As I have been studying I have taken notes to get in the habit of summarizing topics for the essay portion. As I read over my notes I notice my handwriting could be hard to read to someone who isn’t me. I also noticed a few spelling errors here and there. Are these legit concerns or do I not have to worry about my penmanship and spelling?
CFA Institute specifically hires pharmacists to grade the essay portion of the Level III exam: they can read anybody’s handwriting.
As with Final Jeopardy, spelling doesn’t count.
It’s January. Work on it.
You can go through 1000+ pages of text but you can’t write and spell better?
my handwriting is atrocious, I’ve been making cards as I go and also writing out constructed response questions and trying to take care to make it neater but its not working so far.
On a similar note, is shorthand acceptable on the exam? like 3 dots for ‘therefore’ or a triangle for ‘change in’ etc.?
Guys,
I was just like you guys. Worrying about my handwriting and formatting… There will definitely more posts on this topic, and you’ll start to learn that everybody will say the same thing - dont’ worry about it!
My handwriting is so bad that sometimes it takes me a good min or two to re-read what I wrote. And on the exam day, there were cross outs EVERYWHERE on that paper - I mean to the point where I was sure the grader would get confused on what answers what and just give me a 0.
But that wasn’t the case. I think they really take their time to read everything and to make sure that they can give the credit that each answer deserves based on the response itself. They don’t care if you write one word put an arrow pointing to the other end of the page to finish up that sentence as long as you have the correct response.
I don’t know about shorthands, the therefore one is probably universal but I never risked it.
Like MK514 said, the graders understand and don’t mark based on your handwriting. I have pretty decent handwriting unless I’m writing fast so I just made a concious effort to slow down and write bigger. I didn’t want my paper to come across a fatigued and annoyed grader who’d dock me marks for something so silly.
Just try to write clearly and as best as you can, space it out, and use key words. They are just looking to see you know what you’re talking about. Practice with a pen you like and stick with that model for your study period. I liked gel roller pens that don’t bleed too much because you can write fast and sharp with them.
I have trouble reading my own handwriting sometimes.
the triangle is in the curriculum, so you’re probably safe. Don’t know about the three dots.
You’re allowed to use abbreviations and the like, but you have to make sure the grader understands what you’re trying to say. You’re probably safe with “LT munis”, but I’d stay away from shortening “analysis” down to “anal”. And I wouldn’t abbreviate “standard deviation” as “STD”.
based on anal STD, we can conclude…
Don’t make it hard for the marker to grade your paper. Make it as easy as possible. If I was struggling to read everything and it was a huge mess, subconciously I may be a little harder on the guy. Maybe it’s a half mark, maybe it’s a full mark… this is a competitive exam and you need every point you can get.
Make it easy on the marker by writing neatly and making things organized.
One thing I hear from people is the absurd amount they wrote for this exam. I wrote half or a quarter of what some were sugesting here. Spend the time writing short, neat, concise answers that directly answer what is asked. If you’re writing several pages and your handwriting is suffering as a result you’re writing too much.