I am the 3%

No, this post is not about Occupy anything.

When I was considering whether to splash out for Prep materials in advance of Level 3, I looked up some reviews of 7City. One of the big selling points that stuck in my mind was that they cited a survey in which 97% of 7City users would recommend it to their friends. Although not allowed to publish the pass rate of their candidates, this is an awfully effective way of inferring that 97% of 7City users pass their exams – because why would you recommend it if you failed? A separate question is, why would you answer a survey from 7City if you paid good money to use them and still failed? But I digress.

Let me put this all in context. I am back at Casa del Marc drinking an extremely oversized beer after sitting 7City’s mock exam for Level 3 in downtown Toronto (did I mention that this is a 3-day weekend in Canada and everybody else is out having fun in the gorgeous weather?). I am going over their answer key and, while it would be nice for me to mark my own paper for the morning session, I do not believe that I will be permitted to do so. Nevertheless, I have tried to be as fair as possible and follow the marking guidelines. Bottom line, my score (based on my marking) was 59%. Given that 70% = Cannot fail and 50% = Cannot pass, this leaves me “on the bubble”. This isn’t actually a horrible result, and I have 13 days in which to brush up on my weak areas, but my objective is to get into that 70%+ zone and eliminate the element of chance.

Marc blows off some steam after a mock exam

What does all of this have to do with 7City? I’m just not impressed enough to count myself among the 97% who would recommend them. It is not the responsibility of 7City – or any other prep material provider – to ensure that we pass our exams. They can help, but the responsibility for putting in the work rests with us. It is however, entirely fair to demand that said prep materials and mock exams be not replete with typos and utterly sloppy errors. For example, don’t start a sentence by referring to “Jason” and then ten words later use the word “she” before starting the next sentence by referring to Jason’s wife. Also, don’t have multiple choice answers that look like this:

A) 2.50%
B) 3.50%
C) 4.5%

Or…

A) 2.5%
B) 3.5%
C) 4.5

And, when you are citing a formula such as Grinold-Kroner, make sure that you understand that “-” is NOT the same thing as “=”.

I know that these are small things things in the overall picture and I’m not blaming my below-expectations performance on them, but c’mon, you’re not giving this product away. Rather, you’re charging good money for it.

Because of a level of sloppiness that can only be described as “epidemic”, I cannot bring myself to join the 97% who would recommend 7City. And this hurts because I would dearly love there to be some serious competition for Schweser, which (in my opinion) has long stopped trying to improve its product.

Anyway, another cranky rant from Marc. Must be a day that ends in a “y”.