CFA Level 1 result for August 2024 session tomorrow; how to analyse exam performance

NEW DELHI: The Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) has announced that CFA Level 1 result for August 2024 session will be declared tomorrow, October 8. CFA August 2024 Level 1 results will be available on the official website, cfainstitute.org. The institute will email the CFA Level 1 August 2024 result to the candidates.

Students will receive the exam qualification status, ‘pass’ or ‘fail’, along with the information on their topic-level performance. They can use the exam performance guide to help interpret their result report. Those candidates who do not clear the exam can take a retest on a later date.

The August session exam was conducted from August 20 to 26. Along with the results, CFA will also announce the pass rates of the August edition.

CFA Level 1 Result 2024: Guide to analyse results

The result of August 2024 Level 1 CFA exam will be prepared on the basis true ability and other factors.

Score

The thin solid gray line represents the Minimum Passing Score (MPS) for the overall exam. The thick line represents the candidate's score. If the line lies above the MPS line, the student has passed the exam and if it lies below the MPS line, the candidate has failed.

Factors

Since the institute cannot ask an unlimited number of questions to assess the candidate’s understanding of the material, various factors impact their score positively or negatively. The favorable factors include questions asked on topics prepared thoroughly by the candidate, eating and sleeping on time, correct guesses, and a comfortable testing environment.

Confidence interval

The light blue box surrounding the candidate’s score indicates a 90% confidence interval. This means that, given the exam's characteristics, your true ability on exam day likely falls within this range. It also suggests that your scores on similar exams with different questions would generally fall within this interval.

Score and Confidence Interval Above the MPS: A candidate who scores very well could have high confidence that they would have passed under nearly any circumstance.

Score and Confidence Interval Below the MPS: A candidate who scores very poorly can have high confidence they would not have passed under nearly any circumstance, and would need to study much more in order to pass in the future.

Score Below the MPS but Confidence Interval Overlaps the MPS: A candidate who scored close to the MPS might have passed under some sets of circumstances, but in most cases would not have passed. With a little more studying, this candidate can push the odds in his or her favor.

Relative performance

The thick purple dashed line represents the 90th percentile score. 10% of candidates scored higher than this in the exam. Whereas, the thick black dotted line represents the 10th percentile score. 10% of candidates scored lower than this.

Topic-wise performance

Topic mastery: There isn't a separate passing score for each topic. A strong performance in one area can compensate for weaker results in another. Instead of indicating a minimum passing score, the thin gray lines represent 50% and 70% of the available points for that topic. While these thresholds are somewhat arbitrary, consistently scoring above 70% is a good indicator of mastery in that topic area. If you plan to retake this level or attempt another in the CFA Program, understanding how you performed across various topics on this exam can help you target your study efforts for the next one.

CFA Level 1 result 2024: Topic-wise performance. (Image: Official website)

Confidence interval: A candidate may notice that the confidence interval for topic area scores is wider than that for their overall exam performance. This wider interval can occur when there are fewer questions or a greater variation in responses, meaning that external factors have a larger impact. When assessing topic-area scores, a candidate should consider their own experiences as well. If the candidate performed significantly better than expected (assuming self-assessment is accurate), their true ability might actually be in the lower half of their confidence interval. Conversely, if he or she did worse than anticipated, their true ability might be in the upper half. However, similar to their total score, the higher their score above 70%, the more confident they can be in their mastery of the topic.