Does anybody know approximately the minimum percentage to pass the Level 2 exam? I believe it is around 65-70% for Level I?
Also, for Level 1 I believe it is a requirement to pass ethics, i.e. high score on other topics will not outweight if the score is too low on ethics. Is that correct?
Statement 1: Correct
Statement 2: There is no requirement to pass Ethics outright for an overall pass. It will help tremendously though.
It’s quite possible that the MPS is around 65-70%, but not one person can truthfully and authoritatively tell you (aside from (maybe) a CFAI person) what the MPS is/has been, so people ballpark it at 70%. Allegedly, the CFAI website, at one point, said no one has ever failed scoring below a 70%, but I never saw that myself, so maybe someone else can chime in on this.
Ethics supposedly was a tool to determine how to handle borderline candidates (according the the CFAI website at some point).
Ok. But I have heard that is only for Level 1, but is it the most important topic also for Level 2?
I have read somewhere that the MPS for Level 2 could be around 58% - 65%. Can somebody verify this statement?
63.4512% for June 2016
fr_clem, where did you get that from?
A rought estimate, albeit not the correct method, is to reverse the passing rate. The last 10 year average pass rate for L2 was 43%, so one must be able to score 57% or higher. My approach is simple. I can score 33% using only a pencil, so if I can score another 33% using some intelligence then I will be covered.
The math doesn’t work , if you answer 1/3 with intelligence, then you will score 33% with your pencil on the last two thirds of the questions, so adds up to 56% of correct answers, not 67%
So what is the marginal difference in knowledge between a well prepared candidate, who scores 70%, and a totally ignorant candidate? Is it 70% or 37%?
I think you misunderstood the concept. I don’t mean to answer 40 questions correctly and then scribble next 80 by chance and consider passed. I am saying coming to the exam everybody is expected to score at least 33%, so the race is about the second 33%. Much like a benchmark return and an extra alpha return.
I doubt everybody can score at least 33%. If you don’t try and fill in all A’s you may get around 33% given enough questions, but if you didn’t know much and fall for their tricks, your chances of getting less than 33% is very high, as I have experienced with topic tests.
Based on my estimate in Level 2 if you can score around 67% you are good, but remember it depends on the nature of the paper.