I for one really hope someone from CFAI is reading these postings, because I think they need to review their PCI policies and procedures. Let them see what it’s like when someone who had no intention of cheating or ‘giving the appearance of cheating’ has to go through total hell because of an inadequately designed monitoring system and extremely drawn out fact finding process which appears to be biased against candidates. Whatsmore, it doesn’t even make whole those who have been falsely accused.
We have to remember that the code and standards do not forbid us from criticising the CFAI, and criticism is what drives organizations to change. The CFAI should want to reward honest candidates and punish guilty ones while minimizing type I and type II errors. There has to be a way to prevent incendents such as Andreason’s from occuring again, and the answer is not to force candidates to be more fearful of picking up their eyes from the paper for a minute during a gruelling 3 hour period.
CFAI needs to cut the BS on “glancing” allegations, it’s too arbitrary both in the definition and the enforcement through potentially incompetent proctors.
CFAI needs to get real-- these incidents should only be enforced if their is hard evidence through similarity analysis. The idea of relying on proctors who are at the bottom of the intellectual foodchain to decide who’s cheating is grossly proposterous.
Or how about prevention? Single testor per table or alternate exam forms? Every test I’ve asked to be seated at an empty table and have been turned down. Next time I’m taking a written request and ask the proctor to sign that they denied the request.
After reading what happened to these people with PCP investigations, i am so glad i never had to go through that, but then again, i honestly don’t remember ever having time to even look outside of my page.
it is really annoying when some jerk is shaking the desk while you are trying to fill in those tiny little circles. What a stupidity! Unbelievable. make separate desks 8=> no issues at all.
I hope the CFAI is reading this forum, and making the most of it.
I was writing the chartered accountant exams and never ever there was such nonsence as two people at one desk. And going further back, never ever in my life I wrote an exam with two people at one desk. Moreover some of them (CA exams) were recorded on multiple cameras and there were NO proctors at all. Can you imagine the UK being ahead of the fking US?
Welcome to CFA. American efficiencies all over. Isn’t 1,5k of my bloody money enough to make a separate desk for each candidate?
Yeah, I agree. The CFAI really has a stupid process for these things in my opinion. It kinda reminds me of when someone goes to HR and claims sexual harassment. You are guilty until basically shunned out of the company. Same here. Even if they have a very lose and hard to prove report alleging the “possibility” that you were cheating they take a almost the entire year to give a decision and then usually just make you retake the damn thing.
It’s not really fair. But I guess they make a few sacrificial lambs in order to keep the rest of us straight.
I don’t know why they can’t come up with simple dividers that you could prop up on your desk if they can’t provide you with your own table. But yeah. Whatever.
Still, I stand by my original statement that if you can help it, don’t take the test in the United States or any Germanic country. The exam security is Naziesque.
If your PCP report literally says you looked at least 10 times with 5-10 secs each time, you are done. That’s horrendously bad to have written on the report. Voiding of results with warning is the absolute best result you can pray for, but I find that chance at 1% for you. I’m pretty certain you will be banned for multiple years at the very least.
Remember these proctor’s are hired to full-time watch people. Their word has a lot of weight. Even if your vision is bad as you say, you don’t have any evidence you didn’t wear contacts.
All those letters from teachers/charterholders/etc won’t do much for you. The focus isn’t on you as a person on a regular basis, but the events of those 6 hours, and the report is damning bad. It’s your word vs. those of two people who’s only job is to watch you. A doctor letter won’t help either, anyone can get contacts at any doctor’s office, pay cash, and have no record at all.
Look, if you innocent, it really sucks. But this is how it is. To earn the charter, you have to go through this tough process (both the material AND the harsh testing environment)
People will probably flame me for this negative post, but look at the stats yourself. The results are grim for anyone challenging the PCP.
on the matter of cheating glancing, I don’t get why they don’t simply stagger test takers!
if the person to your left/right are taking different levels, then there’s no chance of you cheating! The separate tables crap wouldn’t even matter anymore. Who decided to have sections where everyone next to you is taking the same level? Jeez
Writing with pencil makes noise I admit, but pen barely makes any noise. And CFAI already requests people to use Pen.
CPA exams had spaced seating and alternate forms, so cheating by glancing was virtually impossible… no shaking tables, elbow rubbing, or calculator clicks disturbing one’s concentration.
You can also take the CPA exam 270 days out of the year (in Texas. Each state is different.). CFA exam is only given once per year. Very different animal.
i took it back in the pencil/paper days when it was given 2x/yr, and the Accountancy Board still took all the precautions of spacing participants out and using alternate test forms, but you’re right, now it’s given on computer at Prometric (in Calif) in a 9 month testing window. Test takers sit in cubes that are videotaped, and before entering the test room, participants are virtually strip-searched.
Although there are not equal numbers of candidates for each level to make this totally work but any solution is better than the handful (that we hear of at least) who get dinged by overachieving procters.
Problem is, this shit wouldn’t work in December. Best way is to give us solo desks, with enough space between each aisle.
To take it a step further, give out alternate versions of the exam to people around you. So you could still have L1/L2/L3 in their own sections, making logistics much easier. However, the mapping would be something like this:
L1A L1B L1C
L1B L1C L1A
L1A L1B L1C
You don’t even have to have any more secrets around the process. Just let it be known publicly that there’re three (or however many) versions of the exam, so there’s no point in even copying. As far as producing different versions goes, you can simply shuffle questions between each version, without going through the pain of actually generating new exams altogather.
To foolproof the process, start recording the exams.
Oh, and if you need more money, increase the god damn fees. I’m OK with it.
I have heard of cases where doctor’s notes and character references have helped exonerate people from such accusations.
The entire situation is just RIDICULOUS. If you really wanted to cheat, would you be dumb enough to look at someone else’s paper? I mean are we in the tenth grade here? Especially since we’re talking a level III candidate that has so much to lose for doing something like that.
I understand being more stringent about level I where you may get some college sophmores who think they can get away with the stuff they did in high school. But most level III people have solid work experience and many have masters degrees. You can’t get that far by cheating your entire way through it. People who’ve gotten that far have learned to sweat for it. Sure, someone could suddenly say ‘hey, let me see if I can get away with this’, but I’d say that would be extraordinarily unusual because it would indicate incredibly foolish judgement.
Worst of all, the evidence shows no simularities in responses. That tells me that your main crime was making eye contact away from your exam book. If that were the case, CFAI should make it clear that candidates ‘shall not make eye contact with anything outside of their exam booklet, shall not raise their head, make eye contact with a proctor, or in any way look more than 45 degrees away from the exam booklet’.
What is also false is that the proctors can be relied on to be objective because they have nothing at stake. Baloney. There is something called job security. If I hire you as a proctor and you tell me you never caught anyone cheating ever, I’m going to start thinking that you might not be doing your job. Maybe you’re good at checking IDs, calculators, and collating exam books, but your eyes and ears aren’t pealed during those six hours I’m paying you to be a hawk. As a matter of fact if I’m smart, I’ll send one or two people into each exam center who will act like they’re cheating and see if you notice. I may not do this all the time and even at every test center, but the fact that you know I can do this will be enough to keep you on your toes.
You may laugh, but if the government owned railroad uses this same tactic to figure out if its conductors are diligently checking tickets or not, the more so would an association made up of business analysts.
That means there is pressure to catch people and file some reports, otherwise you look like you’re being a loaf for six hours on my dime.
Lastly as was pointed out here, there are so many professional testing centers that use computer technology and proper seating to greatly reduce the chance someone would be cheating. FINRA and GMAT exams are videotaped, for example.
^ I disagree. The idea of cheating may sound ridiculous, but there have been many cases where hard working/rational people work hard to achieve success, and either the pressure of failure, must win at all costs attitude have driven people to cheat even close to the end. Good people have been caught. You can’t make the agrument that “oh well this person has always been honest, and thus, will always continue to be” (OP, I am not accusing you on guilt)
Your other arguments simply don’t hold either. Again, just because your answers were not similiar doesn’t give you a license to look. Similar answers may scream guilty, but non-similiar answers doesn’t necessarily scream innocent. The proctors have incentive to nab people argument also sounds interesting, but have you run correlations between people who have reported incidents and their future proctor employment activities? If not, you have no facts behind this argument. causation isn’t proved here
FINRA and GMAT exams are videotaped, but given far more often and it’s much easier to have permanent smaller locations setup with cameras then a hall with 5000 people in it.
And doctors letters helping exonerate people may work in other scenarios. But I really doubt the CFAI will be persuaded by it, unless on a tiny chance you get someone ridiculous to sign off. Say John Rogers
