I know this is ridiculously stupid, but I have to ask to satisfy myself. I was so focused on studying and retaining as much knowledge as possible before the December L1 exam that I never read what to bring on exam day. Granted I had to travel about 4 hours just to take the exam, and woke up late the day of the test so I had to rush to get to the exam and ONLY brought pens. That being said, I decided to do the entire test in pen to see if the machines would completely disregard what I marked (instead of buying a pencil during break). I ended up with a failing score in band 7. I’m not sure if a retabulation would be worth it since I’m in band 7 and the machine obviously read some of my answers(if not all). Any thoughts would be appreciated… again I know how stupid this is, but come on step up your technology CFA!
yeah, Cfa! Start sending emails, like the rest of the world. Start giving clear, concise instructions, both on the website and in every single one of the emails that you send, and on the test registration form. But most important-- you need to catch up to the same technology that every other scantron machine in America has, and that we are used to seeing I n college.
Edit - per S2000’s suggestion, below, I bolded all of the non-sarcastic parts.
Maybe you should highlight the sarcastic parts, because I am not too sure . . .
It’s probably more efficient to highlight the nonsarcastic parts, as they’re fewer.
Why didn’t you just ask to borrow a pencil? There’s always someone who brings like 50 pencils, extra calculators, batteries, etc to the exam… Why risk having the machine not read your answers / disregard CFAI’s clear instructions?
While we all can point out OP’s faults (should have read the directions, should have asked to borrow a pencil, etc.), the fact is that nothing that happened in December can be changed. He’s asking if he should request a retabulation.
I’d suggest not. The track record on retabulations in general is poor – I’ve never heard of anyone receiving a passing score, and have heard of many who still received a failing score – and it appears that using a pen didn’t give the Scantron an answer sheet it couldn’t read: you got a band 7.
Chalk it up to experience, study harder for the June exam, and remember to bring pencils.
I was one of those that brought lots of extras, not that I’d lend them out. I’d sit and chuckle at the guy that spent 300+ hours cramming for an exam but couldn’t be bothered to take two minutes to read the most basic of instructions.
“No, sir. I think I may need all ten of my pencils. I bought them from four different lot numbers just in case there was a manufacturing glitch. How do I know which lot won’t fail me? Good luck.”
If he is 100% sure that the pen caused the machine to misread his answer sheet, isn’t a retabulation going to change things? I thought they manually checked the sheets during the retab. However, it’s true that the record is poor, 99% of the time, a retabulation is a free donation to the institute.
Unfortunately I didn’t realize that I needed one until I was in the exam room. I told a proctor that I needed a pencil and they told me not to talk in the exam room/that a pen would be fine. I have my 7/66 finance degree and studied over 300+ hours for the exam so maybe I’m just looking for excuses because I really don’t see how I could of studied harder. I’ve also worked in the industry for about 4 years.
I took a different approach of reading the CFA material & taking about 5 practice exams which may not have been the best path.
Successful troll is successful.