I am seeing a lot of posts about whether people should go for a retab on the basis of their matrix and I thought I would give my reasoning why I have decided to spend $100 to retab my band 10 fail on a no hoper.
Let me start by saying, I am under no illusion that my score is correct. I have seen the matrices (not sure of the plural of matrix) of people who have passed and people who have failed and seen the 300 hours 40/60/80 scores and some matrices look worse than mine that have passed and some people who have a lower 40/60/80 score than me have passed. Just because your matrix looks semi-decent in your opinion or you have compared to others and it looks like yours is better this doesn’t mean anything. The scores are banded they are not precise percentages, its likely that if someone passed with more sections less than or equal to 50% than you that they were hitting the higher percentages in this banding and you were closer to 0. Also with level 3 40/60/80 means nothing, I know my primary failure is the morning, as I have worked out that my absolute minimum in the afternoon was 71%. I’d wager that the percentage of candidates that score a complete 0% on a section of 6 multiple choice questions is incredibly low even if you guessed all six you would have to bet on yourself scoring at least one in the constructed responses the possibility of a 0% is a very real prospect, there is no 1 in 3 chance you are purely left to your own imagination.
So why have I requested a retab… I have spent at least 9 months full on and probably more like 15 months full on where my life has been on hold for the CFA, I passed level 1 and 2 on first attempt (although I definitely just scraped by in level 2… and probably level 1) and this is my first fail in these exams (probably overdue). Although 15 months might not seem like a lot, I’m talking about when I have had no life outside work and study and this has obviously impacted my friendships and my relationship, I know it is incredibly tiring for my wife to have a husband who is constantly irritable for the first 5 months of the year. This exam doesn’t hold for me a guaranteed pay rise or promotion or even any real benefits to my career as I work in market data, I am doing it because of my own personal interest in this and for a greater understanding and because I want to finish a process I have started. I realise that $100 could be spent easily elsewhere. I have requested this because if there is even a 0.0001% chance (probably even less) then I owe it to my wife to go for it (and probably my mental health).
If you are considering a retab, I’d suggest you think about why are you doing it…
Because you’ve seen a couple of matrix that look worse than yours or someone has a worse 40/60/80 score than you and passed… probably not worth it, you can tell very little from the matrix of others and 40/60/80 is going to be incredibly innaccurate for the AM section of level 3.
Because you’d like to feel that you have checked everything that you can to ensure you didn’t pass no matter how remote the opportunity… go for it providing you won’t miss that $100 and have no false illusion that you won’t be sitting the exam next year.
We’ve had to wait (just under) 10 weeks for the level 3 CFA results, the process of marking these is incredibly thorough and the likelihood of mistake is less than minimal, the retab process is there to be used, but don’t go expecting any changes because of it.
Let me start by saying, I am under no illusion that my score is correct. I have seen the matrices (not sure of the plural of matrix) of people who have passed and people who have failed and seen the 300 hours 40/60/80 scores and some matrices look worse than mine that have passed and some people who have a lower 40/60/80 score than me have passed. Just because your matrix looks semi-decent in your opinion or you have compared to others and it looks like yours is better this doesn’t mean anything. The scores are banded they are not precise percentages, its likely that if someone passed with more sections less than or equal to 50% than you that they were hitting the higher percentages in this banding and you were closer to 0. Also with level 3 40/60/80 means nothing, I know my primary failure is the morning, as I have worked out that my absolute minimum in the afternoon was 71%. I’d wager that the percentage of candidates that score a complete 0% on a section of 6 multiple choice questions is incredibly low even if you guessed all six you would have to bet on yourself scoring at least one in the constructed responses the possibility of a 0% is a very real prospect, there is no 1 in 3 chance you are purely left to your own imagination.
So why have I requested a retab… I have spent at least 9 months full on and probably more like 15 months full on where my life has been on hold for the CFA, I passed level 1 and 2 on first attempt (although I definitely just scraped by in level 2… and probably level 1) and this is my first fail in these exams (probably overdue). Although 15 months might not seem like a lot, I’m talking about when I have had no life outside work and study and this has obviously impacted my friendships and my relationship, I know it is incredibly tiring for my wife to have a husband who is constantly irritable for the first 5 months of the year. This exam doesn’t hold for me a guaranteed pay rise or promotion or even any real benefits to my career as I work in market data, I am doing it because of my own personal interest in this and for a greater understanding and because I want to finish a process I have started. I realise that $100 could be spent easily elsewhere. I have requested this because if there is even a 0.0001% chance (probably even less) then I owe it to my wife to go for it (and probably my mental health).
If you are considering a retab, I’d suggest you think about why are you doing it…
Because you’ve seen a couple of matrix that look worse than yours or someone has a worse 40/60/80 score than you and passed… probably not worth it, you can tell very little from the matrix of others and 40/60/80 is going to be incredibly innaccurate for the AM section of level 3.
Because you’d like to feel that you have checked everything that you can to ensure you didn’t pass no matter how remote the opportunity… go for it providing you won’t miss that $100 and have no false illusion that you won’t be sitting the exam next year.
We’ve had to wait (just under) 10 weeks for the level 3 CFA results, the process of marking these is incredibly thorough and the likelihood of mistake is less than minimal, the retab process is there to be used, but don’t go expecting any changes because of it.