Failed Ethics at both Levels II and III but still passed overall.
What is the “ethics adjustment”? The Board of Governors instituted a policy many years ago to place particular emphasis on ethics. Starting with the 1996 exams, the performance on the ethics section became a factor in the pass/fail decision for candidates whose total scores bordered the minimum passing score. The ethics adjustment can have a positive or negative impact on these candidates’ final results. CFA Institute has a policy of not releasing either the minimum passing score or individual candidate scores. Consequently, CFA Institute does not release specific information about the ethics adjustment or the candidates who were affected. The adjustment has had a net positive effect on candidate scores (and thus pass rates) in most exam sessions. The published pass rates therefore always take into account the ethics adjustment for borderline candidates. reference: http://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprog/faq/faqs_candidates.html
Yep, everyone got shillacked on ethics in LIII this year, even the passers.
Blackswan - don’t know about you but I thought I did O.K. on the Ethics? Missed all the tricks despite reading that fairy tale book for three years. Can’t give any advice to Level III newcomers in this respect. An enigma wrapped in puzzle to quote the great Joe P. in JFK.
I passed borderline overall but crushed ethics this year. Early in the study process I read and highlighted the Asset Manager Code, GIPS and the case studies. The Code and Standards I pretty much know from LI and LII. I didn’t read any of this again until the day before the exam, when I revisited my notes and did all of the practice problems. Having specific items I’d highlighted from the readings and CFAI’s guideline answers fresh in my head proved to be invaluable for the exam. The other thing that helped me was re-reading the ethics cases several times. There are subtle situational and relationship details buried in the ethics cases, but fortunately I’ve never felt less rushed on a CFA exam than for the LIII afternoon session. FYI- new LIII candidates, ethics seems always to be tested in the afternoon in two separate vignettes. If I had to take this exam again, I would spend more time reviewing the AM session guideline answers from prior exams, earlier in my study process (particularly the IPS sections) and would not have wasted any time on Q-Bank. Also, if you’re short on time for practice exams, I’d recommend taking only the AM sessions. We all know how to handle vignettes from our experience at LII. Good luck folks.
Hiredguns1 - you hit the nail on the head. It’s all about the AM session. Good post. I just never got the Ethics.
I really have no advice, I spent very little effort post analyzing my performance this year.
I got less than 50% on all 3 tests and have “, CFA” after my name. I studied Ethics a ton but always over-analyzed the questions on the exams. It is simply not true that you need >70% on Ethics to pass.