Perhaps the reason is that you write too much for a single question and that will definitely decrease your score. For me, I write one sentence for any 2 minutes. And get AM 70+.
so i guess the CFAI cant ‘Thanos’ you this time around 
…(see your quote below)
“I went for the head”
My results are similar. I got 80% in item exam and around %30 in written exam. If purpose of the exam is to measure the knowledge, how could it be possible to get two distinctively different scores for two parts of the exam of which purposes are to measure the same knowledge?
I understand that they don’t want to give CFA title to everyone, but grading of written exam part is too subjective. Moreover, there is a raise in exam fee.
I am not regretful to have enrolled to the program, I learned a lot. But I don’t register for this year’s exam, I lost my faith in its ethical aspect.
I too am pissed, with myself. Although I could not attempt c.35 points (c.20%) in the AM session, whatever I wrote came from the understanding/knowledge of the study material. Also, my handwriting is fairly decent (although might have gotten a bit bad at the end of the session). I am fairly sure that I was mostly correct with my answers. However, the results paint a very different picture showing just <40%. I wonder how’s that possible! Does this mean that I was awarded 1/2 a point for every point written? Many of the answers (calculations especially) should have hit bull’s eye, but here I am having “not passed” L3.
PM session was >70% but wasn’t enough to compensate for the AM debacle.
On reading many posts I feel that the institute was quite hard/strict on assessing the AM session, or may be we “did not pass” candidates made some collective errors!
Hi,
Long time lurker, first time poster.
This year was my second attempt (1st attempt was written off a month before). Failed today, based on colleagues who passed we reckon margin was 1%. Morning paper pulled me down (forgot 3 formulas, ultimately proved the difference). >70% on afternoon paper.
I think on reflection I will start earlier (September as opposed January) and engage a grading service for 2020.
I heard Stuart Lancaster (Former England Rugby Head Coach) speak at a conference earlier this year. He quoted basketball coach Tony Bennett, “If you learn to use it right, the adversity, it will buy you a ticket to a place you couldn’t gone any other way.” Appropriate in these circumstances.
Time to dust ourselves off and go again but this time leaving no room for doubt. Congratulations to those that passed.
IMO there is very little if any subjectivity in the grading process. You need to know keywords and main ideas, and be able to explain them as they do in the curriculum. That’s it. Your handwriting has nothing to do with it- the content of your essay does.
This year’s paper was weirdly formula-based though. Kind of a weird essay
@AllanC: Hang in there buddy. I cleared L3 this time. My strategy revolved around focussing on areas that had a higher weight. I knew I would not be able to complete the entire syllabus given my job timings and my procrastination. So I tried to master few areas like Individual IPS, Institutional IPS, Behavioral, Fixed Income, Equity etc (broadly all those sections that had a 15% or higher weight). Then i religiously followed this forum along with few others wherein discussions around pin point answers, command words etc were held. I tried to put that into practice in my previous year mocks (not the actual CFAI mock test) and fine tuned my approach. Luckily, the question/weight distribution in the actual exam was favorable. So things worked for me.
Merhaba Isilcan,
First of all, I feel your pain here. Passed L1 and L2 on first attempt consecutively, and failed like you L3 right below the MPS.
Kudos for your score on the PM session. I wish I had scored similarly because I would have passed.
Unfortunately, PM score came as a surprise to me. I scored about 61% whereas I scored always above 70% in Mocks. This is where I failed because I was expecting a high score to cover an expected lower AM score (scored 50%).
I believe the trick of the L3 is that you actually have to prepare for 2 exams in 1. Though they cover the same topics, they are significantly different in how they test them. It is no surprise that many of us scored differently in these 2 sessions.
I personally believe AM grading is fair as long as you know the rules. They expect to answer one way and not the other. Many people get external support ot third party providers who tell you how to « trick » to get the points (I didn’t).
Looking at the scores of people who have failed, I see so many people having failed right below the MPS which tells me that it is not by chance. CFAI wants it to be hard to earn the charter and probably lessening the MPS by 3-4 points may drastically increase the pass rate.
I have the same feeling as you right now. I am grateful for the journey as I learned a lot. However, I see no point of killing immediately another year, skipping personal things, and getting additional workload and stress besides the job, for a title that most people around me do not understand what it is, and that would not be valued at my job to get promotion for example.
Despite hesitations about sacrificing another year, I enrolled in L3 in the thinking that after passing L1 and L2 I was way too close not to spend a few months to get the job done. Right now, I am questioning my choice because it turned out the exam was significantly harder for me than the previous ones. This has to be done with the topics tested which I am not familiar with and not related to my job. Unlike the previous 2 levels, I didn’t enjoy preparing the exam. And despite I put a ton of work there (more than the previous levels), I still failed.
This basically means that it was impossible for me to get it in one go, and I would still need another year of studies to get it done. I don’t want that for now as I don’t need it professionally (it is just an ego question). I decide to give it a pause and may try my luck again in next couple of years if I really need this certification for job prospects or have free time for example in between jobs.
I fully adhere to your decision. No need to give CFAI extra money (even if you pass you would have to pay fees every year), if you don’t get superior benefit from getting the charter, else than adding 3 letters to your name on LinkedIn.
Last but not least, kudos to those who passed L3 , particularly those who did 3/3. It is a tremendous achievement. I thought I would be able to make it but I didn’t.
Exactly.
Balancing between AM & PM preparation.
Hello Merseyside47,
Actually we are saying the same thing. It is not about knowledge, it is about exam strategy. If one person can get 80% in item exam, unless there is an important incident during AM section, he/she should get at least 50% in written exam. All these Marc etc sources are advised for getting AM exam strategy. Why do I need to master these strategies? For example, if the test purpose is to measure my iq, one part gives result saying that my intelligence level is above average, other is saying that my intelligence level is at the bottom of the society. And these two tests are made by the same institution. It is not logical.
Thank you for your support. Although I am close to MPS line and believe that I would probably pass in 2020 exam, I see exam fee as wasted money now.
MY MAN!!!
Dear OP (and anyone else considering quitting): Don’t. We don’t fucking do that quit shit up in here! I know it sucks, and you’ve just been kicked in the nuts hard. But, reload, take a deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep breath, and take this as a lesson that sometimes you just don’t get what you want. I failed L2 in band 10 in 2017. It was the most ball busting thing I ever had to do to keep going. You need to study BETTER, not necessarily “more” - I’m sure you studied your ass off. There is a very specific way to answer these questions. I recommend you consult with the genius Nathan Ronen at www.chalkandboard.org - HE WILL SET YOU STRAIGHT. And if you’re asking yourself “Why should I pay $1,000.00 for a study course”, then I ask you this. . What hurts more, spending a thousand bucks, or having to redo the L3 exam?
Isilcan, your IQ is fine and is most probably above average. CFAI does not test your IQ nor they test your mastering the content, they want you to master the test. I known it is frustrating but it is just the way it is.
If I retake it, I will spend money on a third party provider to help me ace the answers to AM. The bad thing here is that CFAI lures people like me who See the opportunity of getting a designation by self-studying for a cheap price but more and more it feels to me like without the help of expensive insiders who guide you through the rules of the game, it is much harder to succeed (though not impossible).
Master taking the test is the key. You can pass the exam without really understanding the content as thoroughly as you should, the key is you understand enough to recognise what the question is asking, and what is the answer they are looking for. This is not the idea of the CFA curriculum for sure, but I’m just saying it is possible to pass exams this way.
@Merseyside47 I don’t say CFAI measures my IQ, what I say is that if two parts of an exam is to measure the same thing, they shouldn’t give two distinctively results. I gave IQ test as an example. In CFAI situation, the purpose is to measure the knowledge of L3 curriculum. However, when I look my result, one part says I am far above average, other part says I am far below average. Are all my weak points related to curriculum gather in AM section? What a coincidence is that? I think these type of results are not reasonable. It is not related to knowledge, it is related to the exam types. Maybe item test is not strong enough to measure someone’s knowledge, or written test is too subjective.
This. If you didn’t pass, you simply were not prepared. It definitely is helpful to see what other people did to pass, as there are plenty of retakers or people who nailed it on the 2nd attempt.
I personally think the grading is a waste of money. I paid 800 USD for two graded exams in 2018 and I scored 50-60% on both. Come exam day I scored less than 10% on the morning. The difference for me this year was that I did all of the past morning exams from 2005 at least 2x. I started that end of April. Scored myself on each subject and kept track. Refocused on the low scoring subjects. Hit behavioral hard. IPS I did at least 5x. You start to notice guideline answers have the same cadence and bullets within subjects. I just wrote those phrases in a black book for each topic and eventually you end up just knowing that shit by heart.
All of the above is easier if you enroll in LevelUp because Marc Lefevre tells you exactly which essays are still relevant and which ones are misleading and have been trashed by institute.
For AM done bullet points and block capitals. To be fair have done block capitals in exams for a lone time since my handwriting is horrendous!
I second this. I failed miserably last year. Just let anxiety get the best of me. This year, I used Kaplan and the CFAI material but a friend recommended to go to one of Marc’s LevelUp Bootcamps and that really opened my eyes. I realized I’d be prepping the AM all wrong and that Kaplan takes a SHIT load of shortcuts.
Maybe it was a combination of year-over-year retention, CFAI review, and the Bootcamp, but the big differential for me from last year was LevelUp. Go see Marc…
This is my problem. The AM session is already tainted by human error in marking. Guideline answers dont represent what a an actual human can write in that time. I’ll write again in 2020 but in hindsight I’d recommend people do a masters than endure this subjective torture. I scored 80% in that PM session, I know my material. Failing because I didnt master some opaque exam technique is killing me.