Are there any Charter holders out there who may be able to go into detail over why the CFA institute has made the ‘Ethics and Professionalism’ topics to be so rigorous and heavily weighted? Is this why Ethics and professionalism is strongly encouraged by the institute to be completed -last- even after quantitative methods and Derivatives [at the least for part 1]? A previous colleague of mine [as well as many others] stated failing the CFA part 1 after failing the ethics portion yet simultaneously scoring high on each of the other sections. I currently am employed in the Risk/Audit space and would rather not score poorly on risk management and ethics sections.