I am wondering if anyone has heard of someone doing the retabulation and actually having the results reversed or found out that they results got switched or something. I truly believe that my results got messed up or mixed up with another candidates. I will be paying the $100 anyway even if it is probably a complete waste of money because if it is true that I failed then this is the last thing I will be doing with the CFA. Well as excited as I was the morning after the CFA exam, I am that much more dissapointed now. I am in complete shock that I did not come close to passing the CFA exam. I scored in band 7. I was under 50% on all of the sections but three and above 70% in only alternatives. I scored between 50-70% on accounting. This means I got ever 13, 14, 15, or 16 out of 24. I honestly felt like I scored atleast an 18, 19, or 20 out of 24 at the worst in this section. I added up all of my bands and the cacluation came up to the best possible score being 71/120 for a 59%. This makes no sense to me because I was consitently scoring over 70% on the mock exams in fact on the Boston CFA Mock I scored 91/120 and I felt like on this actual exam I did great as well. This means that I did worse on the actual exam than I did on the mock exam that I took 2 months before the test. I must have missed every single question that I guessed on and a lot of the questions I thought I got correct. It just doesn’t make any sense to me that I missed over 25 questions more than I did on the CFA Mock exam when I got 91/120. I am furious to the fact that I obviously understood the material as evident from my previous mock exam results yet I ended up failing the exam terribly. I have no clue what to do now, I just can’t see myself sacrificing another 500 hours of my life for a third time to just be disappointed. It is evident that I knew the material by passing the CFA mock on the website, the boston society mock exam, and several Schweser mock exams. If it is true that I did truly fail and do this terrible then I believe that the CFA does not come close to actually testing the knowledge of the material and it is more of a complete crapshoot of what they are willing to test on the day of the test and how they can word the exam to try and trick candidates.
I am sorry to hear that…it must be crushing to perform so well in mocks and then to fall short in the actual exam…since you are in band 7 it may really be a complete waste of money to pay the 100 $ for retabulation…dont let CFAI rob us off more money than they already have!..The CFA exam does seem to focus on asking basic questions in a twisted way as opposed to asking complex questions in a simple/realistic way…
STL23, I felt the EXACT same way you did, actually received results similar to yours (I took the test in Atlanta). After nonstop studying, passing three practice exams with +70%, and feeling confident after the test, when I got my results, I was not only surprised that I failed, but was completely taken away by how much I failed. Seven out of my ten categories were in the <50% range, and the remaining three were between 50-70%, with NONE in the above 70% range. I was Band 4. Only last december, when I passed Level 1, I had 7/10 categories in the >70% range, three in the 50-70% range, and none below 50%. So I pretty much did the exact opposite. Has the CFA ever made mistakes when it comes to scoring the scantrons? I hear that retabulations are a crock, but I also strongly feel that there might be a mistake. Its almost like half of my test wasn’t graded correctly, because I find it hard to believe that I didn’t earn >70% in any of the sections, especially given my performance during the practice exams and my knowledge/level of confidence of the material. I almost feel like I could have saved 5 months of my life and skipped studying all together, and still have gotten the same results. Would a retabulation in my case make more sense than somebody who barely failed? I hate grasping at thin air, and would much rather put it behind me, but has anybody come across the CFA screwing up the scoring and having the fail turn into a pass? Thanks
brubaker, That is exactly what I am thinking, I know everyone says it is a waste to do a retabulation if you are in band 10 but I am honestly thinking that they mixed my exam up with someone else’s. I do not understand how I could have down so poorly, especially when I left the exam and felt like I had killed it. I don’t see how there is anyway that I missed 55 out of 120 questions. I would like to move on and just put this CFA exam and the last 3 years of wasted time, effort, and sacrifice behind me as well but I will probably just waste the $100 just because if it true then i’m done with anything to do with the CFA forever. The crappy thing is that the retabulation is another 30-60 days of waiting when I should just be moving on. So I guess my question to everyone: -Has anyone ever heard of a retabulation ever being overturned and getting a passing grade? -Has there ever been an incidence of them mixing up the candidate’s scantron with someone else’s?
STL23, I just submitted for a recalculation, so fingers crossed. I feel the exact same way as you, and I’m praying that I didn’t screw my scantron up (would a retab catch that?). For the time being, I’m just going to write off the test as a fail, but I guess its time to start praying for a miracle, b/c I went into this thing giving it 100% of my time and effort so I could pass it the first time, and not sure if I feel like going through it again. I don’t think I could have studied harder or any better than I did before, and my grading distribution seems to be completely out of wack. I actually thought that they sent me the wrong email at first after seeing my distributions. If I failed and my grading distrubutions were across the board, then I wouldn’t bother with a retab, but getting 7/10 below 50% and 3/10 in the 50-70% range (with two of those 3 in the large point categories) simply doesn’t reflect my knowledge or preparation for the material. Good luck
I am also just going to submit the retabulation. I e-mailed CFA institute and asked if they possibly could have made a mistake and of course I recieved an automated e-mail in return telling me I could submit a retabulation. I replied asking if they have ever had an instance where they did mess up and switch candidates scantron or something (waiting for reply - i’m sure it will be another automated response.) Anyway… still wondering: -Has anyone ever heard of a retabulation ever being overturned and getting a passing grade? -Has there ever been an incidence of them mixing up the candidate’s scantron with someone else’s?
if you search back, you’ll find this topic comes up every july. IIRC no one has ever switched a fail to a pass – though I can’t say for sure I read all of these threads.
Ok so I looked back at all of the previous threads and it looks like the retabulation is a complete waste of time and money. I also wonder if the CFAI would even actually reverse if they were wrong just to save face. I’m not talking about being in band 10 and thinking they graded a few questions incorrectly or something, I believe that my exam may have gotten mixed up with another candidate or something. -Has anyone ever heard of an incidence of the CFAI mixing up a candidates scantron with someone else’s?
Found a forum from 2004 that deals with a concept very similar to ours (where almost all their groupings were <50%). Gives me a little hope, but not much. http://www.analystnotes.com/forum_view_topic.php?id=653
The blocked out word b/w the www and the com is analyst notes
do it.
I’m wondering if you take the practice tests too literally. I use them as more of a learning tool then an actual gauge of what the test is actually like. CFAI loves to give trap questions. one word here or there can totally reverse the answer you think it is. It’s possible you were so confident going into the exam, you didn’t read carefully enough and grabbed onto key words and fell into the traps
iteracom Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I’m wondering if you take the practice tests too > literally. I use them as more of a learning tool > then an actual gauge of what the test is actually > like. I would agree with that! @STL23 Remember there is only 1 CFA exam. You can mock all you want but when it is Test day you cannot say you feel like you should have passed b/c you passed all these mocks and practice exams. There is a lot more stress and pressure on test day and you can make small mental mistakes. Band 7 is not that far off. I woudl re-evaluate your stuffy approach…if this is your 3rd time then you need to change something up. Best of luck. Hang in there.
brubaker… Thanks for the link, I have submitted for retabulation although it will probably be to no avail, however the link does give me some hope. Someone from my work who also works with CFA has also told me horror stories of this happening so although i’m not holding on to hope anything is possible. iteracom… I do use the mock exams as a learning tool as well as a gauge. I took the CFAI mock, the Boston CFA Society Mock, and the Schweser Mocks as well as just working through numerous vignettes. On each of these I scored well and i’m not saying that just because I scored well on these that I should have scored well on the actual exam. However, on the actual exam I felt like I did well, I felt like I knew the material and I looked for the many tricks I have seen in the preparations and actually caught quite a few of them. I do believe that by passing many of the mock exams it is indicitive of knowledge of the material to an extent, I mean how could you pass those exams if you didn’t know the material. CFA Jay… I am not sure what you mean by stuffy approach. Also as far as changing something up i’m not sure what else I can do really. This was my second time sitting for Level II so I had already gone threw the entire material the first time and spent about 400 hours studying, however I felt un-prepared and was not surprised to have failed the exam. The second time around I read the material, listened and took notes of each Schweser CD, did all of the CFAI end of chapter questions 3 times, did all 6 schweser mock exams, took the CFAI mock exam, and took the CFA Boston Society mock exam. While taking all of these mock exams I sat down and did them both in actual format to get used to the test and by going back threw and reviewing the material and what I did wrong. I also attended both the Schweser 3 day review course and completed the accompaning book. I also attended the John Harris accounting review course and completed his accompaning book and notes. So as far as studying more (which I studied about 500 hours or so) and more efficiently I have no clue what else I could do. It is just so surprising to me that I could feel so confident while taking the exam and after the exam and still do so horrible. I’m not saying that the mock exams should be indicitive of my actual score but I don’t see how they could be so far off.
Once you submit the retabulation does anyone know how long it usually takes to receive back the new results. I know that it says 30-60 days and on previous threads they say anywhere from 3 days to 14 days but was just curious if anyone else had any other experiences. Thanks
Well I got my receipt back that they received my retabulation, I will let you know when I get back my results… not getting my hopes up.
Imho, the exam isn’t really that straight forward; nearly every vignette had many tricky questions in it. After the morning session this year, a couple of my friends and I started to discuss some questions… A friend found one of the vig to be very simple and easy whereas I found it to be quite tricky… When he told me that it was really easy, I was so sure that he missed those tricks and so I asked them to stop discussing the paper lol. You guys should get the papers re tabulated for satisfaction though… There is a possibility of error from their end. Best of luck everyone!
STL23 and brubaker, did you get your retab results back? I felt the exact same way you all did. I was sure I nailed the exam, only to find out I failed with a band 3…horrible! Just doesn’t make sense at all.
Did anyone receive their retab results? If so, what was the outcome?
i am still wating >>>…