Hi
Just wondering how others scored in ethics in the recent L2 exam.
I consistently scored highly in ethics in L1(both exam and mocks) and L2 mocks but found the ethics questions in the exam very difficult- accordingly I got under 50% in the topic area. I ask because I remember people on these forums commenting that they found the ethics questions quite challenging in the exam.
SL
I thought it was very difficult. Ethics was a strong suit of mine in L1 (scored 70+), and was generally doing pretty well on all of my L2 practice Ethics questions, and I got in the 51-70 range on L2 ethics (I had 3 sections in 51-70, and the rest were 70+). You’re definitely not the only one. From this forum it sounded like there is somewhat uniform agreement that Ethics was very tough this year. I’d be interested to know how many of those Ethics questions actually counted in everyone’s scores this year (I believe they have the power to exclude some questions or give everyone credit for them if they are found to be overly hard or don’t have any informational value but I could be wrong). We’ll never know though!
Interesting. Thanks for the feedback. And well done on your scores. You did better than I did. I only had 3 areas over 70 so I must have been borderline. Unfortunately for me the areas I performed badly in were PM and ethics so god knows how I’ll find level 3
SL
My experience is in line with your findings; performed very strongly on ethics in mocks and 51-70 on the exam.
Not just me then 
I scored >70% for Ethics but my TT scores were low 50s. I found Ethics on the exam hit or miss because I found almost every question I could justify 2 answers so it came down to a 50/50 shot for a lot of them. I was surprised with my score in that section, no doubt about it.
I scored above 70% in both L1 and L2. I read CFAI material (theory and questions) and mostly scribbled important points on material itself. Mostly i wrote not-so-obvious interpretations of the statements and the ones which were confusing. At the end, i revised only those writings. Finally, I believe Ethics is also about common-sense.
I have now taken four exams. L1 twice & L2 twice. Have found the ethics on the real thing to be the least congruent to questions I studied either through Schweser or the actual curriculum books. Which is stupid. Ethics should be one of the areas we can do the best on with the least effort - but CFAI seems hell bent on trying to fail us with their ambiguous questions.
Passed L1 with ethics in the middle Failed L2 with ethics in the middle (all I did was read the books, no mock exams, band 3) Failed L2 with ethics less than 50% (did 10 mocks, read all the books, flash cards, etc etc [gave an honest effort] band 10)
Ethics is single-handedly the most frustrating topic for me.
I scored >70 on the exam and on most of the topic tests. I noticed that the majority of the Ethics questions were topics that were covered in the CFAI book and not in Kaplan. I think anyone studying for the exam would be best served to read every sentence in CFAI and skip the other providers Ethics section.
This year I passed L2, but failed Ethics <50, even though I studied it pretty hard the last 6 weeks reviewing CFAI text and doing Kaplan mocks… this subject has the least correlation to the effort I put in, and don’t know what to do about it, other than to study the other subjects harder to make up for it. Maybe I’ll try reading it 15 mins a day, so it’s not like starting over every Spring… I think it’s overkill for a competency exam like this.
I’m surprised more people aren’t angry at CFAI for what they pulled this year on the ethics section. Totally unfair and a deliberate attempt to trick candidates.
2015 Passed L1 with 50-70 on Ethics
2016 Failed L2 Band 8 with 50-70 on Ethics
2017 Passed L2 with 50-70 on Ethics
Guess you can say I’m consistent at the least. I’ve typically done well on the CFAI mocks and online topic tests but seems to not matter. For what it’s worth, I didn’t think ethics was hard or tricky than usual but I seem to be in the minority based on feedback on the forum.
A co-worker got the following:
2015 Passed L1 with over 70 on Ethics
2016 Failed L2 Band 8 with over 70 on Ethics
2017 Passed L2 with <50 on Ethics
He did say he thought Ethics was more difficult than usual this year…
I will add that the thing about Ethics is that unlike the other topics, it’s full of grey areas. You look at FRA, Derv, Fixed Inc, etc… the rules are the rules, you just need to try to remember them all, there’s no ambiguity as far as I can think of. With Ethics, it’s all about ambiguity and whether or not you can spot/avoid doing the wrong thing.
Curious as to whether the non-native English speakers thought Ethics was more difficult than usual. I’ve heard in the past Ethics was one of the tougher subjects for them and CFAI tried to lessen the impact to them with how they were wording the test material…
For me it just seemed like the schwezer material didn’t cover the ethics topic questions in the exam. As far as I’m aware, the full L2 syllabus is 2000 pages so providers like schwezer will always have to make decisions what to leave out when they condense it. Maybe for L3 next year I will follow DKO1986’s strategy and just read the cfai ethics material. I did try it this year for L2 but it was soooo dry
SL
I too was caught off guard by my poor ethics score. While I am not a native speaker, I do not feel that my low score was due to there being a language issue. Surprisingly, many people here got poor ethics scores, so this section might have been harder than usual.
Ethics is definitely one of the most challenging topics!
I wonder what else I can do to master it.
Maybe I am just a wee bit unethical 
Got >70% on ethics, I still think the questions were complete fucking bullshit! Very poorly worded. The exam was a fucking joke with respect to that topic. I studied ethics last & used CFAI material for it (if you use 3rd part prep for ethics you’re an idiot). In saying that, I think I guessed well…
I got <50% Ethics.
On the Ethics topic tests, my scores were all over the place. Got 100% in a few, 33% in a few, with average 66%. There were a few questions on the test that were ambiguous and I think that put me in the less than 50% bucket.
I don’t think we should be discussing the difficulty of specific questions in such a public forum.
I shall post my opinion on my twitter instead, which is private and open to only select followers. I reckon CFA allows that, or not… idfn >
Ethics was the reason i couldn’t sleep soundly until results came. Kept thinking I failed cos of it…
What a muppet…
I thought Ethics was tougher than last year. Historically I have been good at Ethics both during exams and practice problems.
Last year I got over 70% in Ethics and Band 10.
This year I got between 50-70% in Ethics and passed. FRA and Equity are the heaviest weighted topics so getting above 70% in both of those was the key to me passing, especially FRA which I struggled with parts of.
Passed L1 with Ethics scored 50-70%
Passed L2 with Ethics scored <50%
Ethics was never my strength so I actually did not even read through the material this year. And the exam questions were even trickier than I expected. I understand the the rules but always feel uncertain when making choices in the questions. Honestly I don’t even know what to do with it for L3. Any suggestions folks?