I feel cheated out of an opportunity

[el_macca17]

@1recho

Conspiracy theory stuff -

does someone in CFAI have an ax to grind against Schweser and other “Cliff Notes” people? The poor Cliff Noters are going to emphasize the core portion of the curriculum, and CFAI does not want to pass candidates who don’t read their textbooks but read the Schweser Notes alone. That’s one reason why the AM paper was so obscure.

Next year, Schweser will try to include the trivia that showed up on this year’s paper and CFAI will keep one move ahead by setting a paper geared towards whatever Schweser did not think was important enough to include. So the Cliff Notes guys could never win.

I did the CFAI for all the levels. They definitely asked a few more obscure concepts to try to eliminate quick-prep studiers. I referenced Schwesers as a quick recap after each chapter to make sure I understood the main concepts, like a knowledge checker and they definitely don’t cover some of the smaller, less emphasized issues. That said, since the EOC’s don’t really question those concepts either, I was at loss for some q’s as well. It’s hard to internalize something like that when there are larger concepts and themes that you can practice and is not just a small paragraph in your notes.

I definitely think they make an exam to counter the quick prep people. It doesn’t do much for the prestige of the charter if people can study 80hrs and get by. Schwesers is pretty good for people who can absorb 100% of what they publish (80% of the CFAI) but not so good for people who can only absorb 70% of that 80%.

[FRMer]

I think the way CFAI works out its exams is quite reasonable - at least from a consistency basis. Consistency doesn’t mean “always the same” though.

Remember back when Ben Graham and other guys tried to set p this professional organization, what they thought about was to have some consistent way of evaluating securities. But everything was evolving since then even including its academic Financial Analyst Journal. During Treynor-the-Editor-In-Chief time, he tried to introduce various new ideas on portfolio management into the journal to enrich the materials. An adapting mind is what a modern financial analyst needs in this era of changing.

I personally find reasing CFAI curriculum is fun, notwithstanding at the beginning, I used notes to just pass the exams. But when I started working in the investment and financial fields, I found it is the grasp of details that differentiate an outstanding analyst from the majority of average ones. These details are not easy to find,not readily present in financial statements released or Bloomberg news. You need to think independently and digest the information to come up with your own unique point.

From that perspective,I don’t see any reason why exams cannot be based on the footnotes. Plus, I believe CFAI still base the majority of the materials on its curriculum.

Hopefully you don’t feel offended by my response!

[yabbadabbadoo]

@1recho

Conspiracy theory stuff -

does someone in CFAI have an ax to grind against Schweser and other “Cliff Notes” people? The poor Cliff Noters are going to emphasize the core portion of the curriculum, and CFAI does not want to pass candidates who don’t read their textbooks but read the Schweser Notes alone. That’s one reason why the AM paper was so obscure.

Next year, Schweser will try to include the trivia that showed up on this year’s paper and CFAI will keep one move ahead by setting a paper geared towards whatever Schweser did not think was important enough to include. So the Cliff Notes guys could never win.

I studied with Schweser and Schweser alone. I kid you not, I can take a picture of the CFAI package still taped up, sitting in the trunk of my car. With that said, I thought the Schweser covered 99% of the topics from both AM and PM.

The only knock on Schweser is that I felt some of their explanations behind the more complex concepts weren’t as thorough as they were in previous years. And even then I just resorted to Google because I was too lazy to pull the CFAI package out of my car lol.