Istanbul to sit CFA Exam on the 15th of June 2013

trogulj

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These candidates will most probably sit the same exam as us due to:
1. CFAI have said it takes 12-13 months to put together the exam.
2. The whole passing mark process
If that’s the case there is a possibility that candidates could have received info within the two week period. Could this result in an upward bias in the MPS across the levels? Not sure of the amount of candidates there however if it’s a large amount there could be an upward bias.
Ref:
http://www.cfasociety.org/istanbul/Pages/default.aspx
 
I think that it’s great news for people whose lives have been severely disrupted by the events in Istanbul.
Whether it’s the same exam the rest of the world took or not shouldn’t matter.
 
Yeah it’s good for them and I would be relieved if I was them. However it puts the rest of us at a disadvantage if the candidate pool is a large number. Just a thought.
 
True, great news for the people.. Well done to the CFAI.. Students who study their …. off, need this opportunity.
I am not sure how many people write the exam in Turkey to upward bias the results actually. Whether its same exam or different exam, hardly matters.
They still need to study to pass the exam and I strongly believe in law of Karma :)
 
trogulj wrote:Yeah it’s good for them and I would be relieved if I was them. However it puts the rest of us at a disadvantage if the candidate pool is a large number. Just a thought.
I suspect that it’s a blip.
 
The CFA should have no problem putting together a different but similar exam. Putting together a test is not rocket science.
 
If it is the same exam, then i don’t see any reason why it can be considered fair to other candidates.
 
istanbul is probably a very small blip of candidates, it’s not going to mess the MPS curve anyway
 
itera wrote:
istanbul is probably a very small blip of candidates, it’s not going to mess the MPS curve anyway
The number of the candidates in Turkey has nothing to do with fairness.
As long as a single candidate has the advantage, it’s unfair to the rest.
 
This is great news for them…stop being such a tool and worrying about others if you didn’t pass its your own fault….they have way more problems there right now then anyone else has to worry about….and that’s in addition to spending a bunch of their life studying for the test….when I heard it was originally cancelled and they had to wait a year I thought It was unfair….happy to hear they’ll have a chance to take it now
 
Acejeff55, this has nothing to do with me being worried about passing or this potentially disadvantaging just ME. I’m speaking for everybody who did the exam on June 1. I never said I wasn’t happy for these Istanbul candidates, I’m so glad that they got to sit this exam because I couldn’t imagine this happening to me. I only put this thread up for opinion sake.
Itera I wouldn’t be so sure about that. In Sydney in my opinion we had like 2000-3000 people in that exam hall and we only have 4,000,000 people in this city. Istabul has 14,000,000 people and with a large financial district. Think about it, there are only 25,000 Level 3 candidates worldwide, how wouldn’t skewed marks from Turkish candidates affect the MPS for these candidates. Of course it would.
 
trogulj - would it be fairer to have those candidates unable to sit for the exam at all? I am sure that CFAI will normalize if the avg score in Turkey is outside the standard error from global candidates.
 
yodacaia, technically yes it would be fairer if they didn’t sit it at all on the rest of the candidates. However, as a candidate myself, having sat 3 of these exams already I wouldn’t want this though, I know what they have been through. Even if it marginally did disadvantage me if I had to make the call I would let them do the exam.
 
trogulj wrote:
Acejeff55, this has nothing to do with me being worried about passing or this potentially disadvantaging just ME. I’m speaking for everybody who did the exam on June 1. I never said I wasn’t happy for these Istanbul candidates, I’m so glad that they got to sit this exam because I couldn’t imagine this happening to me. I only put this thread up for opinion sake.
Itera I wouldn’t be so sure about that. In Sydney in my opinion we had like 2000-3000 people in that exam hall and we only have 4,000,000 people in this city. Istabul has 14,000,000 people and with a large financial district. Think about it, there are only 25,000 Level 3 candidates worldwide, how wouldn’t skewed marks from Turkish candidates affect the MPS for these candidates. Of course it would.
Totally agree. If Turkey candidates have an advantage because they take the same test as everybody else, then the MPS could be realistically be increased by a question or two. That would adversely hurt borderline candidates everywhere else. I hope as somebody commented above that CFAI will treat these candidates seperate in the overall MPS determination.
 
jqian wrote:
The number of the candidates in Turkey has nothing to do with fairness.
As long as a single candidate has the advantage, it’s unfair to the rest.
I second this. It doesn’t really have as much to do with the number of candidates that are impacted but rather the simple fact that for a test that is built around equal advantages to all some takers are getting an advantage.
 
Hrm, I wonder how this situation compares to when CFAI lost Ghana’s Level 1 scantrons two years ago. They would have had to write a new exam and only base MPS on the 275 Ghanian candidates. They however had around 2 months to put together a new exam.. (December —> Feb).
 
I’d think that an institute of CFAI’s caliber would put together a completely new exam. In fact, it’d be poor planning/management on CFAI’s part to not foresee such events a year in advance. Ultimately, it wouldn’t surprise me if they had 3 or 4 different sets of exams in the bank.
 
It’s unfair to let them to wait for another year.
there is a way to assure fairness for people who take test on June 1st. Limit the top scorer pool to candidates who took test on June 1st and set MPS on that. The pool is already large enough. As for candidates in Istanbul, even they use same test book they have to be evaluated against the general MPS as everybody else. People in Istanbul probably gained some information. It’s like the integrity of capital market. Authority and participants all claim to protect its integrity but we often hear its integrity is tainted. But it’s the real life. If some candidates there gained some advantage, e.g they do have extra 2 weeks to prepare for the exam, and borderline pass it I am fine with that. If I borderline failed on June 1st and could borderline pass if I sit in Istabul, I only blame myself for not being strong enough. As for political protest and turmoil, people’s life are not as bad as media want poeople to believe. If they sit at home they would not be affected much. It’s not like large scale vilolence that happens at every corner and every home in the city. I believe their life are generally fine.
So let them take the exam and I am sure CFAI will figure out great solutions.
 
I have no qualms with having those candidates resit the CFAI exams that they have missed, but giving them the same questions which has been in the public domain for the last 2 weeks is massively unfair to those who took it earlier on.
Part of the exam difficulty itself is based on the uncertainty with regards to the level of difficulty a candidate might expect, and the subject areas that will get tested in the exam. If a candidate has an opportunity to know all these and probably more, then you might as well give them an open book exam. Having put in hundreds of hours of hardwork, I will personally be very gutted to think another candidate is in a better position than me, simply because they happen to live in Turkey at the time of the exam.
I understand that the situation in Turkey is worrying, but it is not really as bad as the media portrays.
 
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