Could The Grinch steal my this year AM session results? Your thoughts are welcome.

CFA Level III
#41

Im going for a retab as well guys even though I think this AM was straight out of h**l fire

#42

Im not going to say its not fair that it was 10 times harder than the 2014 AM session because its not gunna change nothin…

#43

Here is what Retabulation does (copied verbatim from the the cfainstitute website http://www.cfainstitute.org/programs/cfaprogram/exams/Pages/your_exam_result.aspx from Exam Score Retabulation section.)

(Basically, they do make sure that all your answers are graded and awarded a score.)

Essay Retabulation

A CFA Institute staff member pulls your exam book and verifies your candidate number. Each lined answer page and template is reviewed to confirm all responses were graded. We then confirm the scores awarded are accurately reflected in the CFA Institute database.

#44

HG29JP,

I would not do retabulation for higher band scores like 8,9,10 just because CFAI grades all exams that fall into the middle 50% of the distribution scores twice anyway.

#45

I did not find the AM exam so hard, just time consuming; IMO 2013 exam was much harder.

I still remember some of the questions and their answers, especially for Institutional Portfolio Management. I also wrote as many details as it was possible (to get parial points) before making a conclusion or final calculations.

#46

If i don’t get a reasonable answer within a week, then I’ll submit a retabulation request.

#47

Great. Donate them some more money. They did an excellent marketing work; they really deserve it.

#48

In my opinion, there were no tricks nor were there turns in the AM session. What I do know is that the exams were for the most part framed in ways that were substantially different from previous year’s in terms of what was asked for and some new dimensions were added to the question format. This is were things became weird, at least I know it was that way for me.

#49

I agree that there were no tricks in the AM sessions. I am not sure which new dimentions you are mentioning?

#50

Anybody who applied for a retabulation, please share the outcome.

#51

Guys, if you have the same situation like me, please share your details. Maybe we can figure something out.

#52

betran75, I applied for retab and they said they found no errors and results to stay the same. Band 10 with 9 sections under 50% (still hard to believe) and most sections above 70% in the afternoon (including Ethics and two smaller sections in 50-70%). Answering one or two more sub quetions right (or matching their guideline answers) may have pulled me thru. So I asked CFA two questions:１．how does ethics adjustment work exactly. They gave some very politically correct answer and won’t disclose any detail. Personally I think the way they explain it is very subjective and I think they should disclose exactly how they do it. 2. I think there was a thread for this but I also asked to have them release AM answers sooner. It makes no sense for them to wait till December. There is no one single valid reason for them to do so. I don’t know anything is going to change but I can’t wait to see how they grade the AM section but I am afraid that i won’t remember anything by December. May try to call CFA and ask if it is ok to discuss AM before they disclose the results. I am going to try to recall as much as I can in the meantime.

I asked in the e-mails that they raise these issues to appropriate people in the organization for them to consider in the future. Let me know how your interactions with CFA have been.

#53

I think you are really smart and hardworking, but you have not passed the exam. It is a matter of time.

#54

agreed. I failed in 2013 … band 7 - when i virtually practiced no AM sesson. Passed this year - i did about 3 AM sessons. It is mostly about bit more practice and figuring out to read questions carefully. I foud that, lot of times - my brain has been trained to read certain things certain way - practicing 3 actual AM sesson, 2 mock PM, and bunch of QBanks - helped me learn the materails better, and understnad the mistakes i was making.

Give you an example - I see a tax rate in any questions, my head immediately gets a trigger - after i compute required return, i must divide by (1-t) to get the final result by taking tax into account … without payint attention whether it was asking pre or post tax!! Few practicie problem & actually matching my answer to actual answer- got rid of that bad habit. These are what i think people calls “trick” question, but in reality you just need to be more familiar with materials - and nothing like solving practice problems to do that.

#55

This might be my personal opinion, i think this time morning test was graded more harsly than previous years.

from what i see the median in the morning is less than 50%. I thought i did very well in the morning and screwed up in the afternoon. I got more than 70% most of the topics int he evening, only got 5 above 50 and rest below 50 in the morning.

#56

So sorry, Couple of my friends and I got around 61%. we all passed. Curiouss to see your matrix.

#57

More EOC/BB and you will pass next year. Good luck

#58

The exam was fair, the grading is fair, and their process is sound. Its annoying to hear you guys complain about poor grading and tricks in the exam and not take any responsibility, and even more so to hear you guys regurgitate this crap to someone looking for real advice.

As to the OP, it does sound like you are genuinely looking for advice and do take responsibility, so here are some tips I can suggest for the AM section:

  • 2015 was the first year of the exam where they explicitly stated you cannot rephrase parts of the question in the answer. I was extra careful around anything I used in my answer that was also in the question, making sure to explain my thoughts around it, to prove I wasn’t just copying. Make sure you aren’t getting docked here.

  • Don’t ‘hedge’ your answers. That is, pick 1 side and stick with it, don’t write answers that contradict each other. It is known that if you give contradicting answers, they give you a 0, because they take it as you not knowing the correct answer.

  • Make sure you understand the minutes to points conversion. If a question is 6 minutes, know how many points you are attempting for here, and make sure you are providing JUST enough answers to get those points, as anything extra will be ignored.

  • Show your calculations, steps, and calculator inputs. If you screw up mid way through a calculation and you don’t show your work, the marker can’t give you partial credit for having a fat finger, and will have to give you a 0.

  • Understand the different command words like justify, explain, calculate, and get used to the response style CFAI is looking for. Going through past exams and paying extra attention to these minor details will help you frame your answers more inline with their expectations. Don’t bother wasting time on words if they use ‘calculate’ for example.

  • Be harsher when marking practice exams. Unless you were 100% bang on with the CFAI guideline answer, give yourself a 0 for that part. This happens a lot when you have the correct answer, but explained yourself very poorly.

  • Study more! Don’t get down on a fail, take it as a learning opportunity to improve your process, and execute on that improved process.