OmarAdnan

“A really good money manager could easily fail the AM exam, which is a pity.”
Completely agree with your last point 1recho. This statement completely symbolises what the exam was all about this year.

sabaruch

What footnote stuff you are talking about OP? I found most of the material was from book and Schweser too covered most if not all of them. Q-2 and Q-3 were little tricky but apart from that all questions in AM was fair game.
PM was beast and very very tricky. I don’t how did I do in that.

Viceroy

I think the problem is that the exam can only cover maybe 20% of the curriculum. So even if you know 90% of the material, you could be unlucky and get ~50%. Whereas someone else that only knows 20% could be very lucky and get ~100%. But everyone knows this going in. Even small gaps in your knowledge can have a big impact on your result.

krause2

I used Schweser this year and none of the questions in the AM were stumping and I felt were in the CFAI material over the other providers

RoastBeef

The test can be frustrating but some perspective helps.
The idea that there are candidates out there that just learn the “trivia from the footnootes” and pass the exam is really unrealistic.  Even if 20% of the exam was obscure information, if the candidate only focused on obscure concepts they would still be at a loss for 80% of the exam.
In reality the candidates who pass have a very good grasp of core concepts and a lot of the “obscure” parts as well.  There are no candidates out there gaming the system and only learning 20% of the material and passing.  If there were then they should start playing the lottery with that type of ability.
The CFA does not want an exam that tests core concepts over 5 or 6 3 hour exams.  The purpose is not to have another graduate degree program i.e. If you have enough time and money you will get it.  They want an exam that hopefully differentiates candidates.  They are attempting to do that by creating a test that is broad enough and random enough that you must master nearly all the concepts in order to pass.  Not just memorizing each concept one at a time.
Nevertheless, it can be frustrating.  But remember, many people fail multiple times.  No one in the industry cares how long it took you to get it as long as you finally do.

spreads

I thought I was well prepared for this exam.
Relative to level 1, I thought there was very little “only time this shows up is in one paragraph”.
Don’t hate the exam for lack of proper studying!!!

SpyAli

I think the way CFAI works out its exams is quite reasonable - at least from a consistency basis. Consistency doesn’t mean “always the same” though.
Remember back when Ben Graham and other guys tried to set p this professional organization, what they thought about was to have some consistent way of evaluating securities. But everything was evolving since then even including its academic Financial Analyst Journal. During Treynor-the-Editor-In-Chief time, he tried to introduce various new ideas on portfolio management into the journal to enrich the materials. An adapting mind is what a modern financial analyst needs in this era of changing.
I personally find reasing CFAI curriculum is fun, notwithstanding at the beginning, I used notes to just pass the exams. But when I started working in the investment and financial fields, I found it is the grasp of details that differentiate an outstanding analyst from the majority of average ones. These details are not easy to find,not readily present in financial statements released or Bloomberg news. You need to think independently and digest the information to come up with your own unique point.
From that perspective,I don’t see any reason why exams cannot be based on the footnotes. Plus, I believe CFAI still base the majority of the materials on its curriculum.
Hopefully you don’t feel offended by my response!