2020 Curriculum refresh/revamp

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A friend of mine attended an external course providers’ workshop a few weeks back and the instructor mentioned that the CFA level 3 curriculum was getting a full refresh/revamp in 2020. The instructor was essentially emphasizing that if you didn’t pass the 2019 exam, there would be little rollover of content for next years exam and therefore you should try your best to pass this time around.
Apparently the last refresh was done ~15 years go.
Has anyone else heard this? or knows of anymore info?
 
Yes i heard this from my course lecturer as well. There will be a major revamp especially on individual / private wealth management part.
 
That’s a very bad news. It means the past AM exams will get even less relevant and we won’t have enough to practice.
And especially private wealth man was not really difficult.
Does it regard all levels or just 3rd?
 
If I fail and this revamp rumor turns out to be true…I’ll be so devastated.
 
If this is true, this was my first and last attempt. Being a single parent with 2 children, my family suffered enough.
 
I’m overanxious since I’ve read it. Gosh I thought I would be facing a year of doing practice of the material I more or less know solidly.
But now?
I mean there are changes each year, I understand equity was totally changed from 2018, but can they change majority of the material?
Private Wealth comes only in Level 3 so they can change what they want, but apart from that (and Institutional) the material is built on level 1 and 2, not?
Have there been major changes in level 1 and 2 materials lately?
Also for wealth management. IPS related stuff should remain kind of the same, not? Insurance, taxation, bequeathing, this should remain quite the same, or not?
I just hope they don’t cancel Derivatives, it was my strongest item. The only one I have no doubts of getting 100%. (Unfortunately low weighted).
 
They are refreshing the entire cirriculum one topic at a time. FI got refreshed 2018, Equity 2019 and I am sure something in 2020. If you ask me the refresh is needed but people who are writing the new readings are terrible and quality is not very good. Equity and Fixed income were tough reads this year. As an example the BB question in fixed income was a 5-7 page long none sense… i got splitting headache every time i tried to read it… surely they can break it up to more understandable chunks. What makes it worst the authors are so different in their approaches so overlapping topics between subjects can contradict. Another problem is authors are not who make up the exam questions and that really gets people when exam come around.
 
They need to get rid of those intro readings that gets covered in more depth in the following readings.
 
From my perspective, CFAI does not provide students with sufficient practice material and you really need to rely on non-official material to get sufficient practice. Also, as said above, there is quite some difference between how a lecture was written vs. how it was tested. Such method unnecessarily increases difficulty in a wrong way and could cause confusion among candidates.
 
^ I didn’t downvote you but I will say I disagree. In derivatives for example, interest rate options are very comprehensively covered. They show examples for puts, calls, collars, and caplets/floorlets. Similarly, the curriculum is quite clear in terms of how other derivatives strategies and hedging work, how to value them, when to use them, who’s winning/losing etc. It’s up to us the candidates to learn them and think about them. BBs, EOCs, and TTs are adequate practice, and you also have past exams to review.
Some readings are quite poorly written (FI for example is all over the place and the carry trade stuff is a nightmare). But in general, resorting to third parties is more due to being lazy and looking for short-cuts (I’m not above this btw), than due to shortcomings in the curriculum.
 
Tactics, by saying practice material I really mean EOCs. Because there is a difference between learning stuff and applying what you have learned. I never said anything negative about reading material. In addition, I find mocks to be somewhat unrealistic and poorly written.
If they could provide EOCs that test every kind of material covered and that could pop up on an exam that would have been awesome. It would reward those who are willing to go an extra mile, while it would reduce number of people who did not pass because they were unlucky (saw some questions they did not practice for, etc.)
 
N.VanCandidate wrote:
They are refreshing the entire cirriculum one topic at a time. FI got refreshed 2018, Equity 2019 and I am sure something in 2020. If you ask me the refresh is needed but people who are writing the new readings are terrible and quality is not very good. Equity and Fixed income were tough reads this year. As an example the BB question in fixed income was a 5-7 page long none sense… i got splitting headache every time i tried to read it… surely they can break it up to more understandable chunks. What makes it worst the authors are so different in their approaches so overlapping topics between subjects can contradict. Another problem is authors are not who make up the exam questions and that really gets people when exam come around.
Click to expand...
Equity is definitely poorly written. For Equity 2019, till this day I don’t even know what they are trying to get at for the active investing part. Can they do a better job at teaching something meaningful to the next generation of finance professionals (esp. those of us who don’t actually deal with this stuff day to day - we rely on what you tell us, so please don’t screw up).
 
no GIPS anymore ?
alternative become 2 readings.
currency team up with derivatives, awesome.
 
jounin83 wrote:
no GIPS anymore ?
alternative become 2 readings.
currency team up with derivatives, awesome.
Click to expand...
GIPS now appears to be under Reading #6, with other Ethics readings (instead of Performance Evaluation)
 
Failing would suck. But then again, if I’d have to redo LIII, I’d prefer to learn new stuff. I know I knew and understood the majority of last year’s curriculum. Redoing all that would just mean practicing test taking, which I find to be a waste of 6 months. But having to redo LIII and going through a revamped curriculum would be a value-adding process. After all, there’s a reason why 13 readings are getting the axe and why so many completely new readings are added.
 
Codtrawler87 wrote:
Failing would suck. But then again, if I’d have to redo LIII, I’d prefer to learn new stuff. I know I knew and understood the majority of last year’s curriculum. Redoing all that would just mean practicing test taking, which I find to be a waste of 6 months. But having to redo LIII and going through a revamped curriculum would be a value-adding process. After all, there’s a reason why 13 readings are getting the axe and why so many completely new readings are added.
Click to expand...
I feel the same way. If I pass I might even purchase the new materials anyway because, like you said, it has additional value. Fingers crossed I’ll have the option to do it on my own time and not feel the pressure of having to do it for another exam though…
 
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