If you were borderline, what type of Ethics score would adjust your score to a pass? Any ideas? I seem to be getting around 75% every time in Ethics, wondering if that would suffice an adjustment.
No one except the CFAI grading committee knows. I think >70% would be fine. But just do your best on the actual exam.
As much as we know:
What is the “ethics adjustment”?
The Board of Governors instituted a policy to place particular emphasis on ethics. Starting with the 1996 exams, the performance on the ethics section became a factor in the pass/fail decision for candidates whose total scores bordered the minimum passing score. The ethics adjustment can have a positive or negative impact on these candidates’ final results.
CFA Institute has a policy of not releasing either the minimum passing score or individual candidate scores. Consequently, CFA Institute does not release specific information about the ethics adjustment or the candidates who were affected. The adjustment has had a net positive effect on candidate scores (and thus pass rates) in most exam sessions. The published pass rates always take into account the ethics adjustment for borderline candidates.
OMG it ca have negative impact also
What frgna said… That seems to be the best explanation from what I’ve gathered on this forum.
I don’t understand why there is this alleged “ethics bump”. If they want to make ethics more important, why not just add more questions to that section?
Read it carefully. I can be negative only to the extent that if you are on the exact borderline it will put you in the lower section.
It cannot, on its own, have a negative impact beyond its impact on your overall score (just like every other section).
I’m pretty sure they just use the ethics adjustment to tweak the pass rate. “Too many passing grades this term? Let’s fail a bunch of guys with this ethics adj to maintain our 35% pass rate…”
But they can set the minimum passing score to whatever they want. So why change this through the “ethics adjustment”? It seems like this just adds subjectivity and potential unfairness.
I really think it’s just another way to get people to take the ethics portion seriously.
It does seem strange that there’s not another potential bump for having a great FSA score - the CFA charter is about good financial analysis after all.
Let’s just rock the test so these aren’t issues, yeah? 