There are sections of the curriculum that are more central/important than others. Those don’t change so much because the skills required of analysts and portfolio managers don’t change dramatically from year to year. You need to design an exam that is about 70-80% stuff that is central to the discipline at all times (or which changes rarely), and then maybe 20-30% stuff that is more topical (things like accounting shennanigans, or corporate governance, or ESG criteria, etc.). So yeah, there are only so many styles of questions.
One year, someone took the exam and posted a spreadsheet of all the questions and answers for the exam. Just think how useful that would be if questions were reused. CFAI came and shut that guy down pretty quick. He apparently had left a followable trail. |