous. So you’re saying you crafted > your study plan around getting just above a 70%? > You should be studying to get the best score you > can get. I have work to do. Once I was satisfied that I had a good enough body of knowledge to pass I went back to work…
Well how do you even know you achieved your “goal” of 70%? Maybe their guidance is completely right - go for 70. But you scored 63?
This email will be just as effective as going to a town hall meeting and expecting your congressman to listen to you.
dlpicket Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Its not graded on a curve. They use the Angoff > Method. > > http://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprog/overview/pdf/I > ntoOur5thDecade.pdf > > http://www.altalang.com/beyond-words/2008/10/06/wh > at-is-the-angoff-method/ > > Also, where is this analysis saying the MPS is 66% > ? You are right, Angoff it is… If CFAI suggested 70%, then my argument still stands. Unfortunately, I’m starting to believe that I may have taken something from Schweser or Stalla, and assumed it was from CFAI. Dosen’t anyone remember reading guidance from CFAI suggesting that we attempt to score over 70? In any case, here is the 66% link: http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?12,1047689 I had similar scores, but more dispersed and therefore less conclusive. I have read other similar cases in the past day…
OK this makes sense now I after I read this: http://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprog/overview/pdf/IntoOur5thDecade.pdf Basically, if the experts using the Angoff method agree on the exam is on the easy side (which is contrary to what many of us candidates believe), the mps is going to up and the pass rate is going to fall. Needless to say, we (candidates) don’t pick the jury (the experts). OP do you have any more questions before your begin your preparation of the 2010 exam?
The MPS is for sure below 70%
CFA says you should get above 70 in all sections to ensure a pass. Noone has ever failed the CFA exam getting above 70 in all sections. Even when you write the the CFA quizes from their own website the passing grade they use is always 70%. If they always use 70% as their benchmark passing rate then one can deduce that someone getting 70% is considered the acceptable passing mark.
op, if your goal for an exam that’s passing score is 70, is to score a 70… then you clearly don’t understand the cfa curriculum. Assuming for a minute, the MPS is indeed 70, and your a 70 average performer, any kind of variance your scores will bring your pass rate to only ~ 50%. Your goal should’ve been at least 1 or 2 standard deviations above 70 (I don’t know how volatile of a test taker you are, but I estimated my std deviation to be 6%, and was shooting for an 82. Granted this assumption is slightly flawed since your test scores aren’t on a normal distribution, but you get the idea). I didn’t add any allowance for test day anxiety (which drives down the scores of some people), because that doesn’t happen to me, but if you have anything that would affect your test day scores, you need to adjust your practice scores accordingly. So shooting for a 70 on an exam where you should be getting around 70? That’s just poor preparation and stupidity on the part of the test taker. You deserved to fail.
ROFL! johnnyblazini would have done better if only CFAI had explicitly informed him that scoring 70% would not be enough to pass L2…, so my friend only studied and shot for 70%, the bear minimum. Now, he’s whining. Nice letter though, but I definitely won’t want you managing my investments.
Let us know how it goes. I am pretty sure it will be a teachable moment.
If you wanna score 70, you gotta aim for at least 80! When you point a rifle at a target, you aim above the bullseye because of that pesky thing called gravity. There’s an old saying, paraphrased, that says something like “aim for eagle, enjoy a pheasant, and never eat crow.”
You guys are being so hard on him - we really all should have stopped studying as soon as we knew we were going to get 70% for the exam. Darn, what a waste of time to study that tiny bit extra that may have resulted in scoring 71%.
How do you study to score a 70%? I don’t know about everyone else…but I tried to score a 100.
When I studied for Level I, I didn’t aim for 70%. I just did my best to make sure I knew my stuff as well as possible, and I also wanted to make sure that I didn’t get annihilated on any one section. After the CFAI and BSAS mock exams, I made sure to go over all of the problems I missed or felt unsure about. All these efforts paid off, because I ended up doing much better than I expected. In my studying for Level II, I will aim to understand every example and end-of-chapter question in the CFAI textbooks. I know from all the horror stories to take even the CFAI mock exam results with a shaker of salt and not to bother with Q-Bank.
The problem really is the fact that no one knows his/her exact score. If someone managed to get all 10 sections > 70, but failed, I do agree that he/she should complain. Otherwise, I still think that the MPS is <=70.
deep2002 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- Even when > you write the the CFA quizes from their own > website the passing grade they use is always 70%. This is the best argument for the 70% mark. They write “Pass” next to the sections that you score above 70%. I’m hanging on to 70% as the golden standard until either 1) this changes 2) the score buckets change to something like 0-50, 50-80, >80 or 3) someone gets their score back with ALL sections are above 70 and they still fail
this beats ‘i scored 80% on mocks so CFAI must have swapped my answer sheet with someone elses’, bravo!
dspapo - You are right to. On this thread http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?12,1047689 we show the maximum possible score for mp2438 (who passed) was 85/120 or 70.8% This assumes he got the maximum possible marks according to his grid (so on a >70% it assumes he got every question right). We know that 78 failed, and 85 passed. Therefore the pass mark is between 79 and 85.
johnnyblazini Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The CFAI instructs us to aim for a 70% score in > order to “insure” a pass. This seems to have > changed this year, as the 3 question format seems > to have moved the basic score upwards. The only > problem is that CFAI never updated the guidance. > Personally, I would have been ready to score 75 or > 80 if I had been advised. Johnny Blazini, You spelt “ensure” wrong. I think this pretty much sets the tone for the rest of your email to the CFAI. In my opinion your letter doesn’t deserve a response. Your duty on the exam is to try as hard as you can for the highest mark possible. Nowhere does the CFAI instruct you to achieve exactly 70% and in any case why would you want to aim for the lowest possible passing score? Obviously this doesn’t leave enough margin for error and you have failed as a result. Instead of blaming the institute I suggest you open a book and read it. The majority of people here put a lot of time and effort into this exam. I suggest you respect the institution or find a profession that you are more suited to, the fast food industry is always hiring and has few educational requirements. Regards, Level III Candidate
you can study such that you minimize the downside risk of scoring BELOW a 70!!