Who are these people and why do that have such control over our future? All it takes is one of them thinking you weren’t looking straight down at your paper to waste months of your life, hundreds (if not thousands) of your dollars, and possibly your reputation.
About 20 minutes after the morning session began one of the two proctors for my section came up to my seat, moved my passport over and wrote something down off of my ticket, and then went to the end of my row and wrote for about 30 seconds. This threw me for a serious mental loop. I started imagining how I would defend myself if she said I was cheating. After a few minutes I was able to move on with the exam, but it was on my mind the entire time.
While checking it after lunch I said to her, “I noticed you wrote something down from my ticket and then made a note. I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?” She said, “Oh no, we’re just supposed to make sure everyone is in the write seat so I did that for everyone.” I was happy to hear that.
Next is was really blew my mind. She said, “So what is this test you all are taking? I know it’s some kind of financial something, but what’s it for?” In my mind I was seriously pissed. I thought, “this girl could have just ruined me by saying I was cheating and she thinks this is just some financial something? She doesn’t realize we all put our lives on hold for months, had dreams about financial statement analysis, and drove hours to get here?” I gave her a generic answer and sat down. The proctors have so much power, why aren’t the required to be current Charterholders?
The cost of employing charterholders is much higher than layman. How did you managed to speak to her? I suppose proctors are not allowed to speak to the candidates unless it is absolutely for the purpose of the exam.
Dunno about your proctors but mine were quite outgoing in Hartford, CT. They’d openly and joke around with you before the exam during check-in. I don’t have a problem with it. It did seem our proctors knew what the exam was about and were happy to see us and wished us well. I would guess they have been involved with the CFA in some capacity before.
I spoke to her while she was looking at my calculator and the guy proctor was checking my ticket and passport as I checked back in after lunch. I took the exam in Charlotte, NC and their were 418 candidates taking the exam there. That’s somewhere around $300,000 in fees the CFAI collected from that one group. I know there are a lot more costs that go into it, but I have a hard time believing they couldn’t have budgeted in an extra $12,500 to pay 25 Charterholders $500 each to be a proctor for the day. That was my only complaint. I’ve read on here before about people receiving letters saying a proctor has accused them of cheating when they say they didn’t (I believe most people taking the time to come to this forum wouldn’t cheat). To think a proctor didn’t even know what the exam is but could make an accusation that would be so detrimental to a candidate just isn’t right.
Agree, but are charterholders experienced enough to handle examination invigilation? Normally, proctors are hired from the local examination authority who has experience in handling various types of examinations. The proctor you met may be just the odd one out who absolutely failed to adhere to CFA Institute instructions.
I was at the hartford exam (A/B section) and the chief proctor kept referring to CFA as CSC when reading off the instructions. I’m thinking, damn, isn’t that a violation of standard VII?
From my exam writing days at one of the monster centers, I got the very strong impression that a handful of CFA charterholders oversaw a group that only had to deal with the mechanics of the day, e.g. check calculator/ID, hand out booklets, watch for signs of rule violations, etc. My guess is that it is a real bear to convince a CFA charterholder to give up not only a Saturday, but also to take on all the associated lead-up and follow-up activities.
CFAI doesn’t have to offer a million things to convince charterholders to give up their time. Why not offer an incentive based system? Forego one year of membership dues. Provide free admission to a special seminar. It wouldn’t be too difficult to convince them if they formally asked. They get charterholders to correct papers, donate time, donate questions, etc. on a regular basis. I also believe that a charterholder would better realize the repercussions of writing a violation report for something as trivial as rolling eyes.
On my exam booklet, it said specifically that proctors would be going around to recheck your passport, seat, and such during the exam. I agreed to it, and signed the booklet. I would assume you had the same booklet, and did the same. So I don’t know why you would be startled about it.
Two major things regarding the proctors bugged me: 1. I brought 2 calculators to the exam, HP 12Cs, with me (I was too paranoid about the battery dying). During the morning session one of the proctors comes to my desk and grabs my spare calculator and starts analyzing it right in front of me even though the calculators had already been screened when I got in. This certainly made me lose my focus for about 2-3 minutes. 2. During the afternoon session the same routine with the calculator occurred (are you kidding me?) and to top things off, 2 hours into the exam I caught the proctors talking to each other and laughing about something, making me lose another 2-3 min. Again, Are you kidding me??? I know 30 more seconds would have made a difference because I went back to a question I found hard but I knew the answer to and didn’t have enough time to finish the problem. Any thoughts?