hot dog, you are right. The CFAI should force everyone to take the exam completely in the nude. After all someone could hide a cheat sheet somewhere.
And then force everyone to wear horse blinders like this
or if that’s too expensive, do this
For a moment there I thought that you were going to suggest something that was undignified.
Hey Bill,
have you heard of anyone having their pcp investigation/conviction get overturned?
thanks
Nope.
They are being paid close to $1000 per test (or some neighborhood of that anyways) to administer the exam, and I would expect them to have safeguards in place against cheating. If similarity analysis is the only thing they have, but cannot prove who cheated (or *if* someone cheated), then they cannot punish either candidate.
Luckily I am not involved in this, but if I ever get a letter of this type, I will sue the CFAI into the ground.
What you would expect isn’t at issue here.
What’s at issue is whether they are being paid to identify cheaters.
Are they?
The fact is, they can, and they do.
Respectfully, you’ll lose.
They are being paid to proctor exams, and part of that *is* to identify cheaters. I’ve been on the other side of that desk, I’m fully aware of the responsibilities of the job.
Regarding the legality of this, I would be interested to see any previous cases that were actually taken to court over false positives of cheating. You can say that you believe I would lose, but (correct me if I am wrong) you are not an attorney; therefore, respectfully, I am going to disregard your assessment of one’s ability to prevail in such situations. Furthermore, you likely have no idea the results of these kind of issues (should they go to court) since settlements in such cases usually have a non-disclosure agreement.
Incidentally, should this go to court, the plaintiff would be entitled to (by way of discovery) any and all documentation in the CFAI possession and/or control that supports their defense that the plaintiff did, in fact, cheat; that would likely include (in addition to the similarity analysis) the actual scantrons and all graded material. Not sure if that’s a direction CFAI would want to do if faced with a sufficiently motivated plaintiff. (And should they refuse to provide that documentation, I will file a motion to shift the burden of proof).
I do agree that this would be a gigantic pain in the ass, and if someone *did* cheat, it would be a complete waste of time to prove. But if I am wrongly accused of cheating, I will make this an absolute nightmare for them.
Again dear S2000. They are not being paid to caught the cheaters per se, they are being paid for exam administration. Ensuring a level playing field for all clients is the most crucial part of the process called “exam administration”. To ensure a level playing field, cheaters must be punished and non cheaters must not. End of Story and I rest my case.
Its true that they can punish non cheaters. What they can is not what we are discussing here. What they should is the point.
I agree that anybody filing claims against CFAI will just waste his/her money. Lawyers will love that.
WOW this is great! If any of you do sue sue CFAI, PLEASE TELL US the district, court and docket # you are suing in. I’ve got to follow that case. Heck if it’s local, I’ll attend the hearing even. I’ll be the one grinning in the front row
So let’s just say, totally hypothetically, that the following situation occurs:
Candidate A - diligently prepares for CFA exam, takes exam following all rules, does well enough to pass
Candidate B - somehow copies off A without proctors noticing even though A has his exam sheet directly in front of him the entire time
Similarity anaylsis is run. Both candidates face PCP and have their exam results voided.
Charterholders’ response to this is: “tough break buddy, hopefully you can try again next year” or just flat out mocking?
Something tells me if this happened to one of you you’d be singing a different tune.
I don’t think it’s a waste if you are truly innocent (even if you ultimately do lose).
Thanks everyone for your input. I just realized from reading the posts that CFAI didn’t have security cameras?! I kinda remember at the test center the proctor said something about the entire test center was under monitor. So I thought when they said they will go through exam materials, they would go through the security footage…Then they would know that the only times I raised my head were to check the time the proctor posted…
I guess the best thing I can do now is to cooperate and prepare for the worst (permanant ban)…
I doubt a similarity analysis will result in a permanent ban. As I said before, the fact that none of the invigilators reported you looking at anyone else’s paper should work in your favor.
I know that was for the OP and not for me, but thanks for posting. Very interesting read.
Cute comments. To be young and idealistic. I’ll bring the popcorn. It will be entertaining to watch somebody grow up more during a few day court preceding than they did in the previous twenty years.
Cute comment yourself, as I’m neither young nor idealistic. I have a great deal more experience in these kinds of matters than you are giving me credit for, and if anything, working in academia broke me of believing in the honesty of students years ago (95% of them are cheaters as far as I’m concerned). But that doesn’t mean that an innocent individual should just roll over and accept punishment for something they didn’t do.
On that point, that same experience working on the other side of that desk taught me that there is *always* legal recourse and that it is not as one-sided as all you posters would like to believe. Students that we have dead to rights for cheating get off far more often than you’d care to believe, and in cases I was involved in we certainly had more evidence than similarity analysis. And universities have far more money at their disposal than the CFAI. So if you get a sufficiently motivated individual (which I expect a falsely accused candidate to be) that has the money to initiate litigation, I think you will all be in for a surprise.
The condescending crap that people fling on this forum is embarrassing, especially when someone is going through an obviously difficult experience like this.
“To be young and idealistic.” Give me a f’ing break.
Honestly, as wlfgngpck said, I would roll over and agree to co-operate against the other accused. Cut a deal, accept a plea for anything less than 10 years federal prison. By the time you get out, it is highly likely that the latest financial engineering marvels will have led to massive economic devastation, triggering desperate wars for real resources, at which point you will no longer need to study for the charter.
I dont agree with the comments from S2000. It would do nothing for CFA’s standing if it were to enact serious sanctions on a potentially innocent candidate without a strong basis. Whatever statistical test they use, it may potentially suffer from both the possibility that it is only pointing out a rare event or, alternatively, being unable to strongly indicate the offending party.
I concede that more would need to be known about the basis on which the Institute is examining you, but if it is doing so on the basis of a procedure that cannot reasonably pinpoint a guilty party then we should all be disappointed with CFAI, in my (very important) opinion.