CFA Exam experience

One example of a proctor attire.



During the pass two weeks, I have been working as a Temp staff at RELC even though I wanted to be a proctor (Invigilator) for the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Exam. For the last three days, we had been down at Singapore Expo to prepare the examination hall for 4000 plus candidates. Putting posters, setting up resting area, time charts, clocks and labeling the seats number. On top of it is the knee breaking procedure of balancing the tables and walking up and down the hall of the size of two football fields. Security guards were in place to guard the valuable paper that arrived from US. The tight security is mainly due to CFA examination are conducted world wide in a synchronize timing.

Students faced with lots more restriction then my NTU exams, they are not allowed to bring in water bottle, pencil cases, plastic bags, handphone etc. Many students had no choice but to dump their stuff at the nearby bins. During the exams, the mood is heavy; everyone including the proctors are stress from distributing the papers to attending to the candidates needs. Furthermore, each proctor is evaluated at the end of the proctoring and those who do not perform might be blacklisted and will not be able to return for the next time round. Due to the tight security, every staff and proctors had to wear their vest and tags and for us, our tags allowed us to walk anywhere.

Food was ok, there is duck, and chicken rice and refreshments is curry puff. But for us, the most tiring is to walk around two halls to check on the water dispenser, run errands, and settle the claims form of every proctor in the hall. Once the exams had ended, we took 1 hour to dismantle the hall before packing off back to company. By the time I ended, it is 8pm since morning 6am.

Overall, it was a good experience as it shows how tough it is to organize a huge event with numerous resources to prepare for the 6 hours paper. Next job, it will be worst, reaching 8000 plus students, more manpower is needed and I am now thinking twice when they ask me whether I am coming back to help out. Give me 6 more months to consider. Haha