There could be three MPS hurdles…one for each half of the exam and a superseding overall exam MPS that’s much higher than the individual hurdles. For example (one year), AM is 64%, PM is 67% and you must pass both halves to pass the exam. If you pass both of these, you’re in the clear. However, if you fail one of the halves you must have an overall score in excess of 80% to pass… We just won’t know, so speculating is just for kicks…
Pick a mark and everyone scores above that passes while the remaining fails.
I honestly dont think CFAI wants to make things more complicated than that, given 164,000 people took the exam. “Ethics adjustments” & other urban myths are just cool stories which would increase unnecessary grading costs & rate of error if were true.
I’m not entirely convinced the exams are graded on a curve as the passing rate fluctuates year to year, some years very wildly. It’s possible that the passing mark has been the same through out the years and more ppl pass when the exams are easy.
Anyways, forget about MPS/grading process, it’s not within your control. If you had put in hard work and scored as many points as possible on exam day, just relax and enjoy the summer; otherwise, better start making a better study plan for next year. =)
^ +1
I agree with everything here, except your point about the ethics adjustment. ethics adjustment is real. This quote is from the CFAI website’s FAQ section (link here: http://www.cfainstitute.org/utility/faq/Pages/index.aspx):
What is the “ethics adjustment”?
The Board of Governors instituted a policy to place particular emphasis on ethics. Starting with the 1996 exams, the performance on the ethics section became a factor in the pass/fail decision for candidates whose total scores bordered the minimum passing score. The ethics adjustment can have a positive or negative impact on these candidates’ final results.
CFA Institute has a policy of not releasing either the minimum passing score or individual candidate scores. Consequently, CFA Institute does not release specific information about the ethics adjustment or the candidates who were affected. The adjustment has had a net positive effect on candidate scores (and thus pass rates) in most exam sessions. The published pass rates always take into account the ethics adjustment for borderline candidates.
The problem with the ethics adjustment is that it’s pure luck get 90%-100%
So Ethics adjustment is true.
I REALLY REALLY hope that I’m not boarderline and need to rely on Ethics to pass.
For all we know, they consider the >70% band to be “good enough” for an upward adjustment. Personally, though, I think that might be stretching it, but I can more likely see 80% or better as an upward adjustment based on Ethics.
I’m not sure it’s Ethical to require a 80% or better score for an ethics adjustment --meaning you have to do 5/6 and 5/6 on both random item sets, 83.3%. Their ethic questions have gotten more obscured and purposely elusive that you can’t even judge someone’s understanding of CFAI ethics based on them. Especially on just 12 questions.
Maybe each year there is a new MPS for the Ethics Adjustment depending on how stupid/legitimate they made it each year.
CFAI makes millions and millions off us (without any check or balance) so I don’t think they would care about making it more complex to play God. #IllusionOfControl
How do you even know those results are genuine?
Yeah, there’s a huge incentive to lie.
I doubt that there will be different MPS for different regions. Only explanation I can think of is the person who failed might have left the sections unattempted in which he scored less than 50% and the person who passed might have scored well in the sections he scored under 50%.
2014 same year, source AnalystForum.