Official Comments & Complaints to the CFA 2014 Level II exam

DMiller wrote:
My biggest complaints:
1) Ethics should be straight forward. There is no reason that even CFA charterholders can’t 100% answer every ethics question with confidence. The rules should be simple and straight forward that way there is no confusion in the real world (or on the exam).
2) There were definitely some questions which were dependant on each other. I don’t see why they can’t figure out a way to make each one independant (they have all year to figure it out).
3) The amount of material is just too cumbersome. And then on the exam they ask some bizarre question about a topic that I don’t even recall reading about in the CFAI cirrulum? Also the vignette was poorly written I think. (Meaning you could get it wrong just because of the way it was written.)
4) Economics I think is just insanely poorly written in the cirriculum. They really need to simplifiy and make this section clearer.
5) Portfolio mgmt in the cirriculum did not have enough EOC’s to guide candidates on what formulas could potentially be important.
I think those are my top 5 for now.
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1. Ethics in the world is rarely straight forward; it was simple in level 1, now you have to apply it. I think the ethics cases were kept simple. It’s not like that outside of the exam.
2. I agree on question interdependencies. Schweser handled that well in their mocks.
3. Yes there’s a lot of material. That’s what an analyst needs to know just as a starting point. They could cut down the material, but then we’d need 6 exams. They set the curriculum; if you didn’t read it or skipped something on the exam, that’s your fault. For the record, that happened to me - my fault, not theirs.
4. Econ isn’t simple - 200 theories to explain everything. They simplified it.
5. Answer - all the material is important.
I would take issue if they made the cases or questions overly wordy. Compared to the mocks from CFAI and Schweser, the exam seemed to have shorter and clearer vignettes.
 
WDM - regarding ethics - I understand the point that ethics is frequently murky. But the point of CFA Ethics should be to simplify ethical decisions. The point of Ethic Manuals at companies is to guide employees how to clearly deal with situations that could arrise. The CFA ethics manual would not be an effective ethics manual as it is not clear. It confuscates the issues rather than clarifies them.
I can’t mention specific questions on the test but I do believe there were choices that could be argued convincingly both ways. Btw - my 6th gripe with the exam - why can’t we talk about questions on the test? Why can’t the institute release the full exam afterwards so that we can discuss and learn from it? Treat it as a mock exam for the next year.
The ethics questions should be distributed to all current CFA Charterholders and see if over 75% of them get each one correct. If not, there is clearly a problem with the question.
 
I know that question!! that was a stupid one for sure. I mean you know the EASY calculations why not put the assumption to make it clear??? This was a question that REALLY pissed me
 
whinewhinewhinewhine
STOP.
you can’t have it both ways: either the exams are easy and everyone is a f*cking charterholder or they’re a total pain in the ass and most people fail. i say this is a december passer who likely failed this time around, but i’m totally comfortable coming back next year now that i know what to expect.
you people are seriously utterly ridiculous. get the f*ck over it. you’re not entitled to shit.
 
My complaint is that they did not release the mocks in pdf format until a week before the exam. This is something they could have put up much earlier
 
semantics wrote:
whinewhinewhinewhine
STOP.
you can’t have it both ways: either the exams are easy and everyone is a f*cking charterholder or they’re a total pain in the ass and most people fail. i say this is a december passer who likely failed this time around, but i’m totally comfortable coming back next year now that i know what to expect.
you people are seriously utterly ridiculous. get the f*ck over it. you’re not entitled to shit.
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Truth.
Everytime I see one of these whiners get their Charter, the less the Charter means to me.
 
semantics wrote:
whinewhinewhinewhine
STOP.
you can’t have it both ways: either the exams are easy and everyone is a f*cking charterholder or they’re a total pain in the ass and most people fail. i say this is a december passer who likely failed this time around, but i’m totally comfortable coming back next year now that i know what to expect.
you people are seriously utterly ridiculous. get the f*ck over it. you’re not entitled to shit.
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wct2010 wrote:
semantics wrote:
whinewhinewhinewhine
STOP.
you can’t have it both ways: either the exams are easy and everyone is a f*cking charterholder or they’re a total pain in the ass and most people fail. i say this is a december passer who likely failed this time around, but i’m totally comfortable coming back next year now that i know what to expect.
you people are seriously utterly ridiculous. get the f*ck over it. you’re not entitled to shit.
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Click to expand...
 
PM was just too difficult at the exam….. Also I believe I found an error in CF which I will report to CFA….
 
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