Exam Feedback May 2022 Part 2 Exam Feedback

[Nicole Seaman]

We hope that everyone did well on the FRM Part 2 exams over the past week! We would love to hear any feedback that you have about the exam, especially any helpful information that you can provide about the new CBT format. How did the exam go? Did you encounter unexpected questions? Thank you in advance for any feedback you can provide!

 

[smintx]

I took the exam in Zürich last Friday. The exam was 80% qualitative as expected, and was representative of the 99 chapters. The 20% of quant questions were straightforward if you knew the formula and the quali part was fair: relatively easy to go down to 2 options, then some headaches in general, GARP did a good job.

Regarding CBT (through PSI), it is very user friendly and easy to use.

Now let's cross fingers, because it was fair, but not easy

 

[aarora89]

I took the exam in New York. There were no questions on binomial trees, Berton-Scholes call option pricing, which was quite surprising to me. It was also more qualitative than I thought. I did two practice tests to test my time mgmt (one by Bionic and one by Garp) and that was good enough to practice time mgmt. Probability questions were not quite direct. They were different from the practice questions I have seen.

 

[Torsleno]

The exam was mostly qualitative (75-80%). The questions, apart from ~6 questions, were quite different from the practice exams, especially in how they were presented and phrased - they were also more complex (I don't think I will score anywhere near my mock exams scores).
In no specific order, there were questions on weather risk, on the state of the market right before the Covid crisis, duration gap management (overall quite heavy on liquidity topics), CIR model, BCVA, Basel, outsourcing risk, deposit services pricing, AI; Investment management topics were heavily skewed towards Andrew Ang's work (factor investing). It also had a question on performance allocation (asset/sector/security selection).

 

[Tai-Pan]

As the other posts have mentioned, the exam was mostly qualitative (~75%). There was only one question featuring an interest rate tree, where you needed to find the missing rate, given the other data. Quite a few questions on cyber risk. I don't remember any questions where the Basel ratios were explicitly asked. Some other random questions that I had: RAROC hurdle rate, PSA rate, BCVA, portfolio VaR

 

[ARDA77]

it is interesting that there are only a few replies, generally there are hundreds of comments after the exam

 

[Nicole Seaman]

it is interesting that there are only a few replies, generally there are hundreds of comments after the exam

I agree. I noticed that this changed when GARP switched over to CBT and the exam periods were extended from one day to one week (two weeks for P1). I can't be sure this is the issue, but that is when I noticed that not many people were providing exam feedback.

 

[bollengc]

I agree. I noticed that this changed when GARP switched over to CBT and the exam periods were extended from one day to one week (two weeks for P1). I can't be sure this is the issue, but that is when I noticed that not many people were providing exam feedback.

I am wondering, as the questions are different for all candidates since we moved to CBT (and honestly, who can recall the details + 4 choices of questions after doing the exam ), is there really a requirement from GARP to not share any feedback until the full session is done?

1 week after the exam, it is a bit difficult to recall the questions - switching to holidays mode, maybe we are not really connecting to the forum as often as while studying ;-)

my feedback is that I found part 2 generally tougher than part 1, more content to read / learn.
I created a planning on 16 weeks and followed it quite well (even better than for part 1) and still, I felt like I should have done more practicing.

On top of BT package, I bought the 4 schwezer mock exams. Those took less than 3h to finalize whereas I was short on time for the real exam. Really had to speed up to answer all questions.

 

[Nicole Seaman]

I am wondering, as the questions are different for all candidates since we moved to CBT (and honestly, who can recall the details + 4 choices of questions after doing the exam ), is there really a requirement from GARP to not share any feedback until the full session is done?

1 week after the exam, it is a bit difficult to recall the questions - switching to holidays mode, maybe we are not really connecting to the forum as often as while studying ;-)

my feedback is that I found part 2 generally tougher than part 1, more content to read / learn.
I created a planning on 16 weeks and followed it quite well (even better than for part 1) and still, I felt like I should have done more practicing.

On top of BT package, I bought the 4 schwezer mock exams. Those took less than 3h to finalize whereas I was short on time for the real exam. Really had to speed up to answer all questions.

Hello @bollengc Yes, GARP has specifically stated that Exam Prep Providers are not to allow any specific feedback on the exams until the full session is over. Previously, when there was only one exam on Saturday, we could not open the forum thread until Monday for feedback. I know that some users would write it all down right after the exam and then provide their feedback when the thread opened. That way they didn't need to remember it all a few days later. The same could be done with the new format so they don't need to remember it a week later.

 

[JonathanJoke]

part 1 result has released in monday but not hearing any infor from part 2

 

[Nicole Seaman]

part 1 result has released in monday but not hearing any infor from part 2

@JonathanJoke The Part 1 exams ended on May 20th and the Part 2 exams ended on May 27th. I do not have a date from GARP for the Part 2 results, but since the exams ended one week apart, I would think that the Part 2 results would be released around one week after Part 1.

 

[ritu31]

I have got part II results today, cleared it with 1,3,2,1,1,3

 

[jgree1995]

Cleared with 3,3,1,2,1,1

 

[bollengc]

Same here, just got the results.
1,1,3,4,2,1. I can't believe it.
Thanks a lot for the quality resources, the exchanges on the forum. It would definitely not have been possible without all this

 

[connor1]

I also managed to pass part 2 at the second attempt. Thank you very much David and Nicole. For anyone who came close but did not pass, as a personal preference, I found the Kaplan notes very helpful in combination with the BT questions and BT forum. I was very disappointed missing out at my first part 2 attempt (part 1 also took me 2 attempts), but I would encourage anyone reading this who find themselves in the same position to keep going. You can do it! Failure is just a stepping stone to success. The exams are not easy, so don’t be too hard on yourself.

 

[f.guzmanr]

I did not pass. I'm really discouraged and concerned about my results (3,4,4,3,4,4). I got 60 on both mock exams BT and GARP and not sure how to prepare for the Nov test.

 

[ppodles]

I did not pass. I'm really discouraged and concerned about my results (3,4,4,3,4,4). I got 60 on both mock exams BT and GARP and not sure how to prepare for the Nov test.

Many questions were quite tricky and kind of 50/50 (eg: I still believe that question regarding volitality smile had correct two answers). I would not get discouraged as most likely it will be much easier to pass lvl2 at second attempt (although it is obviously lame to go all over it again, but it is how it is). And again, similarly to lvl1 - qualitative grasp of concept > quantatative here i would say that mock exams are not that much representative.


Passed lvl2. Got the results like 2h ago. Idk but seems like BT materials are rly great. Got good results with of course exception of ops risk.

 

[Anir]

Hi David and Nicole,
I have passed FRM part 2 with 1,1,3,3,2,1. Thank you for all the help though Forum threads, mock questions and explanations.

Cheers,
Anir.

 

[Torsleno]

Cleared as well! Thanks to the BT community and David and Nicole for the amazing work!

 

[matthewroth]

I failed Part 2. that's it...
I do not feel like the Bionic Turtle prep was in line with the reality of the exam. too much emphasis on topics that weren't covered at all. There were about 30 questions where I had to take an educated guess because i had never seen the material. Very disappointed in my performance given the hours and effort I put in.