Exam 9 Regraded!

[MountainHawk]

That would be the most evil thing ever. I believe the CAS policy on these is that if you would have passed under either of the gradings, they pass you, so I doubt it will happen.

[Wigmeister General]

Originally Posted by Maine-iac

Did you two both write in about questions? Or are they sending the letters out to all Part 9'ers, at least those of us in the losers bracket ? (I'm guessing the former. I haven't seen anything from them, but then again, I often get mail late up here.)

Mail late? That's an understatement!! When I was in Bar Harbor in 2000, I had just received an old letter that was postmarked "Chicago - Jan 4, 1987"

[Cynical Realist]

Maine-iac - you posted at 9:19 you would be sweating it out for another day or two, and at 9:22 you post you got the letter, you didn't pass. That sure didn't give you much time to start dreaming of a reprieve from the exam committee.

So did they change #8 too? Didn't reflect it on the amswers posted on-line. Sounds like they gave credit for ommitted answers, so I assume they gave points for "D" too.

[greg]

Cynical Realist,

Here's an e-mail I wrote to CAS regarding #19. It worked.





Dear CAS,

I am writing to argue that Problem 19 of the recently administered CAS Exam 9 is ambiguous in a way that makes two of the multiple-choice answers correct, according to interpretation. The problem gives numerical data and then asks, "Using Roth's definition in...[Roth's paper]..., calculate the change in surplus."

I believe that there is an ambiguity in Roth's paper to begin with which is, unfortunately, carried over into the statement of this problem. In brief, the problem is that Roth never actually defines a quantity called "change in surplus." On page 446 of his paper, Roth says, "Let dS equal the increase in surplus over the year, including stockholder dividends and excluding paid-in capital." He then gives a mathematical expression for dS which, in accordance with his verbal definition, does not subtract out dividends to stockholders. Later, in Table 5 on page 454, Roth computes a quantity labelled "Actual surplus change" by adding "Retained return on capital" and "Surplus paid-in". But, of course, "Retained return on capital" is reduced to reflect stockholder dividends.

The ambiguity should now be clear: when problem 19 asks for "change in surplus", it is not at all clear whether that was intended to mean "the increase in surplus over the year, including stockholder dividends and excluding paid-in capital" or "actual surplus change". The preliminary answer key gives answer D, implying that "the increase in surplus over the year, including stockholder dividends and excluding paid-in capital" was intended.

I am thus led to argue that both answers A and D should be accepted. It does not seem that the problem needs to be disqualified entirely, given that there are no other expressions in the paper using actual data (as opposed to required figures) that could be reasonably called "change in surplus."

Thank you for considering this matter.

[Pack Fan]

I lost credit for #14, but no other changes. My analysis shows my grade dropped from a 5 to a 4. Does this mean that someone who received a pass may now be getting a fail letter?

[Cynical Realist]

Well Greg - nice job! But the question to be asked is: Did you send this in during the two week initial comment period regarding ambiguous or defective questions. I did for #8.

Based on everything going on, it looks to me like they had a file with our points from the MC before handling these three questions, and merged it with a file of the points from the essays, then did their final scoring based on that point distribution.

After releasing the results someone commented (complained) about one of the questions to someone on the exam committee. Knowing they had changed that answer, that person shouldn't have gotten it wrong on their results sheet. So one of two things happened:

(1) So in looking back thru the exam committee's files they discovered they used the wrong points for everyone to do the pass scoring. They meant to use the modified MC points with the essay points to set the pass scores. Thus they had the wrong list and point distribution when they decided the pass score.


or (2) They had the right pass list, when that part was decided. But in setting the Numeric Scores and sending out the grades and analysis for the 63% of people who FAILed, they used the wrong list, thus showing the non-modifed MC points. Under this scenario None of the People who FAILed will pass with the modifications. Under the 1st scenario, there could be more jumbling of the results, and a few more people might pass.

[Pack Fan]

I received credit on Q.8; On the exam I omitted response to this.
I lost credit on Q.14; I previously received credit for my exam response.
No change on Q.19.

I didn't receive credit on #8 the second time around, but had similar results on #14 and #19. Did you write in on # 8?

[Cynical Realist]

Pack Fan did you answer A-B or C? Someone posted they ommitted and got a point on #8, so I was assuming they gave D & E as valid answers and Omits as valid answers. Maybe if you had A, B or C you'd still be wrong.

[Pack Fan]

I omitted #8, so I'm wondering if only people that wrote in about the problem were given credit the second time around.

[PAC]

Originally Posted by Pack Fan

I omitted #8, so I'm wondering if only people that wrote in about the problem were given credit the second time around.

Hmmmm....

I have not yet corresponded with the CAS regarding my exam 9 results.