Exam Feedback October 2020 Part 1 Exam Feedback

Hamam

Active Member
Yes results are out, I just wanted to say sincerely thanks to David & Nicole. I honestly really appreciate all the support you provided. Don’t want to be to happy & excited, will now focus and work even harder for part 2 using BT.
 

Frodo81

New Member
Just saw the results. A little bit surprised but I actually passed. Great start into my day. : ) All the best to everyone, hope you will all get positive results, too.
 

czet

New Member
Passed, and I am surprised but I actually made top quartile in every section. Thanks BT for prep! Very releived now
 

zeynepil

New Member
Hello my results are good- fair- good- fair. I was thinking this should be marked as Pass but it says failed?
 

czet

New Member
Sorry to hear that! Fair being <50%? Thing is that pass requirements are above 50% I believe, so that explains why it overall might not have been enough to pass.
 

Hamam

Active Member
Hello my results are good- fair- good- fair. I was thinking this should be marked as Pass but it says failed?
You were close bro(2323) in my opinion you were on the line. I recommend you push your self and do it again.
 

Hamam

Active Member
There is no exact score that determines a pass, it depends on all the candidates collectively,
 
Sorry to hear that! Fair being <50%? Thing is that pass requirements are above 50% I believe, so that explains why it overall might not have been enough to pass.
Not sure if thats the same for part 2 , people are posting pass with 31334 and many more in 3 and 4
 

frenchmarmot

Member
Subscriber
Passed part 1. Performed better than expected.

Many thanks to David and Nicole for the quality of the material here on BT, really helped me grasp the material.

Time to start part 2
 

Erik

New Member
While it’s impossible for 100 questions to fully cover the breadth of topics presented in the readings, I felt that the actual exam failed to strive for that goal. The formulae required (in some questions, not all) were quite obscure, and certainly not highlighted in the readings. Some of the theoretical questions were almost subjectively worded. I think GARP focused a bit too much on the finer details, rather than trying to assess our working knowledge.

Well, I did not expect the outcome- but I passed! 1,3,1,1 Quartiles
 

bradnhopkins

New Member
I felt when I took the Part 1 in October that I was well prepared for the quantitative type questions and the analytical type of reasoning. Where I didn’t feel totally comfortable was with some of the qualitative sections (i.e. Code of Conduct, case studies), and I suppose that means I should have reviewed all of that more.

In general, thanks to Bionic Turtle and the extra study time due to Covid, I felt well prepared for the exam. And that showed by the fact that I passed on my first try.

Here are some thoughts in general regarding the Bionic Turtle materials:
  • As far as I could tell the BT materials aligned exceptionally well with the 2020 LOSes and I didn’t feel like there was anything missing.
  • This is more of an observation than a critique for BT, and something I should have reviewed more: the actual exam uses discrete period compounding for any of the TVM and TVM-like calculations, whereas I feel BT is more reliant on continuous compounding (which I will admit is a lot easier to work with). At several points on the exam I was unable to remember the discrete versions of certain TVM formulas, but I was able to get close enough to what I felt were the right answers using the continuous-time versions I could remember.
  • The practice test and the topic drills were excellent prep. I would like to see an additional practice test or two as I think it would help candidates significantly. I had the unfortunate experience that GARP’s website would not load the data table images for their practice tests in the week prior to the exam, so I was completely reliant on BT’s excellent materials.
  • Thank you so, so much to @DavidHarper and everyone else in the forum who were able to take the time to answer my questions. All of you were invaluable resources.

Edit: I would like to say finally that this was not an easy exam to prepare for. The volume of information I needed to understand and review made it feel like I was drinking from a fire hose, even with the condensed Bionic Turtle study materials. Bionic Turtle made it much, much more manageable and I felt very well prepared for the exam going in. Post-exam I was very uncertain about whether I had passed or not (especially on four hours of sleep!), but here we are and I passed in no small part to Bionic Turtle.
 

LucreziaB

Member
Not sure if thats the same for part 2 , people are posting pass with 31334 and many more in 3 and 4

The part two pass percentage is historically higher than 50% (if you think about it, GARP only grades your Part 2 if you passed Part 1 therefore all the graded Part 2 have already shown some mastery whereas Part 1 hasn't passed anything yet).

So someone could get 3rd quartile on every single topic and still pass as long as they were overall on the higher end of Q3.

But Part 1 tends to have a <50% pass rate so if you get 3rd quartile on one topic you have to "catch up" elsewhere.
 

Nicole Seaman

Director of CFA & FRM Operations
Staff member
Subscriber
Pass Rates: I will cross-post this on the other feedback threads, but I contacted GARP regarding the pass rates, and they said pass rates for the October and November exams will be released around February 1st. I don't have any other information than this but wanted to let everyone know so you aren't continuing to look for the pass rates before they are actually released.
 
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