All those for publishing an answer sheet sheet

wilslm

I'll second all of that and add that I think it is a disgrace that the CFAI isn't a non-profit organisation - it makes a mockery of their stated goals.

malbec

according to the institute and to global best ethics and practice, anyone who invests in something should be privy to the results of his investment and all information relating to his investments.

On that note given the fact that all of us candidates pay fees for the CFAI in order to get an opportunity to sit for the exam and aside from the money we also invest a considerable amount of effort into studying for this designation i think that we are also justified in being allowed & entitled to see every detail regarding the exam for which we sat, beginning with an answer sheet to be published including all questions and proposed correct answers along with their calculations for their proposed answers, in addition to the difficulty level assigned to each question and the exact criterion for passes and fails for the specific exam that we took.

Therefore with all candidate performance information kept secret and the CFAI being run as a self regulated entity this opens the door to conflicts of interest as well as independence and objectivity issues. Would the CFAI possibly sue itself for failing someone incorrectly, or would it take the risk of notifying that person and ruining its reputation?? Do you think anyone has ever not passed the CFA exam or even Passed through a scantron machine malfunction??

issues such as this make me wonder why there isn't a 3rd party quality control inspector in place for the CFA Institute who conducts a quality audit of their internal processes in grading peoples exams. As well as even if there was an audit done on a random sample basis and things checked out to be fine, would this mean that the probability of the unlikely case of someone getting an incorrect pass/fail grade has been eliminated?

So again with this in mind the only way we can have an audit done where its not a random sample being tested is when each and every candidate is privy to their exact performance on the test through it being disclosed along with an answer guide and a rating system that is applied to arrive at the pass/fail criterion.

zhaoyp

I second that.

I also think the exams are fundamentally flawed. The exams are basically a test of memory recall, as you have to memorize formulas scattered through some 4000 pages of text. That's hardly what the real world calls for.

You don't go to a job expected to recall formulas needed to perform your job! Your task is to be able to "use" the formulas, i.e., know how to apply them. In fact, every job would give you and have available to you every reference and every tool you need. Ability and skill are judged based on how you can analyze and solve problems. Do you want someone who can recall the Ibbetson and Chen formula (which by the way I was lucky to having been able to recall it in this past exam) on the spot, or someone who understands what it is used for and when to use it?

The exams should have a standard formula sheet attached with the exam, or have any formulas as part of the question.

huangxiaoxie

On testing the hypothesis of the exams significance in explaining the level knowledge of candidates taking it....... i fail to reject the hypothesis and conclude that the exam with the way it is currently constructed and timed does not do the job of testing knowledge of what an investment professional is supposed to know or any other advanced finance professional on that note, according to the curriculums learning objective statement objectives.

It is also worth noting that the level two exam is constructed as vignettes and cases and i don't know about the rest of you, but my personal understanding of the difference between a single multiple choice question and a case is that for a case you are supposed to read the entire thing to be able to answer each question on it... and NOT have the page and a half case broken down into six segments that are completely and obviously independent from each other so that all we do is read each paragraph or for instance look at each two liner with an exhibit and go look for the question on this part alone in the 6 multiple choice questions that follow.

like whats the point of having this test in the format of 10 cases in each session with 6 multiple choice question for each case??? you never need to read the whole case as a whole before you start answering questions on it.... and even the ethics questions are in the same way, the whole case theme doesn't serve any purpose

b_sea93

got that right... it took me a while to figure out that the vignette is not what it is. Even this year I messed up the morning exam as I kept on reading the stupid vignette thinking that it served some logical purpose. Once I realized it is really just a matter of independent multiple choice questions, I did well. I don't understand how with all the money they collect from exams and annual dues you pay in order to continue to have your charter, which you earned with your skill, money and time, they are unable to figure out a better way to administer this exam.

senlinlang

Here's a thought - the exam vignette style is far more similar to a real life situation that a straight up question. Are you seriously telling me that you don't get inundated with extraneous information regarding your day to day work tasks that you have to filter to find what is necessary and what is not?

If you don't have to deal with this, I'll venture that you're being baby fed your tasks.

Just my $0.02.

hassan

From what I noticed, it's only the people who fail or who think they will fail that complains about the exam.

benbenxiong

cfagoal2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> From what I noticed, it's only the people who fail
> or who think they will fail that complains about
> the exam.


hey don't say that bro

i bombed it and i still think its fair

xilinx_altera

The issue here is not about passing or failing the exam rather about being able to form a valid opinion on an issue, and having the ability to critique what you are faced with. Accepting what an establishment throws at you I what 90% of the people do. It's one reason why many people believe in religions without questioning....ok, I went too far with this, but hope you get the point.

On the other hand, it is possible that CFAI has come up with the best possible exam format, and that we are wrong in seeing any fault in it. That could also happen.

CPATrader

well yes you are right some of us are speaking from the viewpoint of us feeling like maybe we may not pass when in fact in all honestly we deserve to pass hands down!!! when you think you might fail after coming in from a band ten last year and this time around not only putting in 200% effort for another 6 months and through your preparation and studies you get to a point where you are thrice as capable as you were when you got a band ten fail in 2009 you think to yourself there is something obviously wrong here with the way the exam is constructed that i dont feel the same confidence in my performance that i had while doing around 6000 questions during the past 6 months, and its weird how on around 6000 practice questions you never have to push your answer towards the closest answer to the three and have to put up with little gimmicks and tricks.

for instance if you calculate something right and it comes to 10, your three possible answers should include the number ten and not 7, 11, and 13 and you have to figure out what the hell went wrong and spend another ten minutes beatin yourself up over it and redoing your calculations and gettin all bent and stressed out, we are not being tested on our ability to mind read and think ohh well this just must be one of them sneaky tricky questions..... you either have an exam of 120 questions where for each you are given an accurate answer or they just give you 120 sneaky tricky questions designed to fool you... becos what you end up doing is thinking there must be a trick when there isnt any on a lot of simple questions and even if you know your stuff well you end up wasting a lot of time and confusing yourself thinking i wonder what type of question is this??? is it a straight forward question or should i spend another couple of minutes looking for word tricks and booby traps