ABC is a tuition provider for CFA Level 3 exam and they provide a video instruction series covering all the topics. Mr. X, CFA is a teacher who teaches GIPS in those videos.
During the lecture videos, he mentions that a particular topic was on the CFA Level 3 exam in all of the last three years. He goes on to mention that the topic was tested 10 years ago when he took his exam and also that during the past 15 years, it has been tested exactly 8 times.
Is Mr. X in violation of Ethics Code of Conduct or SOPH?
I don’t think there’s a violation here. You’re only not allowed to disclose questions immediately after taking the exam I believe. Once the results are out, you will be able to find the exact exam paper on the CFAI website soon enough I think - they already have actual past exams on there already, so whether a question has appeared or not would be common knowledge.
not sure where you are headed asking a question like this. (you are not going to get a straight answer to this one). what gets asked / does not get asked in the CFA exam cannot be discussed. Mentioning that a topic is important, and to stress its importance stating that it has been asked in 3/10/20 years - does not really seem to be a violation. but if it really is, I got a starting score of -1 on my ethics, (and this I would not even know if I got my scores back) which I will try to make up in the result of the curriculum. and
Yeah you’re right actually. This is what I was referring to if anyone’s interested: http://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprogram/courseofstudy/samples/Pages/index.aspx I’d go with what CPK has to say. In fact, if you go through Schweser notes, they always mention (usually at the start of a topic review) how important the topic is and how often it gets tested and what the chances are of it being tested.
I think it works like this: nothing about past exams may be disclosed, including subjects that appeared or did not appear on the actual exams, or actual topic weights, unless the exam or questions have been released by CFAI. Practically, this refers to the 3 published past morning papers from CFA L3, and past questions appearing as examples or end-of-chapter problems in the books. Nothing else. Schweser instructors for L3 have mentioned topics that were tested in the past, in general terms (“life insurance tends to be tested every 3 years, was the subject of a whole question in 2xxx”), stating they were not allowed to discuss the questions in detail because the exams were too old (outside this 3 year frame).
If information is public there is no violation. If it isn’t then materiality must be decided. A statement saying a question from certain topic appeared in last year exam is more material than a statement saying a question from certain topic appeared 5 years ago. Subjective.