Great point, Wendy, and I’m on board with you. It’s really about whether the system you grew up in is one where playing by the rules is rewarded consistently, or if it’s thought to be “a sucker’s game.” To many Russians I’ve met who grew up in Soviet or 1990s Russia, the idea that you would follow the rules when there is an opportunity to break them for a benefit without much chance getting caught is simply considered irrational. I think it may be similar in mainland China too, but I have less experience there. If you grew up under those systems, it is arguably irrational not to cheat: the expected payoff from playing by the rules is probably pretty low, but the payoffs from cheating can be quite high. But now in a globalized world, we have people from different backgrounds interacting with each other, and it starts to change the mix of strategies people use to decide whether to cheat or not. Unfortunately, it tends to boil down to the lowest common denominator. And that’s also one of the problems with the way the US is drifting today. Part of the challenge of such unequal distributions of wealth is that it creates the sense that playing by the rules isn’t just going to keep you out of the top 1%; it may not even offer a chance to stay in your current percentile.
This is true what you are saying about Russia. Another thing that is different is the price you pay for getting caught. In India you can just buy your way out of it. The same in Russia. The consequences are just not there. Getting caught cheating in the US is different. Next to committing a hate crime, cheating was the only way to get yourself expelled from my university in the United States. I knew kids that got caught dealing cocaine who only got week long susppensions, but I knew kids that would be sent home for the semester for plagiarism or even expelled. We had a group of Bulgarian students taking Russian 101 for an easy A. They got caught cheating on their final exam and were all expelled. 1 was a week away from graduation. Each year my school has a special meeting with international students just to warn them about this cultural difference.
I would probably admit that the potential for this kind of person-to-person cheating is probably highest among Indians. Why? Simply because in June 10,000 Indians are going to write CFA exams in India. And another (I would estimate) 10,000 Indians are going to write CFA exams in North America. What are the chances that none of the 10,000 Indians in one region are going to text/email/phone any of the 10,000 Indians in the other region? Approximately zero. Americans are less likely to cheat in this way, if only because they are much less likely to have a buddy writing the same exam in Asia.
>ASIANS CHEAT I will speak for Indian’s only. INDIANS have been found to be CHEAT - no doubt ! Also front page expose of Asian-looking guys massively reinforces a stereotype. >Raj Ratnam and Rajat Gupta ‘friendship’ Unless ofcourse your Indian friend is United States District Attorney Preet Bharara! >>Raj Ratnam and Rajat Gupta Needless to say that they now belong to an illustrious alumni of many non-Indian names. > Cheating and political system Agree that there is some causality. Although India claims to be democracy it is its worst implementation. Democracy in India is more a convenience arrangement. >US student unlikely to cheat Agree to this. He has so many options in life. He is probably as or more likely to commit other crimes, but his incentives are absolutely skewed against being a cheat. Also US system is likely a much better than average in terms of getting any guilty behind the bar. >Salvaging Indian image I have a few post on this forum trying to salvage India’s image. (And I seem to be the only Indian on this forum who cares about it). Reason I felt I should was that I come from premier university in India. Alumni of my institution have earned good repute in foreign land by sheer hard work and intellect. And it hurts me to read India and Indians being branded badly. It hurts - but it shouldn’t any more. I have now decided that this will be my last post on this matter on this forum. India (and Indians) do not need any one to salvage their image for them. There will always be an attempt to discredit the underdog. Let people say what they want - India doesn’t care ! May be India thinks that if ‘cheating’ is the only way it’s going to get it’s Kohinoor back then so be it! Before I sign-off with a rather emotional end-note. I am reminded of a story we had in school. The story is about emperor Akbar and his wazir Birbal. (It’s kind of aesopica but more witty). If you care to read the link [http://www.balmitra.com/StoryBook/akbarbirbal/bs02.asp] cheers 
What?
India doesn’t need to defend its image, CFA Bombay. It’s got 5000 years of history, the world’s largest democracy, trillions of dollars of GDP, nuclear weapons, more money hidden offshore then any country, iranian oil, and a huge political lobby who will attack anyone that criticizes it in public. India is not a victim, period, and really ought to stop pretending to be one. India is one “grown-ass” woman, not a little girl. What does need to be defended is the integrity of the CFA program. Cheating is a cultural difference, in my humble opinion, and there is no reason why The West should be able to say to 1.2 billion Indians stop cheating or paying bribes to you in your own country. But defending the CFA Charter is different. While it is now a global certification, it has its roots in America where the entire fabric of US society depends on at least the assumption of honest hard work leading to success. I say “assumption” because we all know that the US has people who cheat. Still, for the charter to have any meaning to us, we have to be able to believe that it is damn near impossible to get it without doing the work required. This is why the CFAI places such strong emphasis on Ethics and test day security. I am personally glad that they have taken a very small step to closing an obvious chink in their armor. It adds value to all of the work done by those on this forum. Now, it will be difficult for Yankees to disparage hard-working Indians, Chinese, or Russian people for cheating on the exam in this way.
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ROFL !!!
>Now, it will be difficult for Yankees to disparage hard-working Indians, Chinese, or Russian people for cheating on the exam in this way. There will always be someone feeling that the 10,000 odd Indian sitting in NA are now taking download from their pals in IST timezone.
Yes, you’re right about that. But I do think that this will mitigate the problem. By the time India finishes the exam NA is either in their seats or will only be, at max, a few hours away from being in their seats. This is an improvement from having an entire night to study under the Saturday/Sunday format. I don’t know how feasible it is, but I personally think all exams should start at around 2 PM GMT. This would mean an early start for North America and a late finish for Asia, but it would ensure fairness. If you want to work in finance, then starting early or working late shouldn’t intimidate you.
Or how about… Start most test centers at around 2 pm GMT. This would include: Europe, Africa, South Asia, China, East Coast, Central. Let countries like Australia start up to 3 hours early or California 3 hours late. This way pretty much everybody is seated around the same time and cannot really meaningfully pass information to one another.
Some of these last few posts were like O.o wtf?
Wouldn’t that mean a 10pm start for Hong Kong / Singapore ? That doesn’t sound reasonable – even if you tweak the time by 3 hours earlier or later. The only way the CFAI could really address cheating is to have multiple versions of the exam that are COMPLETELY different. (Not just letter-answers switched around – entirely different topics). Maybe 3 different exams, with all three exams administered at every testing site to ensure fairness between geographies. If there were 3 completely different versions of the exam, you wouldn’t even bother to call your buddy, because there’s a 67% chance that you’d be writing an entirely different exam. This could also solve all of the “glancing” issues, because the proctors could give different versions of the exams to candidates sitting next to each other.
This sounds like a good solution actually. I bet the cheaters will moan and groan, but it would solve the “calling” and “glancing” problems… Wendy has moved up on my smartness ladder.
But if there are three different exams, they will need to hire more test writers, graders, etc. CFAI already seems to have a really costly administration process. I doubt that they will be willing to siphon money from… whatever it is they spend their money on. Plus there is the question of fairness. It’s impossible to have three exams with the exact same difficulty. They will need to change their MPS methodology - like only top 40% pass, or something like that.
On mine too. My understanding was that the Asia exam was already somewhat different, but I don’t know how different. But making separate exams entirely random, even within a time zone would surely solve a lot of problems without causing all that many new ones. The biggest issue would be to have to produce two or three comparable difficulty exams… but they’re already doing that anyway, I believe. If there are enough exams, you can presumably match up the distributions and set a different MPS for each version of the exam, but where similar percentages of people are passing or failing each one. The Angoff method of getting the MPS should work on either exam anyway. A few people on the borderline might pass or fail depending on which exam they got, but that’s not really so different than what they could expect with just one exam. The L3 exam might be a bit trickier to manage. I think the big issue is that CFAI seem like a bunch of cheapskates sometimes - probably their value investing tradition - and probably won’t want to go through the extra costs of developing good comparable problems…
I really wonder do they at least change up the order of the questions on vignettes and multiple choice. I cant see why they wouldn’t have at least 3 versions of the same the same exams. This could make the “glancing” problem much less of an issue.
Glancing could be solved if they simply spaced candidates further apart. The problem with having completely different exams in various regions is that different MPS have to be established exam. For instance, if the Asian exams have post retirement benefits questions while US exams consolidations and business combinations, how do you level the playing field?
I am one religious Jew who took the December exam in NYC. There were about 40 people, about half of them indeed looking like religious Jews. Of course, New York probably has the highest weight of Jewish candidates, and I heard the proctors saying that Sunday attendance may sometimes be larger than on Saturday. I have a friend in Moscow, and he is the only Sunday candidate there.
In fact, there is a special form that a rabbi has to sign, as you suggest. I had one submitted, but I am sure that nobody in CFAI bothers to check the details or wants to set standards as to who is a Jew, how observant he needs to be or who is a rabbi. Surely we do not want such details to appear in the ethics standards. If I were CFAI, since the there is a need for Sunday session anyway, I would actually spread candidates more evenly and let everyone take it on either day. That way there will be a sufficient sample of Sunday takers to make the exams different enough and then grade each pool separately. I wonder what statistical adjustment will be necessary for the absence of religious Jews one day and religious Christians the next
I like the idea of everyone writing on Saturday anyway- I think having a free day off prior to the exam (i.e. not taking vacation) is a definite advantage. The above debate about whether Asians cheat or not reminds me of a story a friends dad used to tell me. He was a TA at a local University and spent weekends grading assignments with another TA. This guy would mark them normally until he came to the first Chinese student’s paper. He’d mark it normally, then give the same grade to every Chinese student. His logic was that ‘they always do the damn assignments together anyway’.