Any Feedback on FRM 2009 Exam ?

[syaiful]

Hi David, :lol:

these are the questions that i still remembered (from L1) :

related to Storage Cost :
S0 = 320
r=0.5 % per month
storage cost (pay at the end) = 10 evey month

calculate the F0 for 1000 bushel in two months ?

related to GARCH (1,1) :
-ask about Long Run Volatility (not variance)
-ask about which has the long mean reversion (simply just ranking the alpha + Beta)

related to BSM
-given all parameter calculate r
-ask about Put ( i simply using Put-Call parity from the question before to get the ans)

There is no questions related : Michael Ong (UL & EL) & Operational Risk (Top Down vs Bottom Up)

after all, i don't think i can pass the exam because too many guessing especially in Quantitative part (except Bayes & GARCH (1,1) where i found is easy for me).

 

[munish_bansal1]

Wrote full FRM exam in Mumbai. I found it good, nicely structured and balanced across study material. Its crafted to make sure that nobody passes by fluke or with little preparation.

I am sure to pass the exam with 95% confidence level with mean of 74% with standard deviation of 9% ... Inspite of that my AIM to write FRM was never to look for certification but to set a traget for myself that would help me to read the concepts as some money would be at stake and hence will give me some push I wouldn't have study half of this in 1 year that I did in 6 weeks without setting myself this target.

David, Thanks for the material and would like to contibute from here on....

TC

 

[Siamak]

Can anybody body shed some light on these two :

related to Storage Cost :
S0 = 320
r=0.5 % per month
storage cost (pay at the end) = 10 evey month

calculate the F0 for 1000 bushel in two months ?

for this one I know either we devide storage cost to spot and get as a percentage or Present value way however I could not get any answer which was given???

Regarding the BS put call parity? can we use it when we have one european call the the put is american?
thx

 

[cine]

It has been 24 hours since the exam and I was dreaming about solving quant questions just before I woke up!!! :lol:


7. I loved the large amount of practice oriented questions and questions dealing with the current crisis. The TED spread question really made me think as I was follwing the TED spread daily last November. It was very annoying that I still couldn't answer that with any degree of confidence (I chose the option that said it didn't rise immediately after Lehman but rose then on perception of higher CP risk)

I found the AM questions more interesting while PM ones more calculator oriented. I didn't guess at all in the AM thus attempting only 49 but sanity prevailed in the PM test! I wasn't very well prepared so am expecting 60-65% as . Let's see if that proves enough.

I do wish they allowed one to keep the question paper. It had plenty of food for thought. I doubt that any trainer could have thought up such a question paper!!!​

Hey...

I searched on Internet and found that TED spread rose immediately and retreated upon central banks' intervention.

Also some questions I remember are

1. Conditional probability of economy remaining poor and neutral is 38.67% (ANS)
2. In global fund of funds hedge strategy, short selling is not uncorrelated with equity, it is -vely correlated (hence wrong option)
3. Short hedge benefits from strengthening of basis
4. Beta 1 and Beta 2 values (option 3 was what I was getting...If I remember correctly Beta 2 was 0.714)
5. The manager who wants to protect EU w.r.to US $ at 1.34 spot shouldn't sell a call option as when it goes 1.34 sharply, incurs huge losses
6. I couldn't get the LVAR answer but guessed that it should be above 1473 (VAR) but there two options. So I went for 1569
7. Home age is the only one that doesn't cause pre payments


I don't remember others....will post when I recollect

 

[johnccarter]

A few more bits of information about the L1 exam that I just remembered - that may or may not prove useful to others:

1. We were given a a table of probability values for the standard normal distribution (that needed to be used for some hypothesis testing).
2. One question required a Student's T test - and they gave 4 values to choose from (you had to choose the correct degrees of freedom and confidence levels).
3. There were several different versions of the exam. The seats in front of me and to my left were both empty - and the barcode on the front page of those two exams had different endings (e.g. something like FRM-L1-3 and FRM-L1-4) whereas mine was "-2" on the end. I guess this is so that people can't cheat by looking at their neighbours answers. I imagine though that they are the same questions but just in a diferent order.

 

[ankit015]

I guessed most of the questions in AM session...was more comfortablw with the PM session..........

There was one question on Garp code of conduct....which i think most of you would agree was highly ambigous.....None of the options were looking right and all of them were looking wrong....hope you understand what i mean...Temporary suspension as well as permanent suspension both were part of answers...


David, can you give an idea of what could be the cutoff?( based on past papers, threshold...or comments about this paper given by everyone)...

Thanks..

 

[benoit16]

Hello,

Full exam taken in Geneva.

I hope I pass, but "I should not sell the bear skin before killing as we say in french".
It is all the most true as I had to guess several questions because I would have lost too much time on it.
The key risk parameter for this exam is TIME management. :red:

As the questions are still fresh in my mind and in order, for future participants,
to gauge the exam difficulty, here are the questions I remember.
I think that examples are the best way to know how tough are the questions.

Sorry for the spelling error, I am rushing as I was rushing during the exam...

1. Gold forward arbitrage with continuous yield (2%) and Rf (4%).
The future price was lower that the computed one.
What should be done to "gain" the arbitrage?

2. One BII market risk capital charge computation, be careful daily var was 95%.
So we had to convert to 99%.

3. Currency forward arbitrage (Rf and time provided)

4. Volatility smile descriptive question (currencies and equities)

5. Maximum likelihood (you should take the log and tell what to maximize/minimize)

6. No Poisson question

7. Easy Binomial: What is the prob that a student has less than 8 answers right
if he answers randomly a two possibility answer test with 20 question.
You did not have to compute but just to say how to compute.

8. Several questions that required put/call parity (including S*exp(-y*t))

9. Several questions on option combinations (butterfly spread)

10. One greek question

11. No TRS question

12. Several CDS questions (impact of correlations)

13. Lots of var questions

14. Not too many questions on BII compared to var questions.

15. One Tier1 and Tier2 BII computation

16. Model risk question

17. One UBS (easy) question

18. Why stress testing var

19. Indirect question on backtesting var

20. One easy swap computation (2 years remaining, Libor against 8%)

21. One easy question on interest rate: Which one is higher?
They gave yearly, monthly, quarterly and continuous numerical values.
The answer was continuous. :-P

22. Several questions on linear regression:
Compute R^2. Beta has bad t-stat and the strategy is to be market neutral -> what can be concluded?

23. A few questions on IR, Sharpe and Treynor ratio.
I was confused by one because they were calling the tracking error, the systemic volatility or something like that.

24. One portfolio credit risk model question

25 One very easy question on matrix transition: Which statement is incorrect?
There was a line with BBB down grade proba > 80%...

26. No rating question

27. Difference between CDO and MBS (I answered the tranching)

28 CDS question on price of first to default versus second to default.

29. No moral hazard question

30. One SPE usage question.

40. No inverse floating question

41. A few modified duration question. (DeltaV = -D* * V * deltaY)

42. Which obligation has negative convexity:
good to see easy question and not time consuming. :red:

43. An easy proba computation:
z-proba of not been between 1 and 1.5 or something like that.
The z table was provided for each test on the first page.

44. P(A|B) computation:
I had P(A and B) by using P(B|A) but I did not have the time to compute P(B)
because the text was long and I needed at least 5 minutes to recompute.
This is a typical question when I lost point because I had to avoid loosing time. :red:

45. One easy question kurtosis:
The normal has lowest proba of extreme value than 4, 8 kurtosis distributions.

46. Several EVT questions: one was to compute it with extreme returns provided.

47. One var question:
20 worst returns provided but unsorted. Find the var, It was 1% of 80 Million as far as I remember.

48. You decrease significance what happens to Type I and Type II probs.

49. One binomial tree call computation question that I failed.

50. One Monte Carlo simulation of GBM (mu was zero to be easier), sigma was provided
You had to compute S(n+2) given S(n) e(n) and e(n+1).
I also failed because I did not want to loose too much time on computations
and I made a mistake in the contribution.

51. No Cholesky or interest rate model question.

52. One Ted behaviour (after Lehman episode) question.
But there were two possible good answers as far as I understood.
I answered that the it increases because there was a lack of liquidity
(for me the fact that all bankers we scared of lending was a liquidity funding problem).

53. One or two linear hedging question (rho * sigma(S) / sigma(F))

54. Concerning study cases, a single question on MetallGesellshaft

55. Two questions on basis risk.

56. A liquidity VAR computation:
Normal distribution for return with mu and sigma, value of portfolio and spread value in dollar provided

57. One EWMA and one Garch (compute the long term vol for Garch)
This has nothing to do with the exam. But it remembers my wife's boss explaining to me that Garch
has nothing to do with modeling heteroskedostaticity.
As he is responsible for Market Risk Management, I should have suggested him to take the Garp exam. :cheese:

58. An interesting question on style drift versus leverage increase for HF.
They were providing the fund returns and the benchmark returns.
You could see that one manager increases leverage (same signs for returns) and the other was doing style drift.

58. Tracking error:
3 graphs were given with benchmark and fund returns. Tell which one has lowest tracking error.

59. Correlation:
3 graphs were provided. Which group of variables has the highest correlation?

60. An easy question on credit risk: Which operation adds CR: sell/buy options

61. One Merton question (that I failed) close to the one provided in Garp2009:
Compute prob of default

61. Two EL and UL computations (PD, LGD, COM, sigma(PD), sigma(LGD) were provided)

62. Two questions on credit "modifiers" (Triggers, Netting, collateral, MTM)

63. No cat bound question

64. One Raroc computations (no taxes were involved and RC was provided)

65. One BS call/put computation N(d1) and N(d2) were provided

66. One interest risk reduction question (buy a cap, sell a floor, ...)

67. One or two questions on MVAR, CVAR questions:
Compute the global VAR if a fund is removed
Compute an MVAR

See you,

 

[ajsa]

Good luck everyone!

 

[Eveline]

Hi all,

The AM paper took up more time... but the PM one gave less of a headache. I heard people and even a colleague complaining about the difficulty of the paper. Quite a lot of people missed the exam so it is based on 50% of those who turned up?

Anyway thanks David for your great help! You've been so great! But I'm really scared off... I don't think I'l try again if I fail. Put in nearly 800 hours of study and still no tsure whether can pass. Maybe 55% confident.

 

[cine]

Hello,

Full exam taken in Geneva.

I hope I pass, but "I should not sell the bear skin before killing as we say in french".
It is all the most true as I had to guess several questions because I would have lost too much time on it.
The key risk parameter for this exam is TIME management. :red:

As the questions are still fresh in my mind and in order, for future participants,
to gauge the exam difficulty, here are the questions I remember.
I think that examples are the best way to know how tough are the questions.

Sorry for the spelling error, I am rushing as I was rushing during the exam...

1. Gold forward arbitrage with continuous yield (2%) and Rf (4%).
The future price was lower that the computed one.
What should be done to "gain" the arbitrage?

2. One BII market risk capital charge computation, be careful daily var was 95%.
So we had to convert to 99%.

I think this was coming to around 267000 or close to that after scaling the 95% Var to 99% and to 20 days

3. Currency forward arbitrage (Rf and time provided)

4. Volatility smile descriptive question (currencies and equities)

5. Maximum likelihood (you should take the log and tell what to maximize/minimize)

I think here Lambda should be maximum. Second choice goes

6. No Poisson question

7. Easy Binomial: What is the prob that a student has less than 8 answers right
if he answers randomly a two possibility answer test with 20 question.
You did not have to compute but just to say how to compute.

This was option 3 as the second option was sounding right at the first sight but it was a uniform distribution

8. Several questions that required put/call parity (including S*exp(-y*t))

There was one question on European PUT and American CALL......I htink we can't apply put/call parity. So I said the same.

9. Several questions on option combinations (butterfly spread)

There was this box spread arbitrage. Is it option 3?

10. One greek question

I think in the money options lose more than any other option.

11. No TRS question

12. Several CDS questions (impact of correlations)

One of the CDS answers, I was getting +14 to the banker

13. Lots of var questions

14. Not too many questions on BII compared to var questions.

15. One Tier1 and Tier2 BII computation

This was option C in my paper. Don't know if they jumble the answers as well.

16. Model risk question

17. One UBS (easy) question

I think they were easily earning over LIBOR by investing AAA.

18. Why stress testing var

19. Indirect question on backtesting var

20. One easy swap computation (2 years remaining, Libor against 8%)

I got it as +14 to the bank.

21. One easy question on interest rate: Which one is higher?
They gave yearly, monthly, quarterly and continuous numerical values.
The answer was continuous. :-P

Yeah. Even I got the same answer.

22. Several questions on linear regression:
Compute R^2. Beta has bad t-stat and the strategy is to be market neutral -> what can be concluded?

One was coefficient of determination. Given Beta was .977. So the R^2 turns out to be .913

23. A few questions on IR, Sharpe and Treynor ratio.
I was confused by one because they were calling the tracking error, the systemic volatility or something like that.


24. One portfolio credit risk model question

25 One very easy question on matrix transition: Which statement is incorrect?
There was a line with BBB down grade proba > 80%...

26. No rating question

27. Difference between CDO and MBS (I answered the tranching)

Don't we have tranching in both? I think we do....but not sure.

28 CDS question on price of first to default versus second to default.

This, the FTD always is costlier or equally costly to STD second to default

29. No moral hazard question

30. One SPE usage question.

40. No inverse floating question

41. A few modified duration question. (DeltaV = -D* * V * deltaY)

There wasn't a perfect answer .....I went for the closest one.

42. Which obligation has negative convexity:
good to see easy question and not time consuming. :red:

43. An easy proba computation:
z-proba of not been between 1 and 1.5 or something like that.
The z table was provided for each test on the first page.


44. P(A|B) computation:
I had P(A and B) by using P(B|A) but I did not have the time to compute P(B)
because the text was long and I needed at least 5 minutes to recompute.
This is a typical question when I lost point because I had to avoid loosing time. :red:

This was the one I was talking about. It came out to be 38.67%

45. One easy question kurtosis:
The normal has lowest proba of extreme value than 4, 8 kurtosis distributions.

Yeah. Even I went for it.

46. Several EVT questions: one was to compute it with extreme returns provided.

47. One var question:
20 worst returns provided but unsorted. Find the var, It was 1% of 80 Million as far as I remember.

Exactly. I got the same.

48. You decrease significance what happens to Type I and Type II probs.

TYPE II increases

49. One binomial tree call computation question that I failed.

I wasn't getting answer for this. I got less than 1. So I went for the lowest answer which was 2.

50. One Monte Carlo simulation of GBM (mu was zero to be easier), sigma was provided
You had to compute S(n+2) given S(n) e(n) and e(n+1).
I also failed because I did not want to loose too much time on computations
and I made a mistake in the contribution.

There were two options like 97.79 and 99.79. We also had 99.69. So I thought it should be 99+ and should .79 => 99.79

51. No Cholesky or interest rate model question.

52. One Ted behaviour (after Lehman episode) question.
But there were two possible good answers as far as I understood.
I answered that the it increases because there was a lack of liquidity
(for me the fact that all bankers we scared of lending was a liquidity funding problem).

This sounds very much logical but one of our collegues on this site has posted a link which says it peaked in Oct.

53. One or two linear hedging question (rho * sigma(S) / sigma(F))

54. Concerning study cases, a single question on MetallGesellshaft

THis was backwardation to Contango and not the otherway round

55. Two questions on basis risk.

Short hedge benefits from basis strengthening. The other one I think only that had same underlying and same T will not have Basis risk and all others had.

56. A liquidity VAR computation:
Normal distribution for return with mu and sigma, value of portfolio and spread value in dollar provided

I wasn't getting answer for this.

57. One EWMA and one Garch (compute the long term vol for Garch)
This has nothing to do with the exam. But it remembers my wife's boss explaining to me that Garch
has nothing to do with modeling heteroskedostaticity.
As he is responsible for Market Risk Management, I should have suggested him to take the Garp exam. :cheese:

THere was another. THat has increasing R^2. Is it coz of multicollinearity?

58. An interesting question on style drift versus leverage increase for HF.
They were providing the fund returns and the benchmark returns.
You could see that one manager increases leverage (same signs for returns) and the other was doing style drift.

This was a good logical question. I answered the same way.

58. Tracking error:
3 graphs were given with benchmark and fund returns. Tell which one has lowest tracking error.

The one which had two graphs move parallelly was what I have chosen. It may not be correct.

59. Correlation:
3 graphs were provided. Which group of variables has the highest correlation?

60. An easy question on credit risk: Which operation adds CR: sell/buy options

selling a call option I guess

61. One Merton question (that I failed) close to the one provided in Garp2009:
Compute prob of default

I got DD as 3.6

61. Two EL and UL computations (PD, LGD, COM, sigma(PD), sigma(LGD) were provided)

62. Two questions on credit "modifiers" (Triggers, Netting, collateral, MTM)

63. No cat bound question

64. One Raroc computations (no taxes were involved and RC was provided)

I was getting it as 2.6 to achieve a min of 15% return

65. One BS call/put computation N(d1) and N(d2) were provided

66. One interest risk reduction question (buy a cap, sell a floor, ...)

I went for options i, ii and iii.

67. One or two questions on MVAR, CVAR questions:
Compute the global VAR if a fund is removed
Compute an MVAR



See you,​

 

[cine]

about the TED spread:
http://www.crystalbull.com/stock-market-timing/TED-Spread-chart
LEH filed bankruptcy on 9/15, while TED spread peaked on late Oct​

I see that it indeed peaked immediately. I think we should check for 2008 and the dates are so close on the graph.

 

[liewpw05]

Hi all,

Yes, morning session was a real shocker. Put it down to nerves and also the questions were very long and sometimes very uncharacteristics which may throw one into a panic. But afternoon session was plain sailing as there seem to have less calculations questions.

My observations are one must have strong concepts. There are many times where they throw in some amount of redundant information to catch you off guard. e.g asking you to price American calls and puts while giving you some info on N(d1) and N(d2) info based on B-S model. Most of time they are looking for candidates to use something as simple as put call parity! Or giving you real world probability info when you are supposed to use risk nuetral probability for pricing American options using a Binomial tree.

There were also some finer details on Monte Carlo simulation for stock prices using Geometric Brownian motion for eg or the basics of maximum likelihood estimation which only students with quant background would have known from their university applied statistics course!Lots more detailed knowledge required. So reading the Core Reading is a must and no way around it although it can be a pain at times going through the details.

The Garp Practice Exams and not even any of the sample exam questions given by any education provider can match the sheer level of difficulty of the FRM exam. I only found out when attempting the real thing! One will always have to aim much much higher.i just wish that GARP would publish the real past exam questions for the benefit of candidates, It would really be a level playing field for all to at least aim higher. Otherwise it's just a stab in the dark with only the people with real hands-on knowledge having a real advantage.


Peggy

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

Thank you everybody on this thread for your valuable de-brief....

@Liming: Re: "I feel RELATIVELY at ease when doing the afternoon session" I think that is a *very* good sign...

@ Tuan Anh: Re: "The problem is that given the breadth of the FRM curriculum I think it was impossible for the examiner to test on everything. So there are just one or two question on each topics so you feel your effort spent on reading, for example, the UBS report a bit wasted" ... we knew that L1+L2 in one exam necessarily implied that many details would not be tested. 140 questions for almost as many readings (and not too far from 10X the AIMs) implies a need to over-prepare. Hopefully, the learning is not wasted...

@ mdecav: Good f/back re"One of the things I’ve noticed with FRM answers (vs. the CFA) is that often you can get to an answer without knowing the exact equation, using some common sense" ...About box spreads: In Hull, but not in the AIMs (e.g., not in my tutorial or XLS)

@hasan.mert: thanks for your kind feedback! I really, really appreciate that

@chiranjiv: fantastic detail, THANK you.

@Ankit015: No negative marking, correct (i.e., no penalty for guessing)

@Ipul: Re: "There is no questions related : Michael Ong (UL & EL) & Operational Risk (Top Down vs Bottom Up)" Good to know, we knew entire areas might not get on the exam...

@TC: Thanks, please do stick around!

@Siamak: you need to solve for lump-sum of storage and add: F= 320*exp(0.5%*2)+(10+10*exp(0.5%*10)); or, longer way you can PV the storage: 10*exp(-0.5%*1)+10*exp(-0.5%*2) = 19.85 = PV of storage. Then, F=(320+19.85)*exp(0.5%*2) for same result (343.27)
Re: put-call parity: no, it applies to European. Mixing in American generally introduces an ">" or "<"

@ugli-stix: This is good to know: "1. We were given a a table of probability values for the standard normal distribution (that needed to be used for some hypothesis testing)."

@Ankit015: re: cutoff: I wish I could but I honestly have no way of estimating the cutoff. So far, my impression of the general sentiment is similar to last years (i.e., very difficult, few having confidence they passed, some questions not expected. If the pattern follows last year, then actual pass rate will be greater than perceived: I mean, several who do not feel they passed, will pass...but that is pure speculation based on curve setting)

@benoit16: FANTASTIC DETAILS. Very helpful!! Wow!

@Chimni: thank you for fantastic detail!

@Eveline: (I don't know whether/how no-shows impact calibration). I know you worked hard. I am crossing my fingers for your pass!

@peggy: I think your feedback is very important to future candidates, as it speaks to differences between FRM and other financial certs; e.g., "There were also some finer details on Monte Carlo simulation for stock prices using Geometric Brownian motion for eg or the basics of maximum likelihood estimation which only students with quant background would have known from their university applied statistics course! Lots more detailed knowledge required. So reading the Core Reading is a must and no way around it although it can be a pain at times going through the details."

David

 

[ajsa]

Overall I think GARP did a great job.. as Peggy pointed out, the exam covered many many deep and detailed concepts but almost all were within the AIM coverage, and it was also quite balanced.. it did not have as much Basel questions as I thought. Basically FRM is much more difficult than I thought when I first registered for the exam.

i agree AM session is very difficult and challenging. I was once 15 min behind, but finally managed to finished 5-6 minutes earlier. the biggest challenge was time management.. GARP seems to most value how strongly the concepts are embedded in you so you know how to approach/think right away after reading the question.. and just memorizing all the formulas would not help much.. most of the time, i did not have time to think twice. The PM session was more manageable. but i do not feel a lot easier than AM. Maybe I over-thought (yes i realized i did for at least 1 question already), but i have found quite some tricky stuffs hidden in some of the PM questions so one needed to be very careful.. As a result, i took more paced approach, and turned out i was too paced and only had 2-3 minutes after I finished the last quesiton.

i have to say i benefited very much from the discussions with David.. For some of the concepts shown in the exam, i could vividly remember David's explanations! many of them are deeper than they seem to be and i would not be able to understand them without the discussions.. so i felt really lucky when seeing those questions. It pays to ask! And again THANK YOU VERY MUCH DAVID!

 

[cine]

BTW, I am from India and have given it from an indian city. I am doing my second year of MBA and have 3 years of pre-MBA work experience with a software MNC. I have been following the discussions here for a while. The discussions here were quite above my level and it made me raise my bar for the exam !

Some other questions I could remember are

1. What causes the difference between the futures and forwards price

I think volatility is the answer.

2. mean of 80 and SD of 24. What percentage of the values are not between 32 and 116?

3. There was indeed one question on moral hazard. The answer was about banks not keeping the residual interest on their balance sheets and that in turn leading to the current mess.

4. There is a binary option whose strike is $45 and digital pay off is also $45. the current stock price is $50 and Time to expiry is 3 months. What is the price of such an option. Answers had $45, $43.5, $41.3 and $21

I thought it can't be $45 and $21 for some reason and went for $43.5. It was an absolute guess...

5. How do you replicate a up and out barrier option?

answer was buy call options and sell up and in barrier option.

6. Four investment choices were given with their residual returns and residual risks. We have to choose an investment with a min of 2% residual return over benchmark and with the highest information ratio. Some data was missing for the fourth investment which meant we need to calculate that.

I think I got investment 4 as the answer

7. When the dividend yield increases, what happens to call and Put options?

Put options increase in value and calls lose in value....I guess

8. There was another question based on the dividend payments. The answer was the largest absolute loss in option value was for the ones which were deep-in-the money options


This is a personal question. Some of my seniors told me that If I am applying to a normal job in a bank (like Corporate Finance), having an FRM might work against me as it shows an inclination towards risk management.

 

[hsuwang]

Had a good long sleep after the exam, I was way too nervous the night before the exam that I couldn't fall asleep the entire night.. but anyway, I think I agree with the majority here - tough morning session and relatively smooth afternoon session.
Time management should be the number one issue for me. I decided to work the questions by order, and that failed miserably because I spent the first 40 minutes on the first 10 questions alone, and still had 5 blank bubbles out of those 10 (which really adds on to the pressure), so that really didn't leave me with too much time to think for the rest of the morning session.. But I think what got me the most were calculation problems, many of them I couldn't even figure out what exactly it is that they were asking for, and some I knew the concepts well but wasn't able to solve under time pressure.

Right out the exam I really did not feel the exam was representative of what I learned out of the FRM preparation process, I really wasn't worried about whether the exam was "easy" or "hard", and frankly, I'd much rather have it tougher than it was (for the afternoon session), because that is how you separate those that really prepared and those that did not, and since this is graded on a relative bases, finding it easy shouldn't be something to be happy/confident about because everybody else probably thought it was easy as well. and for this exam, I really feel that a person who's put in 500 hours of study could've done a worst job than a person who's put in only 200 hours or study, and that's what bothers me the most - it really wasn't representative of what we know. I'd say it's more due to luck? But of course, that is understandable because like David said, with only 140 questions, it's impossible to touch on every aspect of the material. For me, I think luck plays a HUGE part on whether I will pass or not.. and hopefully there'll be a happy smile on my face on January 5th.

Finally, I think my learning process, especially with BT and David's wonderful forum discussions, were the most valuable thing that I've gotten out of from this whole experience, the exam itself?.. hmm.. not so much.


p.s.: just a funny thought, David, a couple of times when you said in the videos "I think it has really low testability", I was skeptical and thought to myself, are you really sure about that? Now I'm sure you were right! 140 questions seem so many prior to the exam, but so few right after... Thank you so much for everything David!

 

[syaiful]

Hi all,

i agree with peggy, IMO even the Final Review Exam from Schweser have no "50% difficulty level" like the real exam.

need "other" strategy i guess..

 

[ajsa]

Hi David, one more thing.. I found 2009's FRM used z of 1.645 for 95% ND.. Using 1.65, i could not get an answer for several questions..

 

[anwar_pat]

Hi David,
I took full FRM in singapore...well AM was really tough compare than PM session and more wordy questions also...as the Bushel one question, none of the answer was correct..
Any idea how the GARP wil evaluate that questions as there were all answers wrong ?...

anyway All the best for all and hope for the best



Anwar

 

[mdecav]

David,

So from past experince, how has GARP handled the issue when a topic (i.e. the box spread question) is not explicit in the AIM?

I'm a little irked with GARP adding this question. Had it been in the AIM I would've studied this topic.