I had a study partner and both of us attempted the same mock exams under timed conditions. We attempted CFA Mocks x3, Bill Campbell Mocks x5 and Noesis Mocks x2 = 10 total Mocks attempted. I consistently scored between 10% to 15% more than my study buddy because I am “fresher” to Level 3 curriculum than him. the Aug 2024 Level III was his third attempt and my second attempt. however, his second attempt was back in 2022 while mine was just Feb 2024.
in the end, my friend passed and I didn’t. I felt very confident with my results and i only flagged like just 9 questions (3 points each = 27 points) so I’m quite confident I could score the remaining points (264 - 27 = 237 points) with 80% confidence level. i would’ve expect my score could be around 80% x 237 / 264 = 72% (roughly).
But the breakdown generated by the score report was much worst! Nothing was above 70% and I was very surprised by this. Is there a slight possibility there might be glitch happened that my answers got messed up with other candidates so the results generated is not mine?
maybe i’m suffering from overconfidence bias or Schweser’s Happy Failing Syndrome. But my understanding of the Level III material is consistently better than my study buddy so both of us were shocked when he passed and I did not. I wanted to see if anyone has experience similar situation?
I have heard people make claims about so called glitches, but no official statements have ever been made about such things.
Given how long CFAI takes to grade these things due to their process, I find it kind of hard to believe that a slip-up like this could happen. The computers know whether or not you pass or fail practically after you hit the submit button. The remaining two months are for human review for both the multiple choice questions as well as the constructed response questions, plus some other data collection.
Unfortunately, there is no appeals process, so there is no real way to get the institute to re-review your exam.
1 Like
Yes, ultimately I can only blame myself and acknowledge that my prep was insufficient to pass the exam. I’m planning to retake the exam in Aug 2025. I realised 4 months of prep (failed Feb 2024 paper & immediately retake in Aug 2024) was not enough for me given my background with kids and never ending work commitments.
Although I do fine something strange about my results. I know I answered 2 Derivatives question correctly and even confirmed the accuracy after checking the book. However the results showed I got 0 for Derivatives which raises my suspicion. Ah well, no use of hoping for such glitch anyway. It’s just a fool’s hope. Thanks for taking your time to reply to my post 
1 Like
LIII grading goes through several levels of reviews by human graders as well as the electronic tallies. It’s probably not a grading glitch.
I’m prompted to respond for another reason though. We have tutors who work with LII and LIII people and these tutors assess the candidate and spend time on what they struggle with. These are experts in the content who have worked with hundreds of candidates. It is not infrequent that we are certain a client has the material down cold and they come out of the exams confident yet they find their results similar to yours.
So we think about this a lot.
There are just 2 conclusions. 1) Of the 120 questions that are randomly presented, you got a big percent on things you just didn’t know and, or 2) Your performance on exam day belied how well you were prepared. You didn’t express well what you actually knew because you were tired, spaced, something.
Our longest running client just passed LIII after 13 attempts. 2 of those fit #2 above. She knew the material cold before each one of those 2 attempts. The prep that we worked on was focus/performance on exam day + clarity in expression and that finally did it.
Keep going! Do a lot of mocks before your next try. You’ll get there.
1 Like
Hello KeepingCalm,
thank you for replying to my post. I dont doubt the grading process. i understand the rigorous grading from multiple parties involved with a few layers to ensure quality.
I’m more concern about the technology system that they are using when migrating data across platforms. i’ve worked with multiple IT systems and glitches between 2 different systems (CFAI website & Prometric) would bound to happen regardless. I’m just worried the data was jeopardized at the data migration stage.
Ah well, these are just my hypothesis with no way to prove it so i just hope someone from CFAI would pick-up any tech glitch and correct the issue (if any).
With all due respect, I disagree with part of what you mentioned.
Computer will know how many multiple choice answers are correct or incorrect but it’s not easy for computer to know how to score all the constructed response answers.
I believe, all the constructed response answers are always graded by Graders manually.
There is a Video on YouTube of how Grading takes place for L3 Exam.
Only maximum 6 attempts are allowed now for each Level since 2021. Looks like exam attempts for each level prior to 2021 are not counted in the maximum of 6 allowed attempts since 2021.
Sure, I redact that part of my statement, but I am still standing by my general point that each and every exam goes through a very vigorous grading process, and it is still very unlikely that a glitch would be the reason someone would fail their exam. Let alone a glitch like the one OP is claiming.