Is it true if you fail ethics you fail the exam?

Someone told me that it doesn’t matter if you get >70 on the other sections, but if you have >70 on ethics, the exam is an automatic fail…is that true?

no… my coworker got the lowest category in ethics and the highest in everything else… in both L1 and L2! now she’s writing L3 in june. however, don’t try to fail ethics… it’s the best safety net, very useful if you work in cap mkts, and it will come and haunt you until/if you get your charter!

Ethics is a big portion of the exam. If you’re borderline pass/fail, they’ll look at how well you did in Ethics to determine whether you pass or not.

http://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprog/faq/faqs_candidates.html##36 What is the “ethics adjustment”? The Board of Governors instituted a policy many years ago 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 pass score. 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 therefore always take into account the ethics adjustment for borderline candidates.

brafique Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Someone told me that it doesn’t matter if you get > >70 on the other sections, but if you have >70 on > ethics, the exam is an automatic fail…is that > true? I’m not sure, but I would say you can fail ethics and still pass. However, requiring a 70%+ is garbage, as I’ve seen peoples scores where it says, PASS, and then Ethics 50-70%.

if you are on the bubble and you fail ethics, plan on taking level 1 again in dec. 09

The bubble is rumored to be an upward adjustment of exam marks from FAIL to PASS within a certain variance. Not sure about the validity here, but CFA has a lot of statements issuing the importance of ethics and so on. I would say it is a fundamental portion of the exam and something you shouldn’t take for granted. I was scoring 90%+ on the hardest level of QBANK in ethics. I then took a CFAI mock and scored low 70s. Don’t underestimate it, but don’t dump to much resources at the expense of FRA, Quant or another sizable topic area you may be deficient in.

Thanks guys. I’ve been doing a lot of ethics and my score has improved lately. Another question though: are the two halves of the exam graded seperately or as one whole sum? In other words, if the passing grade is 70%, do you need 70% on each of the two sections, or just 70% overall?

The goal is to get above 70% in each section, although it is not required for you to get above 70% in any one particular session. With that being said, I don’t see how you would pass without above 70% in FRA. I am sure it’s possible, but it seems highly unlikely given its weight. The two half’s are combined, and there is not set passing grade. You can score high on section 1 and low on section 2 and still pass, even though both aren’t above the 70% threshold.