Discussing the difficulty of specific topics

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YoMo

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that was presented in the exam is a violation. Dont be coming in here crying when the lurking spies in this forum bust ur a**.
 
And i mean the mere mention of the topic not necessarily a specific question (e.g The quants was super easy but the ethics part was unbelievabely hard”
 
Not true.
Expressing one’s opinion on the difficulty of the general areas of topics that CFAI explicitly says will be tested is not a violation unless you mention what was specifically tested.
Derivatives and Ethics are hard = acceptable
Mentioning a specific derivative instrument that was tested/not tested = not acceptable
If it’s on the CFAI website as one of the general topics that was given an exam weight, you can openly express opinions about that broad topic, assuming NO DETAILS of the specifics are given.
 
Below is copied verbatim from CFAI Curriculum. Since I am attributing to it, I am not violating any standard (I hope). but the example clearlyy states that by revealing what was asked and not asked, standard is violated.
“Example 4 (Sharing Exam Content): After completing Level II of the CFA Exam, Annabelle Rossi writes in her blog about her experience. She posts the following: “Level II is complete! I think I did fairly well on the exam. It was really difficult, but fair. I think I did especially well on the derivatives questions. And there were tons of them! I think I counted 18! The ethics questions were really hard. I’m glad I spent so much time on the Code and Standards. I was surprised to see there were no questions at all about IPO allocations. I expected there to be a couple. Well, off to celebrate getting through it. See you tonight?”
Comment: Rossi did not violate Standard VII(A) when she wrote about how difficult she found the exam or how well she thinks she may have done. By revealing portions of the CBOK covered on the exam and areas not covered, however, she did violate Standard VII(A) and the Candidate Pledge. Depending on the time frame in which the comments were posted, Rossi not only may have assisted future candidates but also may have pro- vided an unfair advantage to candidates sitting for the same exam, thereby undermining the integrity and validity of the Level II exam.”
(Institute 140)
Institute, CFA. CFA Institute Level III 2014 Volume 1 Ethical and Professional Standards. John Wiley & Sons P&T, 2013-07-12. <vbk:9781937537937#page(140)>.
 
I think the violations in that example refers to the revelation that there were 18 derivatives questions and that no questions regarding IPO allocations were asked.
 
Harshd, ur example is correct however not specific and here is why (I hereby quote the first part of the question):
“Example 4 (Sharing Exam Content): After completing Level II of the CFA Exam, Annabelle Rossi writes in her blog about her experience. She posts the following: “Level II is complete! I think I did fairly well on the exam. It was really difficult, but fair. I think I did especially well on the derivatives questions.”
The first part of the answer refers to the above part which refers to the difficulty of the exam (in general) and not necessarily a specfic topic. I also dont believe that stating how well a person has done on a topic is a violation neither (thin line there). However, stating how difficult a specfic topic was may provide an unfair advantage to some candidates over others in their preperations and hence a I believe is a violation. I hereby quote the first part of the answer which i believe refers to the first part of the question: “Rossi did not violate Standard VII(A) when she wrote about how difficult she found the exam or how well she thinks she may have done”
Following on with the question:
“and there were tons of them! I think I counted 18! The ethics questions were really hard. I’m glad I spent so much time on the Code and Standards. I was surprised to see there were no questions at all about IPO allocations. I expected there to be a couple.”
Discussing the difficulty of specific topics sits right in the middle of the violation of revealing portions of the cbok covered and not covered, which i believe is also a violation.
In a nutshell, the answer only states that referencing the difficulty of the exam (not a specfic topic) and how well the candidate may have done is not considered a violation, which is true and agreed with.
 
Doubt - If we say currency management/derivatives was tough , then is it a violation ?
 
vicky_cool400 wrote:
Doubt - If we say currency management/derivatives was tough , then is it a violation ?
Click to expand...
Would u be giving some candidates, depending on when the comment was made, and advantage/heads up in terms of where to focus in their preperation?
 
But isn’t determination of difficult or easy subjective? I generally find the level of detail on the derivative/ fixed income/ risk management questions in CFA to be very basic after having done the FRM. I didn’t study ethics at all and relied on what I remembered from level I and II. Do I reveal anything about the test if I say that ethics were hard but derivatives were easy without giving details?
 
What if the comment was “although i have been a statistician for the past 7 years, i still found the quants part in the exam very difficult”?
 
YoMo wrote:What if the comment was “although i have been a statistician for the past 7 years, i still found the quants part in the exam very difficult”?
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The speaker would be stripped of their Ph.D. in Statistics in that case… This would never happen in the slightest way, though…It’s a subjective statement, in any case, about a general topic on the exam (a broad topic, which is widely known to be included on the exam).
From what I have gathered, mentioning the difficulty of a particular section is not a violation (purely in general terms). Mentioning specifics of the exam, ie kinds of questions/number of questions on a topic/ etc would be a violation.
 
If the statement was made by someone who would be considered experiencend by industry standards then it wouldn’t be subjective. The question still remains, would the statement give an advantage to some candidates in their preperation?
 
YoMo wrote:If the statement was made by someone who would be considered experiencend by industry standards then it wouldn’t be subjective. The question still remains, would the statement give an advantage to some candidates in their preperation?
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Giving a more likely example, if a statistician gave an opinion and said he or she thought QM was easy and another person said QM was difficult, would you really try to say difficulty isn’t subjective?
Also, you shouldn’t be able to discriminate the violation based on the speaker’s background– “Sorry, you’re a statistician, so you’re in violation because you gave an opinion on the difficulty of QM. Jimmy over there doesn’t have his Ph.D. in stats, though, so he can give his opinion on the QM part of the exam.” That doesn’t seem very logical in my mind.
I don’t think so to the advantage question– It’s like saying candidates are advantaged by knowing that someone thought the real exam was more difficult than the mock exam… what advantage did they really gain (study more as you had planned)?
 
god, you guys are the biggest group of virgins i’ve ever encountered.
 
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