Nov 15, 2014 FRM I exam reflections

[Rodrigo H]

Hello All,

About 3 hours ago, I finished taking the FRM part I exam in Chicago and I felt that it was a fair test. My assessment is that the Bionic Turtle questions are more difficult that you would see on the exam- this is all relative since within the BT questions bank there are different levels of difficulty. My point is that even if you are scoring low 60s on the Mock exams, you can have a good chance of passing the exam.

Now, after the exam, I am fairly confident that I passed. I feel that I knew at least 66 questions, had about 20 educated guesses, and about 14 total guesses. I saw more qualitative questions that I expected so I could have done better if I had spent more time reviewing more qualitative material.

My advise for new FRM I candidates would be to use the Bionic Turtle notes and questions, and read the FRM books for the qualitative topics. I personally only used the BT notes/questions and ,in retrospect,it was all I needed.

Also, I found this warnings helpful: http://www.analystforum.com/forums/frm-forum/91316302

Good luck!

 

[mikecimafonte]

I too thought it was a fair exam, leaning towards a degree of difficulty higher than I expected. The reason being, I memorized a ton of formulas that were of no use considering there were more qualitative type questions. In retrospect I would've spent more time reviewing concepts. Also, bringing a watch is necessary as there was no clock in the exam room in NYC.

If anyone is nervous about their performance, know that you are definitely not the only person that feels that way. We're all better off for taking the exam. Best wishes!

 

[Biju George]

Hi Everyone,
I took the FRM Part-1 yesterday. Found the questions more of conceptual and than of numeric. I am a bit worried as I couldn't finish time .Any guess of passing the exam getting around 55%?Also does GARP announce quartiles for the failed candidates also ?

 

[justinturner]

I was a bit disappointed with this test. I'm pretty sure I passed (unless the passing mark is 70+ in case I can't be sure) but the test kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. I am not sure if it is just my perception, but I did the 2011 to 2013 practice tests and aced them early on in the study process, then at the end I did the 2014 practice test and I noticed a distinct difference (and got about 30% less), and now doing the actual test I get the feeling that they are trying to ramp up the difficulty.

I literally knew every item on David's videos and review videos inside and out (absolutely every formula and major topic he said was tested frequently, I looked over the full 150 page formula sheet book on the site and there was nothing I didn't know while reviewing) and I felt like a very small percentage of that was actually tested, and we were bombarded with an large amount of minutia. Questions kept coming up where I would read through the paragraph and think "finally, been waiting for this formula to come up" only to see that they are testing some theoretical concept or some minor detail related to the formula/topic. I am a video guy, and the BT videos specifically didn't go over much of the theory/qualitative stuff and did not do videos for some of the more qualitative stuff, but perhaps there should be, because I felt that maybe 30-40% of the test questions were not material covered in any of the videos (and maybe even a good chunk not even covered in the BT or schweser notes, I read both sets). I am not sure what the actual number was, that was just my feeling.

I felt like I pulled my calculator out on maybe 30 of the questions, and a good chunk of those were just simple math (adding, multiplying etc). I didn't get to do almost any straightforward EMWA, GARCH 1,1, BSM, etc etc and was left answering a lot of questions that didn't test my ability to be a risk manager, but tested if I wasted enough time reading the source material. Speaking of which, the FRM books are horrendous, and getting half way through them was a complete bore and felt like a waste of time, so I am not sure what the answer is. Some questions I felt were just trying to be difficult for the sake of being difficult.

David, do you access or take these level 1 tests? Do you have any feedback as to how this test would have compared to previous tests and if they are trying to ramp up the difficulty? I feel that maybe there needs to be a bit more focus on qualitative stuff going forward, or at least that was my takeaway from that test. And all the questions in the review videos (and regular videos) were straight forward, even when they were from previous GARP questions, but there were not many like that on the exam.

Sorry if I sound whiny! I actually aced CFA level 1 and 2 getting the top band in all subjects except one, so I am not just a disgruntled first time candidate, I am actually disgruntled based on previous experiences. I put in about 200 hours here as was recommended (and put in 350 hours for each level of CFA, so almost 1k hours between the three) CFA 2 is supposed to be the pinnacle of difficult tests, but I felt the test was fair from start to finish, very clear, difficult, but always simple to follow and answerable if you knew your stuff. And on top of that, mostly math related testing your ability to implement the formulas and calculations you had learned. I was never left thinking "was this thing even in the book?? like I was left a few times on the exam today.

Ok, there are my 2 cents squared, curious if anyone else has any thoughts or felt similar to me, or if it was just me and my perception. Maybe I simply didn't get enough sleep!

 

[Heidi]

@ Justinturner, i had 8 hours of sleep. This part 1 GARP exams i wrote, in my opinion is not dependent on the amount of sleep you had a night before as clearly even when i remembered all the formulars, there were no questions to apply them.

Talk about guessing, you had at least 2 options that were fit for the questions and in those instances, you will need a higher probability of luck

For the questions that were calculations, you had the straight forward ones and then the usual "twist" i have read GARP does a lot.

In the end, asides gaining more knowledge, your not rewarded by GARP for the long hours you put in for preparation because they end up setting questions for each session from just at most 10% of the aims.

Thought i will feel better when i woke this morning (its 5:30am here) but here i am still reminiscing.

At the time i had 30 minutes to go, still had abt 28 questions unanswered.

"ITS GONNA BE A LONG 6 WEEKS"

All we can do is wait and keep our fingers crossed, while trying to clean out the bitter taste left by the exams.

Goodluck everyone.

 

[hamu4ok]

It is true that calculator was used very rare. The same feelings after the exam as described above. Especially 20 qestions unanswered in final 30 minutes.

 

[EleanaKitsara]

Same with me. I found the questions harder at the last 1 hour resulting to be just in time to finish the exam.

 

[mizzougrad]

I felt like the test was definitely easier than the practice tests that GARP released, and fairly close to the level of difficulty found in the Bionic Turtle review questions at the end of each section (which is stated in the review). I finished the test with about an hour left, which gave me time to change my answer on the low duration question.

Just wanted to thank David and his team for putting together such excellence materials to prepare for the test. I CRUSHED that exam...probably only truly guessed on two or three questions and was absolutely confident (thanks to your study materials) on at least 80 questions. I will 100% be purchasing your content to prepare for part 2 of the FRM.

 

[NohalfMeasures]

Hey yall i gave my exam yesterday n i totally agree with you @justinturner.. i am dissapointed. its utter dissappointment for me. But lets hope for the best.

 

[Babak083]

Hi everyone!
This is my 3rd FRM I exam (I think this exam more easy than May 2014 exam, so pass rates should be higher than May 2013 exam) I also agree with opinion that most aims were not tested in last exam. But i'm happy that in this exam I had reached to last question ) when I had reached the last question I have 40 minutes to mark answers and review unsolved questions. So overall about exam 2014 November I can say that only read the materials its about 60% for the exam. You have to apply this knowledge in exam and also be ready for practice and interrelated aim questions. I was trouble with binomial tree question, despite that I did more than 50 question about binomial pricing of options, but when in exam asked us question about biomial pricing when some Fund A have expectation that prices will rise about 6%, other fund B have expectations that prices will rise 12% calculate probality of up movement. So in the exam we have to be ready to meet so tricky questions. And finally by this timy everybody said that FRM II more easy than FRM I, but when I meet the guy after exam preparing for FRM II part and he said that he had 3 Masters Degrees, But he had never seen such difficult exam as FRM, and especially as FRM II fart ... So my friends if I even fail for third time I will take may exam again. I have to pass this exam. This is my goal...So Waiting for results... Wish everyone a lot of chance..
,

 

[Babak083]

4) Don’t panic! There will be some questions that almost no candidate can solve: GARP writes a hard exam. You can get 30%+ of the questions wrong and still pass. FROM THIS LINK : http://www.analystforum.com/forums/frm-forum/91316302

 

[NohalfMeasures]

@Babak083 is it still ok to be hopeful if one has only around 50% of questions right??

 

[sujeetsinghjsr]

Exam was too difficult.. 80% question was asked from theory, assumptions and principle of various finance concepts. I worked hard for numerical question before exam but all went waste. Only for 5-6 questions i used calculator. I am really worried about cut off. If anyone has any idea about cut off, please tell me.

 

[NohalfMeasures]

@Sujeet Singh I share your pain...and i am sure many others as well..

 

[justinturner]

Lots of interesting replies. After a night of good sleep I feel more like I passed the exam, but still feel pretty much the same about the rest. It is interesting to see many of us had similar experiences. I also struggled to finish by the time limit, having to rush pretty hard in the last 30 minutes. I had literally planned to be done the test in 2.5 hours tops, as I had been going through BT, schweser, GARP etc questions at about 1.5 mins per question. Some of the questions on this test (maybe 10) were real time wasters and I should have known better and left them till the end. They weren't time wasters cause of calculations, they were time wasters cause the answer did not appear to be anywhere in the info provided, so I just kept going around in circles in my mind trying to figure it out what they were actually trying to question.

Besides the time wasters, there were a lot of questions I felt shouldn't have been there. A good of example of one I feel has no place in this test is the GINI coefficient question, and there were many more like that. I am not even going to waste time explaining why I feel questions like that have no place on the test, cause it is only my opinion. This test really rewarded people who eat up theory/qualitative reading info and can memorize it. I honestly feel that someone could pass this test and not have done one mathematical practice question, and just know the books front to back. Generally grinding out practice questions is rewarded, but not here, it felt almost unnecessary as I didn't come to almost any question thinking "thank god I did a question just like that yesterday". I did about 500-600 practice questions, not sure where that number ranks with other people, but that was approximately what I was able to manage. I generally read through material a couple times and watch videos about 3 times, so I spend 80% of my time on that and the rest on questions.

As for Mizzougrad, congrats on your experience, I hope others were as lucky. My only thought on that is that when I feel like I crush exams I get some of my worst marks (ie all answers looked obvious to me but in reality I am frequently getting tricked and or reading incorrectly). My best marks have always been on tests I had to work hard at a which I struggled right till the end. In those tests I generally try to disprove every wrong answer instead of choosing the first answer I think is obviously right and moving on.

 

[NohalfMeasures]

@david harper Whats your take sir??? could one still hope..?

 

[Heidi]

@DebbieM, i think that will depend on the general performance. If a lot of people scored high, (the top 5%) the pass mark will be high.

So it depends.

GARP sent a mail some hours ago that results will be emailed on January 2, 2015. We will have to wait till then. I am equally also worried.

 

[NohalfMeasures]

@Heidi yea just saw the mail.. thanks tho

 

[NohalfMeasures]

@Heidi yea just saw the mail.. thanks tho

 

[sujeetsinghjsr]

@DebbieM, i think that will depend on the general performance. If a lot of people scored high, (the top 5%) the pass mark will be high.

So it depends.

GARP sent a mail some hours ago that results will be emailed on January 2, 2015. We will have to wait till then. I am equally also worried.

Can you please forward GARP mail to my email id? My is is [email protected]