Editorial policy

Question review and publication standards

CFA Practice Lab publishes practice content only when it is useful for candidates, traceable to a Level I topic, and complete enough for independent study without a separate answer key.

Public question criteria

Public SEO and practice pages are limited to questions with a complete stem, three answer choices, a correct answer, step-by-step reasoning, a key takeaway, difficulty label, concept alignment, and quality score.

The current public set contains 1427 questions. Lower-confidence items remain available to admin review workflows but are excluded from the public sitemap.

Curriculum review

Each item includes a curriculum review flag. Questions should be checked during annual CFA curriculum updates, especially when LOS wording, accounting treatment, exam weights, formulas, or standards guidance changes.

A visible curriculum signal means the item has a recorded review state. It is not a promise that CFA Institute endorses the question.

Explanations

Explanations are expected to identify the controlling rule or formula, show calculations when relevant, explain why the correct answer follows, and call out common traps or misconceptions.

Answer-choice explanations should help candidates understand why a distractor is tempting, not just label the option as wrong.

Corrections

Questions with factual, calculation, wording, or curriculum issues should be retired or returned to review until corrected. Public pages should favor accuracy and candidate usefulness over index volume.

Candidate reports from practice pages are stored as review signals. A report does not automatically change the answer key; it creates a queue item for editorial review.

Review workflow

How a question becomes public

  1. Completeness check: stem, choices, answer key, explanations, concept, and takeaway are present.
  2. Learning check: the explanation shows the reasoning path and the distractors identify plausible mistakes.
  3. Curriculum check: the item is mapped to the current Level I topic structure and marked for annual review.
  4. Publication check: only items with sufficient review status and quality rating are exposed on public practice surfaces.