GIPS

Funny you say this @marc – I remembered I was messing up this section so badly in practice papers that I spent 1 day making notes on this and nothing came out in for my exam.

It’s definitely part of item sets, but I have seen them appeared (sub parts) of an essay question.

For example, this Level 3 sample item set from CFAI has plenty of GIPS questions. Haven’t found an essay one, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be in there.

Nope, hence my paranoia then @marc. The problem is that there is no saying that it can’t. And I just didn’t wanna get screwed over that time just because I don’t think it will be out?

If I had to choose, I’d skip over that @Marc. So yea, you shouldn’t give a rat’s/frog’s ass for that.

You think so? I remember seeing questions that did ask about pre-2005, e.g. firm claims to be GIPS compliant, they’ve got reporting like so going back for 10 years, which would encroach into pre 2005 times…

LOL, not an easy decision @zee!

sorry for the digression but I haven’t even finished level II yet and I have so much material for level III.
Thanks guys B-)

@marc, I don’t recall a quantitative GIPS question during my time trying practice questions etc. Usually it’s slotted into various parts of a question. I’m afraid both are possible variations (SS17 or Ethics)

@sophie

Thanks for that. I fear that I’m following in your footsteps and getting unduly rattled by this topic.

How do you suggest that I think about Requirements vs. Recommendations? With Ethics, my default assumption is that the correct answer to a CFAI question will never be anything to the effect of “Actually, it was okay that he did this because we only recommend that he doesn’t do it, we don’t actually require him not to do it.”

Thoughts?

There’s normally a very clear answer, as long as you think logically through it. The wording will be definitive, don’t worry.

I’m afraid I have no definitive rules on this @Marc. For 2 reasons: I’m not amazing in GIPS myself, nor was I tested in my year, and it’s kinda like Ethics where you use a bit of what you’ve learned + common sense. The only way I suppose is to try the practice questions and see what tricks (if any) they come up with and learn from there.

@sophie

I have drawn a line in the sand on the issue of disclosure. There are 35 fricken’ requirements. Am I going to learn the recommendations? No. I have made my peace with that. If they ask a question about a disclosure recommendation as opposed to a requirement, I will start personally a riot.

Good man @Marc!

@sophie

I have drawn a line in the sand on the issue of disclosure. There are 35 fricken’ requirements. Am I going to learn the recommendations? No. I have made my peace with that. If they ask a question about a disclosure recommendation as opposed to a requirement, I will start personally a riot.

@Marc Theres a fine line between Requirements and recommendations. However, like you mentioned it makes GIPS all the more confusing. I’m concentrating more on GIPS requirements myself. My point is that if they would test you on what “might be” done, then they most probably would test what “must be” done to adhere to GIPS standards.

That’s a good point @marc – recommendation questions may be solvable by simply memorizing requirements and ignoring recommendations, because most of the questions would probably use the recommendations as distractors, so if you don’t remember them at all it actually helps you. Genius!

But what if the question says something like “What is the recommended GIPS e.g. time period for record keeping?”

@artyeasel

Funny you should mention that, because I was thinking about that exact possibility tonight. First, GIPS hasn’t been tested in the am session since Bill Clinton was in office. Second, if they ask an open-ended question like that, I’m going to personally start a riot. Any chance you’re writing in Toronto? Could be fun to watch. And I could always use backup.

Be sure to post pics and video here @marc!

Should I read GIPS from CFAI text or Schweser ?

@laksya25 I did Schweser. No problems there as far as I could tell…

I did the requirements from Schweser..to be honest at first it was tad too boring that i literally dozed off everytime i had GIPS in hand…but the 2nd read gave some clarity and then i watched the video with some practice questns…it helped!!
I do understand there is less time to do all of it now..but just a thought…the difference between the 50% who pass and the 10th band is just that those who pass put in 101%..I would risk that 1% to GIPS…solving questions similar to Level 1 helps a lot..I do have 2 question sheets I can share if anyone needs ~X(

That’s a good point @sankrutimehta. Level 3 is competitive and the score difference between bands is very narrow… But the key question is which are to prioritise?

@sophie I think reading the matter on carve outs..real estate and the compliance statement is highly testable..at least it was my observation when solving :-SS

Indeed @sankrutimehta – in fact @Ajfinance asked about GIPS and carve outs a while ago, if you haven’t seen it already.

I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to tackle GIPS, but so far I think the priority is going to be in this order:

Current requirements
Past requirements
Current recommendations
Past recommendations.

Once I nail current requirements I’ll go on to the next, and so on. If all I do is current requirements, then so be it. I really am going to try to find some way to make this memorable though. Will post if I come up with anything.