Did CFAI cheat ?

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cfasucker

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I coudn’t pass CFA l2 and I decided not to sit in CFA exam again. The reason is i think that CFAI cheated. l2 exam was not according to LOS. Most of the candidates dont pay much attention to LOS. They think that all bluebox and end of chapter questions are important and can be tested in exam. But that notion is not right (IMO). Most of the bluebox questions are just there to explain some imp points thats it .. for example in FRA reading 3 Non of the LOS require us to do any calculation but there are bb questions like revenue recognition upstream down stream payments, full partial goodwill recognition etc which involves calculation..
LOS state what we are suppose to learn. If a LOS states that calculate the fair value using single stage DDM then it means that i must know the calculation (formula etc) but if a LOS just states that define or explain this or that then it means i must know the concept theoretically..
Coming to the point.. CFA l2 exam was full questions required us to do calculation where there LOS just require us to “explain”, “define”, “differentiate” etc. There were dozens of the questions which were completely out of there LOS. They asked any portion of the curriculum in any way totally ignoring LOS. For example there was a question (not giving detail) which was exactly the same question i gave i L1 exam and its not related with ethics. In l1 LOS requires to do calculation but no in l2. Question was not as per l2 LOS which first, moved the concept to next level and second, require us to explain what to do in new situation .. no BB and EOC in l2 but the question came and i couldnt recall the formula and i guessed. This is just one example.
I lodged a complain after exam explaining in details what were the questions and what were there LOS. CFAI response was pathetic and my complain was vanished.
So my question or problem is if a concept is so important that we should know it theoretically as well as methametically then why this importance is not reflected in LOS and if LOS only requires us to learn it theoretically like explain or define then why exam questions were like calculate/ estimate .. isnt it cheating ???
and ironically PM new readings were heavily tested in exam and non of the readings have any BB or EOC questions. How were we suppose to learn them effectively ?
and this is the thing which made me insane .. I heard some guy after exam saying PM was easy i studied from schweser and exam questions was like schweser EOC. There were no BB or EOC in curriculum how come they appear in schweser and exam questions were like schweser. I cant confirm this i dont have schweser books Can anyone confrm this ? If this is true then Im gonna sue CFAI. Because it makes me think that schweser Hydra is working in cfai shield.
Either this allegation is true or not CFA is over for me. I studied only from curriculum and i did BB and EOC multiple times. I practiced so hard that even at looking BB or EOC i can tell what’s the answer. I failed because I studied as per LOS and in exam questions were asked freely ignoring LOS..
 
S2000magician wrote:
Have you discussed this with anyone at CFA Institute?
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I lodged a complain using my account regarding exam questions and LOS. but not about schweser.
 
I didn’t do the curriculum last year, but there are hundreds of people who just did that and passed.
May be your emotions got the better of you while you were taking the test when some questions came up outside the scope of LOS?
 
fullset wrote:
May be your emotions got the better of you while you were taking the test when some questions came up outside the scope of LOS?
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well thats the problem, why questions came outside the scope of LOS ? everything in curriculum is not according to LOS it is there just to help you understand the concept required by LOS. Look at l2 derivative book half of the stuff is from l1..
 
my personal experience has always been to NOT trust the LOS. never trusted the “explain” “describe” crap, and instead just made sure I was able to do every calculation/EOC/blue box problem they put in the curriculum.
I really doubt you had mastered all of those CFAI examples as you claim to, because you should have passed if so.
What’s also confusing to me about your post, is that I recall instances where a LOS wouldn’t say “CALCULATE”, but there would be a practice problem that calculated something. So, if you mastered all the practice problems, you would have ignored the LOS by default anyway.
I wonder if what you may have done is started memorizing answers and calculations, and CFAI loves to change it up just ever so slightly.
 
I’ve never even read an LOS before.
Just learn everything in the book as best you can and make sure you can answer every blue box and EOC correctly.
 
@cfasucker: l am feeling almost the same. I think that no one with similar opinion would not expect that the large part of exam was in the way non-CFAI model question. My experience before exam i got arround 70% on mocks and eob but schweser and similar provider questions below 60%. I was then frustraited about this unlogic but it seems that real exam was in non-CFAI quetion for big part
Completly agree with you for PM / and derivates. But, i do not think you should quit because it is all about-commitment.
 
cfasucker and cabolic, I disgree with what you are saying.
I read only CFAI text for L1 and L2 and passed both first try in 4 months of studying.
I only did EOCs and Mocks provided by the CFAI.
 
cfasucker wrote:
…and ironically PM new readings were heavily tested in exam and non of the readings have any BB or EOC questions. How were we suppose to learn them effectively ?
Click to expand...
This is gripe common to other topics of the exam as well. You never know what they’re going to test. Everybody is in the same situation as you.
 
I’ve never paid attention to the LOS, I don’t even read thru them. That said, I do go by EOCs like most and was definitely thrown off by what you mentioned about the new PM readings having no EOCs.
Nevertheless, CFAI reserves the right to test you on anything in the curriculum except for the optional segments so it’s all fair game.
 
Did you even bother to take down notes, create your own formula sheet and answer practice exams?
 
itera wrote:
I really doubt you had mastered all of those CFAI examples as you claim to, because you should have passed if so.
What’s also confusing to me about your post, is that I recall instances where a LOS wouldn’t say “CALCULATE”, but there would be a practice problem that calculated something. So, if you mastered all the practice problems, you would have ignored the LOS by default anyway.
I wonder if what you may have done is started memorizing answers and calculations, and CFAI loves to change it up just ever so slightly.
Click to expand...
All BB and EOC in curriculum are not testable.. There are three types which cant be tested. 1) Out of Work Scope questions: i gave example of those type above. in FRA chapter 3 upsteam downdtream payment (related party transactions). How revunue and profit is calculated. This work is done by accountants and audited by auditors. Analyst has nothing to do with that. Those examples were given just to explain how things work
2) Real word examples: what SEC did with some company invloved in fraud, what warren buffett said about diversification or expexted return on plan assets, murgers and aquisitiions, corporate governace isuues etc. These type of stuff present in the curriculum just to make you better analyst. and btw all this stuff is not present in schweser that’s why thier books are brief.
3) Time consuming and lengthy questions: covariance, correlation among three stocks, multi stage free chash flow model (took me 30-40 min to solve one question and even LOS doesnt require to solve multi stage free cash flow) etc
So if you ask we how i master bb and eoc i did master all those which are as per LOS but the three types i mentioned i skip those by carefully looking at LOS.
 
dwheats wrote:
I’ve never even read an LOS before.
Just learn everything in the book as best you can and make sure you can answer every blue box and EOC correctly.
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good advice for new candidates
 
Topperharley wrote:
Nevertheless, CFAI reserves the right to test you on anything in the curriculum except for the optional segments so it’s all fair game.
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Yes CFAI reserves the right. But if they are testing everything in curriculum then why ask in feed back; Are questions according to LOS ? Why bother asking
 
Guys, why do you think they have the Blue Boxes, EoC problems if everything can be captured in LoS.
Why would CFAI bother to include examples in its book if it deems its not important for future CFA charteredholders to know.
Stop giving excuses and man up.
No one become a chartered holder by saying things like there is a contradiction between CFAI LoS and curriculum.
Study the books the same way you would do in university with the objective of scoring a A+.
 
S2000magician wrote:The upshot is that CFA Institute didn’t cheat.
And, perhaps, you were ill-prepared.
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Sorry, I disagree. My band was 10. All those readings where there was less uncertanity between LOS and curriculum i scored > 70. But where exam questions deviated from LOS i collapsed.
 
JBrowntown wrote:
cfasucker wrote:
…and ironically PM new readings were heavily tested in exam and non of the readings have any BB or EOC questions. How were we suppose to learn them effectively ?
Click to expand...
This is gripe common to other topics of the exam as well. You never know what they’re going to test. Everybody is in the same situation as you.
Click to expand...
Everybody is not in same situation. I studied PM from curriculum and if some one who studied from schweser gets better result then i have the right to ask should i trust curriculum. The current form of curriculum itself would force me to go for third party material and that’s big problem. Candidates go for third party material because its brief and some one can cover in short time not because it’s more effective than curriculum.
 
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