The only true way to have an edge is to have some braniac in china take the test and memorize the answer key and they call you after their exam. then you go in with that answer key memorized… highly unlikely
If someone calls you with info on some test questions, I think the edge would be extremely marginal.
First of all, lets realize that about 99.9% of people aren’t going to be able to take advantage of this kind of situation. You’d have to have a trusted person on the other side of the world that would be a willing accomplice. That person also has to be someone who is interested in getting the CFA charter and has put in the hours to study for it, otherwise how would they be able to tell you what’s going to be on the exam?
Second of all, all you’re going to get from this accomplice is subjects, not answers. Do you honestly think someone’s going to memorize 120 multiple choice answers? And what if the person got them wrong anyway?
Lastly, so what if the person knows what topics are on the exam? With just a few hours to go, is that going to really be of that much help to you? Are you going to suddenly understand pension accounting, or how to do triangular arbitrage, or how to value a fixed for floating swap?
There are, incidentally, also tests that occur on Fridays or Sundays due to religious issues (the Sabbath). Same situation here pretty much.
As with all controls, its gotta be worth the cost. Okay, so maybe a handful of people will get some marginal advantage. But that doesn’t guarantee you that 1) they’ll pass anyway, or 2) they will pass regardless of whether they get the beneficial information or not.
If you had gotten that information a week in advance, then it’d be a different story.
^ cheating still gives people a significant advantage though. someone on the other side can say: you need to know X formula, or Y formula. and how to calc Z. let’s say 1/3 of the tips are useful (something you were hazy on).
If they tipped you off on 15 topic areas, you reviewed 5 of them… that’s about 4% of the exam you may have gained.
or take it a step further… of those 5 questions, you would have successfully guessed right on 1 question… so your real gain is 3%…
still a very material gain. considering the bands 8-10 are extremely narrow ranges.
They don’t. If you don’t cheat, you won’t pass. I know I hired a personal assistant in India just for this reason. You guys didn’t? C’mon now. . .
Funny story - I did a masters program at a school with a large international population. For the GRE and GMAT, they do exactly this, except they diseminate the questions via private chatrooms. Further, its not just a few…but rather its the majority of Chinese and South Korean graduate student population engaging in this sort of stuff.
Its likely happening for the CFA exams as well.
I remrember the GRE was compromised this way in China, they menorize the questions and was able to reconstruct the whole question bank, the GRE was stopped a few months in China test centers because of this
Americans are waaay to honest and dont realize how rampant cheating is in some parts of the world especially China.
Id be willing to guarantee there are rings setup in China where each person is sent in to memorize a certain number of questions each and then relay them to other Chinese test takers in America.
For CFA Institue not to account for this in some way is criminal imho.
Hm, if someone cheated on the GMAT that would be very difficult because its a computer based test and the test throws different questions at you depending on how well you are doing.
I suppose someone could cheat like that on the CFA, but I still think the benefit is marginal and the hassle is pretty big.
There has to be an incentive for the person transmitting the information (after all, they’re not getting anything out of it and they’re putting their charter on the line), and that person has to be sophisticated enough to understand the exam material pretty well (as in someone who is very likely to pass). You can’t just get some local joe to do this, it would take a lot of searching for something so specific like the CFA.
Someone who knows the material well enough to pass (and thus provide credible ‘help’) will probably be a bit scared of getting caught down the line and would think twice before agreeing to this.
Even if it happened, given the constraints you are facing in such a situation maybe you could have an advantage with a few questions here and there, but I doubt it would be significant enough to alter your result unless you were truly borderline. People who are prone to cheat are usually those who are poorly prepared.
It would be a different matter if you had a whole day or two to process the information, and if it didn’t take a sophisticated test taker to be an accomplice who would have a lot to lose if they got caught. After all, someone who spends 300 hrs (and if we’re talking level II, 300 hrs plus the 300 you spent on level 1) doesn’t want to see it go down the toilet.
Sure, maybe some jerks out there are getting away with this stuff anyway. But I’m sure there are a very small fraction of test takers. Besides, they may get away with cheating now, but they sure as hell won’t be able to do it once they get the job.