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KimLee

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Hi everyone
I wrote the exam in Toronto and someone that was sitting next to me told me some bit of information that I thought was interesting. They mentioned that the way the exam is graded is per sections. Meaning, in some sections we need 75% to pass (Ethics, FRA, etc) and the rest of the sections we just need 50% to pass.
Is that even close to being accurate? I read the grading on CFA website and they don’t really disclose much on how it is graded. All I’m aware is that some questions have more points then others.
Anyone have any input?
 
Questions does carry equal weights but Study sessions do not! He would have been referring to the major areas that scoring above 70 in them would be required. Eventually its the MPS which acts as the benchmark and it should be out of total score. But as far as I have listened from a lot of students its understood that if you are above 70 in major areas (equity, ethics, FRA etc) and even if you manage to get between 50 to 70 in AI or Derivatives etc. you can pull this off. When I had appeared in the exam my focus was to score above 70 in all 10 areas.
 
Yes, I tried to equally do good in all areas and studied equally in all areas. I found the exam to be fair but I did not do as well as I should have due to nervousness and not being able to sleep the night before so I blanked out on a lot of the easy points by being super tired. Plus, I did not have enough time and had to guess some questions which is pretty hurtful when you knew u can do the questions but dont have time for calculations so have to guess.
Let’s see in two months.
 
I’ve heard that they take the average of the top 10% of test results, then they multiply that score by 0.7 and the result is the MPS. Thoughts?
 
gsmith795 wrote:I’ve heard that they take the average of the top 10% of test results, then they multiply that score by 0.7 and the result is the MPS. Thoughts?
Years ago, they took 70% of the 95th percentile and started with that as their passing score. The Board then argued about the score and could move it around from there. As you might expect, 70% of the 95th percentile is not especially variable and the percentage above that line is also not very variable so passing rates were fairly constant for years.
Now CFAI is using this Angoff method where they argue about what the score would be of a minimally competent test passer and use that as a cut-off. There is all this pseudo-scientific bullshit about coming up with this score but when it comes down to it, the passing score is just whatever CFAI decides it ought to be.
It’s very clear that CFAI manipulates this score to get particular outcomes that have nothing to do with minimally competent test passers. For instance back in 2004 or something (too lazy to look), CFAI dramatically dropped passing rates for a year and sent out this scathing letter decrying the widespread substitution of study guides for CFAI materials. The drop in passing rates was supposed to be evidence that the study guides were not preparing candidates well.
 
Of course a big institution like that can manipulate and do as they please. If they want to make more money, they will fail more to get more registrations lol
whatever fits their budget
 
I think CFAI does a pretty good job of keeping the pass rate low enough that the charter is prestigious but high enough that lots of people think they have a chance at passing.
 
I wish they released the MPS, but maybe just withheld individual scores. At least then we would know what to shoot for. I had posted in another thread that I know someone who took the L1 exam last June, got the 50-70% range in all topic areas, and passed the exam. Not too much to infer from that, but it does conclusively show that for at least last June’s exam, the MPS was below 70%.
 
I think that from all the scores that get posted on AF, you can come up with some kind of estimate of the passing score each year and it’s usually somewhere in the 60’s. I’m not sure you do want the passing score released. If it’s a 58 or something, you could lose some credibility if people think that kind of score is just too low.
 
I had a lot of the same questions when I took the CFP® exam. It is indicated the “modified Angoff” method is used and below is a good explaination from the FPA in regards to the process. I assume it is essentially the same.
http://tiny.cc/uzfyn
 
So i generated 8000 random numbers between 20 and 90 to represent candidates on the CFA exam in June 2011. This is assuming the lowest score was 20 and the highest score 90. The average of person on this group scored 55 percent.
If the pass rate in June was 36 percent, and 64 percent of the candidates lie below a certain passing score, then the passing score given my sample is 65.
I wouldn’t expect this to vary much from the December exam.
 
Modified Angoff is quite interesting! this is crazy though, i feel like it works backward to what it should be… the more easy question u get the more points u get! lets say u spend 4 minutes on a tough question and get i right but they expect only 30% of the body of candidates to have it right then u get only 30% credit for it while like, lets say a stupid definition that you havent memorized you take a guess and you are wrong but because it was an “easy question” and they expect 90% of people to get it right (then you miss a question worth 3 times as much).
To summarize in a scenario described above: its like instead of 50-50 you end up 25% (30%/120%) despite knowing something more complicated than others!
 
Yep..then this is what CFA uses. Found this from somewhere…
“The Angoff method has been used as a criterion for the
establishment of the MPS for the Level I examination since
1996, for Level II beginning in 2005, and for Level III beginning
in 2007. CFA Institute retains independent psychometricians to
conduct standard setting workshops for each exam.”
 
Micholien wrote:Modified Angoff is quite interesting! this is crazy though, i feel like it works backward to what it should be… the more easy question u get the more points u get! lets say u spend 4 minutes on a tough question and get i right but they expect only 30% of the body of candidates to have it right then u get only 30% credit for it while like, lets say a stupid definition that you havent memorized you take a guess and you are wrong but because it was an “easy question” and they expect 90% of people to get it right (then you miss a question worth 3 times as much).
To summarize in a scenario described above: its like instead of 50-50 you end up 25% (30%/120%) despite knowing something more complicated than others!
Yea that doesn’t make any sense. I studied all the hard stuff and prepared myself for the worse since passing rate is pretty low and so I didn’t spend too much time memorizing the easy things thinking no way in hell will easy things be on there and the way you described it sounds like this can end up pretty disastrous for the people who studied their butts off in the past few months. But let’s see what happens. What the passing rate will be this time. It seems that December has a lower passing rate than June, makes me think that the exams are harder in December :(
 
Agreed, I am in the same boat! I guess at least that makes more aware of the grading for CFA and will help me study more efficiently from now on… Hopefully I still passed!
 
I don’t think this has anything to do with our passing the exam.. Think about it..even if someone who only studied easy ones got those qns right and missed the hard ones will be in a same boat as some one who got all hard qns right and screwed up the easy ones…If your take is I should have just concentrated on only easy questions, that may be flawed coz you may never know how easy/hard the exam could be…So, I would say we should all be happy that we worked really hard and studied everything, and the rest we will see on Jan 27th or so…Good Luck..you will be rewarded for your hard work…
 
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