Exam Format

Thought I'd take a quick break from Ethics to point out that I have no idea yet what the format of this exam is, and find that out.  I've been through enough rodeos to know that format can be crucial to prepping and nailing an exam.  I'll focus here only on Level I.  Levels II and III look to be very, very different.

Level I appears to consist of 240 multiple choice questions over 6 hours (two sessions of 3 hours each).  6 hours is 360 minutes, 360/240 = 1.5 minutes per question.  Should probably aim to spend about 1.25 minutes for some wiggle room.  Obviously you can't touch section 1 once that session is over.  From CFAI (my emphases added):

"Level I multiple choice questions are crafted with each of the incorrect responses (distracters) carefully constructed to represent common mistakes in either calculation or logic. A Level I examination consists of 240 questions to be completed in a six-hour time frame. The Level I exams include 240 total multiple choice questions, 120 on the morning session of the exam and 120 on the afternoon session. Each multiple choice question is free-standing (not dependent on other questions) and has three possible answers: A, B, and C. All questions are equally weighted and there is no penalty for guessing.

While you are taking the Level I multiple choice exam, remember:

• Carefully manage your time. Don’t spend too much time on any one question or topic area. On average, you should allocate 1.5 minutes to each multiple choice question, including time to record your answer on the answer sheet.
• Read the questions carefully. A careless “skimming” of the question may lead you to a completely different, and incorrect, answer.
• Read each item carefully and eliminate obviously incorrect answers. If you have to guess and you can eliminate one of the responses, your odds of answering the question correctly are much higher. There is no penalty for guessing.
• Mark your answers on the answer sheet as you complete each question. Some candidates mark their answers in the exam book and wait until the end of the exam to complete the answer sheet. This is not an advisable strategy.
• Expect to encounter questions that you will not be able to answer correctly. There is a great deal of material to master and exam questions are challenging. Standard setters and the Board of Governors (at all three levels) take account of exam difficulty in setting Minimum Passing Scores. For a full description of how the MPS is established, see The CFA Program: Our Fifth Decade (PDF).
• Examination writers use a standard set of formatting conventions on the multiple choice questions. Many sample exams produced by third parties do not follow these conventions, so review the CFA Institute format presented below.
• Familiarize yourself with the instructions for filling out your answer sheet (PDF). Instructions are also available at the time of the exam."

This actually seems like a really fair format - I had seen a few sample questions and I thought that having only 3 options might mean that there would always be an option D and E for either None or All of the above (as some of my undergrad profs would do) or like the data sufficiency portion of GMAT (the infamous AD/BCE strategy).  A 1/3 shot is really not too bad for a multiple choice exam.  The difficulty comes though that the questions are crafted with the specific intent to mislead you - so you've got to read carefully and know your stuff cold.

Two basic question formats are used: a fill in the blank style with 3 filler choices, and a full question with 3 answer choices.  CFA do their best to be clear: they avoid 'except/true/false' type questions and attempt to avoid using NOT formats - but they do plenty of 'which is the MOST appropriate/MOST accurate/LEAST likely etc - meaning that the degree of correctness will play a role and more than one answer will be 'correct' but one will be the 'most correct.'  Those can be a pain.  Answer choices are organized shortest to longest for words, and smallest to largest for numbers - curious whether there is a 'most common' CFA response to default to in case of a total blank.

All told it actually looks pretty straightforward - 1.5 minutes per question, looks like you can skip time consuming/difficult questions and come back to them, and there is no penalty for guessing so fire away.

The following chart is from CFA Society of Chicago (http://www.cfachicago.org/candidate_examstrategy.asp)

Ethics at 15% is important - not to be ignored - but I'm feeling a bit anxious to get on to the quantitative and more investment focused portions.  Interestingly portfolio management gets very little CFA love.  The general advice so far has been to nail ethics, fixed income, statement analysis, and equities.

So what do you need to do you pass?  The answer is, shockingly...no one knows.

The CFAI changes the MPS (minimum passing score) after each exam in response to that exams difficulty.  They have never released the actual minimum passing score for the year.  But based on score reports the CFAI considers anything higher than 70% to be 'average to above average.'  Below 50% is 'poor' and from 50-70% is considered 'poor to average.'  They don't go into any detail about 'good' or 'great' above 70% but I'm going to assume 70% is the target.

30% of 240 is 72 - that means one can get 72 (!) questions wrong and still be pretty much assured a pass.  Not easy, but certainly not impossible.  168/240.  I think after the exam if you mark your certain/maybe/uncertains, you can have a pretty good idea where you stand.