Level I of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exam will be administered next weekend. Test-takers were probably spent their Thanksgiving holiday studying.
The CFA curriculum, which consists of three levels, is considered to be the most difficult tests on Wall Street with fewer than 20 percent of candidates passing all three on the first try.
The average test-taker also spends a solid five to six months preparing for the CFA.
And every test-taker hopes things go smoothly and according to plan on exam day. But we've heard some crazy horror stories ranging from bathroom disasters to concentration-breaking distractions.
We've included them here. Make sure this doesn't happen to you.
CFA test-takers witnessed a girl get locked out of the exam room after the lunch break.
"Between the morning and afternoon sections of the CFA exam, there's a two hour break. The proctors always warn you to get back to the exam room like 10-15 minutes before the break ends because they start reading instructions for the next part of the exam right when the 2 hours is up.
In the room where I was writing Level 2, the entrance into the test center was in the front of the room, and all the test takers sit facing the entrance. There were about 300 of us.
Just before the 2 hour mark (or maybe it was right at the 2-hour mark), the proctor started reading the instructions over the loudspeakers, but the doors to the entrance were still open.
Then, one girl walks through the door in mid-instruction. She was probably right on time, but late by CFA test standards.
The proctor stops reading, and tells the girl over the loud speaker: "I'm sorry, you have to go back through the doors." The girl stepped back, then the proctor said on the loud speaker "Can someone close that door?"
Everyone watched as the door closed on the girl, who just had this blank stare on her face. You could feel the collective gasp in the room as what just happened weighed down on everyone.
That girl never came back into the room, and wasn't able to take the second part of the exam. Six months of studying and preparation for nothing.
I feel bad for saying this, but it was a distraction feeling pity for the poor girl."
A test-taker couldn't take the exam because his driver's license just expired.
From Analyst Forum:
I saw him in the distance sitting on one of those portable heaters with his hands in his face, he was clearly upset. I called out to him, and when he moved his hands away from his face, i saw his red and puffy eyes, like he was crying. I thought to myself “alright, he thought it was hard too, so i must have did alight”. I said “don't worry man, I talked to like 6 people in the room after the exam and they all said they did horrible, don't be so upset man, the afternoon wont be as bad”.
I said: "Don't worry man, I talked to like 6 people in the room after the exam and they all said they did horrible, don't be so upset man, the afternoon won't be as bad".
He said: "I didn't write it, bro."
I said: "What the f*** are you talking about??"
He said: "My license expired on May 30th!"
They wouldn't let him write because his license was expired. Can you FREAKIN' believe that?! One week expired, and it wasted about a year of his life and 1 month vacation time."
A test-taker sat by another guy with a penchant for drumming.
From Analyst Forum:
"This year I sat next to a very talented percussionist. Every 90 seconds, his layered nervous tapping would crescendo as he ruthlessly beat the answer out of his calculator in a solo that would make a metal drummer proud. With the invigilators roaming, I couldn’t express my appreciation with a look or a hushed whisper. So I grabbed the right half of the two person folding table we were sitting at, pushed the middle with my left arm, pulled with the end with my right jerking the table right out from under little drummer boy. I didn’t change my expression or even stop answering questions. He jerked the table back, clearly eager to resume his interrupted concert. A half-measure in, I threw his end of the table out from under him again. After 3 encores, he got the hint."
See the rest of the story at Business Insider