I was a little surprised at level 3 that two people within my peripheral vision did not turn up for the afternoon session. In fact one of them left early in the AM exam - it was that bad! Even if you were not prepared, just having a go would have added some learning experience for next year.
i was seated at the 1st seat in front of the row. i saw that on average each row had about 5 booklets not disseminated. given that there are about 25 people per row, that’s a huge percentage of no-shows.
I was in the very rear seat in my room and the seat next to me was empty when the test started, I couldn’t have asked for any better environment. But then the person next to me showed up a couple minutes into the test. At least it was a small Asian chick, she didn’t make a peep for 6 hours so it didn’t matter anyways.
In my Level 1 exam, this guy sat next to me and didn’t answer a single question. He just twirled his pencil for 6 hours. I really never understood it… was he employed by CFAI to monitor how proctors were performing, or just some idiot wasting 6 hours of his life???
wilier Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > In my Level 1 exam, this guy sat next to me and > didn’t answer a single question. He just twirled > his pencil for 6 hours. I really never understood > it… was he employed by CFAI to monitor how > proctors were performing, or just some idiot > wasting 6 hours of his life??? it must be the former. i wouldn’t be surprised if CFA had some “spies” at these exams.
wilier Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > In my Level 1 exam, this guy sat next to me and > didn’t answer a single question. He just twirled > his pencil for 6 hours. I really never understood > it… was he employed by CFAI to monitor how > proctors were performing, or just some idiot > wasting 6 hours of his life??? Probably a guy whose job required that he sit for the exam.
wilier Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > In my Level 1 exam, this guy sat next to me and > didn’t answer a single question. He just twirled > his pencil for 6 hours. I really never understood > it… was he employed by CFAI to monitor how > proctors were performing, or just some idiot > wasting 6 hours of his life??? worked for schweser?
Maybe that guy took one for the team and was memorising the questions for people who wrote on Sunday. Next year he gets to write and somebody else takes one for the team. This could be happening every year and nobody knows…
If i had signed up but wasn’t at all prepared I would at least show up to the PM section and say, “wooh, it’s beautiful outside, so what’d I miss? - why do you look so bummed? how bad could the morning session possibly have been?” I wonder what kind of reaction I would have gotten.
No other conspiracy theories for the guy who showed up and didn’t write a single answer for the full 6 hours?
For no shows - do they throw those scores out? Meaning if 5% of the people are no-shows and thus get a 0 - they throw them out of the curve tabulation? I would assume so but at this point, anything is possible. And what if you DO show up and twist your pencil for 6 hours… and put down nothing - that would be a zero much as if you only filled in one or two answers. THese would be in the score calculations. Any ideas on this?
Exams that are not completed i.e only Am not PM are not graded from what I’ve heard . No shows are not in the curve . For the sake of the rest of us i wd hope that ppl that are not prepared wd atleast show up and put down something even if its all guess work , that way it would atleast lower the curve a lil bit for the rest of us . I mean once you’ve paid there are no refunds so you might as well write something down unless u have something drastically more important to do for those 6 hrs . Attempting the exam is a learning experience in itself IMHO .
Rudeboi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Exams that are not completed i.e only Am not PM > are not graded from what I’ve heard . No shows > are not in the curve . For the sake of the rest of > us i wd hope that ppl that are not prepared wd > atleast show up and put down something even if its > all guess work , that way it would atleast lower > the curve a lil bit for the rest of us . I mean > once you’ve paid there are no refunds so you might > as well write something down unless u have > something drastically more important to do for > those 6 hrs . Attempting the exam is a learning > experience in itself IMHO . It’s also better for that person the next year as there would be less people re-writing. Obviously one dude isn’t going to make a difference, but since they say 25% of the people who register don’t even show up, if a bunch of them at least showed up, that could affect things quite a bit.
I tell everybody that feels that they are not prepared to atleast sit through it , if not for the learning experience than as a favour to the rest of us …
Rudeboi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Exams that are not completed i.e only Am not PM > are not graded from what I’ve heard . No shows > are not in the curve . For the sake of the rest of > us i wd hope that ppl that are not prepared wd > atleast show up and put down something even if its > all guess work , that way it would atleast lower > the curve a lil bit for the rest of us . I mean > once you’ve paid there are no refunds so you might > as well write something down unless u have > something drastically more important to do for > those 6 hrs . Attempting the exam is a learning > experience in itself IMHO . It is a fallacy, unprepared candidates who show up won’t move the curve down. CFAI determined the MPS based on 70% of the top 1% scorer instead of determining the passing rate of the pool of attending candidates. No matter how flat the tail is, all you have to do is to get at least 70% of top 1% mark, so you are competing against the top candidates, passing is unrelated to how many people who get zero mark.
Road2CFA Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > It is a fallacy, unprepared candidates who show up > won’t move the curve down. CFAI determined the MPS > based on 70% of the top 1% scorer instead of > determining the passing rate of the pool of > attending candidates. No matter how flat the tail > is, all you have to do is to get at least 70% of > top 1% mark, so you are competing against the top > candidates, passing is unrelated to how many > people who get zero mark. well actually if you read the article on MPS it appears they use the 70% of top 1% as a guide rather than an absolute. my guess is that if the pass rate was significantly lower than prior years based on 70% of 1% they’d take a good look at how many people were near the MPS and probably adjust it down, but what do i know. my guess though is that the % of people showing up for level 3 in particular unprepared probably hasn’t changed much of the years.
Rudeboi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Exams that are not completed i.e only Am not PM > are not graded from what I’ve heard . No shows > are not in the curve . For the sake of the rest of > us i wd hope that ppl that are not prepared wd > atleast show up and put down something even if its > all guess work , that way it would atleast lower > the curve a lil bit for the rest of us . The 70% of the top 1% rule means that lots of people scoring at the very bottom won’t move the MPS down. However, dropping no-shows or non-completes (people in the AM who don’t show for the PM) will introduce survivor bias and bias the passing rates upwards. Most people think of the passing rate as the number of people who signed up who pass, or at least the number of people who show up in the AM that pass. If it’s only the number of people who finish in the PM that pass, then it’s a lower rate overall.
Assume top 1% scored 95% - 70% of that is 66.5% MPS - which is 240 pts out of 360. That’s the threshhold to earn the pass. No shows, incompletes don’t affect that - all who completed the exam must reach the established MPS.
i always see these really high score assumptions for the top 1%. i very much doubt its 95. this stuff is voluminous, and tricky. everyone will miss some stuff.
1 single person may get 95% (unlikely, but possible), however top 1% of test takers is a sizeable group of people, for 15,000 it would be 150 and for that entire group to get 95% each on average is very high improbable, top 1% score is more likely 80-85%