I am seeing a lot of posts about whether people should go for a retab on the basis of their matrix and I thought I would give my reasoning why I have decided to spend $100 to retab my band 10 fail on a no hoper.
Let me start by saying, I am under no illusion that my score is correct. I have seen the matrices (not sure of the plural of matrix) of people who have passed and people who have failed and seen the 300 hours 40/60/80 scores and some matrices look worse than mine that have passed and some people who have a lower 40/60/80 score than me have passed. Just because your matrix looks semi-decent in your opinion or you have compared to others and it looks like yours is better this doesn’t mean anything. The scores are banded they are not precise percentages, its likely that if someone passed with more sections less than or equal to 50% than you that they were hitting the higher percentages in this banding and you were closer to 0. Also with level 3 40/60/80 means nothing, I know my primary failure is the morning, as I have worked out that my absolute minimum in the afternoon was 71%. I’d wager that the percentage of candidates that score a complete 0% on a section of 6 multiple choice questions is incredibly low even if you guessed all six you would have to bet on yourself scoring at least one in the constructed responses the possibility of a 0% is a very real prospect, there is no 1 in 3 chance you are purely left to your own imagination.
So why have I requested a retab… I have spent at least 9 months full on and probably more like 15 months full on where my life has been on hold for the CFA, I passed level 1 and 2 on first attempt (although I definitely just scraped by in level 2… and probably level 1) and this is my first fail in these exams (probably overdue). Although 15 months might not seem like a lot, I’m talking about when I have had no life outside work and study and this has obviously impacted my friendships and my relationship, I know it is incredibly tiring for my wife to have a husband who is constantly irritable for the first 5 months of the year. This exam doesn’t hold for me a guaranteed pay rise or promotion or even any real benefits to my career as I work in market data, I am doing it because of my own personal interest in this and for a greater understanding and because I want to finish a process I have started. I realise that $100 could be spent easily elsewhere. I have requested this because if there is even a 0.0001% chance (probably even less) then I owe it to my wife to go for it (and probably my mental health).
If you are considering a retab, I’d suggest you think about why are you doing it…
Because you’ve seen a couple of matrix that look worse than yours or someone has a worse 40/60/80 score than you and passed… probably not worth it, you can tell very little from the matrix of others and 40/60/80 is going to be incredibly innaccurate for the AM section of level 3.
Because you’d like to feel that you have checked everything that you can to ensure you didn’t pass no matter how remote the opportunity… go for it providing you won’t miss that $100 and have no false illusion that you won’t be sitting the exam next year.
We’ve had to wait (just under) 10 weeks for the level 3 CFA results, the process of marking these is incredibly thorough and the likelihood of mistake is less than minimal, the retab process is there to be used, but don’t go expecting any changes because of it.
Completely agree, however I am fortunate in the money doesn’t matter to me as much as the time no matter how little opportunity I have to get the outcome I would hope for. Especially at band 10 I know my result is accurate but if I don’t do this it will be something I always wonder about… Anyway I have started studying for next year in the hope of being less of an a-hole during the months leading up to the exam
ya, go for it! If I was ever in band 10, I know I would spend the $100 regardless how foolish people think I am. No one really knows how the retab process works unless they are directly involved. If it doesn’t work out, I wish you all the best. Don’t give up, man, hard work pays off!
Just a question - what is the value in a retab - isn’t just to re-add all the scores to see that you go the right score?
Because it isn’t a regrade to relook at what you had actually written, specifically in the Essays, and reevaluate if the final scores / points for each question were correct, a retab wouldn’t do much to actually increase your score to pass.
Praz Logic - a retab is indeed a recount of exam marks. The idea is at level 1 or 2 and for the PM part of the exam for level 3 they would rerun your paper through the scanotron and with the AM of level 3 ensure that the marks are recorded and totaled correctly, but they do not remark the exam. I think the idea is that if you think that they could have omitted a section for counting for the AM or accidently recorded a section as 3 instead of an 8 as an example this could be picked up on. That said it is also understood that at band 10 they pretty much retab anyway, I’m not sure if people know this for certain or not but that seems to be the feeling. As mentioned I’m not expecting anything out of this, but I would always wonder if I didn’t go for it.
For those of you who are interested I had the mark confirmed today as a band 10 fail. As I have mentioned about I have full confidence in the CFA marking process, but if in the same position again next year I’d retab without hesitation again, it may be $100 wasted but it has given me piece of mind.
this is similar to why people buy lottery tickets. at the end of the day, the vast majority of people get nothing except the feeling and hope of a dream still kept alive. the lottery ticket buys you 3 days of dreaming of being rich, the CFA retab buys you several weeks dreaming of passing