Forty-three percent of test-takers passed the first level of the Chartered Financial Analyst exam last month.
That matched the success rate for the past four Level 1 exams, the Charlottesville, Virginia-based CFA Institute said Tuesday in a statement. Candidates can take the first part of the exam in both June and December, while the two final levels are only available in June.
A record 68,086 candidates sat for last month’s exam, according to the statement. That included 30,155 in mainland China, India, Hong Kong and Singapore -- a 27 percent increase from a year earlier. In the U.S., where the exam started in 1963, 12,126 people took the exam.
The institute said it added testing centers in Anchorage, Alaska; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Hangzhou, China; and Rio de Janeiro for the December exam. For June’s exam, it plans to add four more in Barcelona; Dalian, China; Hyderabad, India; and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Finance workers pursue the CFA designation for the promise of better jobs, higher salaries and a deeper understanding of their industry. Charter recipients spend an average of more than 300 hours preparing for each exam and typically take more than three years to complete all of the tests, according to the CFA Institute.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.