Schweser Final Review Practice Exam

[Robert]

I’ve reviewed all of the practice questions from GARP and the FRM Handbook as well as a large sample from Bionic Turtle and thought I was relatively comfortable with the exam material. I took the 2012 GARP practice exam yesterday and scored an 80, having made a few careless mistakes (e.g. using a daily volatility number to compute an annual VaR) that I will rectify by reading the questions more closely on exam day.

Unfortunately, I just took the Schweser Final Review exam and did very poorly (57%). My confidence is now shattered.

Maybe I’m just trying to rationalize it to make myself feel better but I feel like Schweser’s final review exam didn’t focus as much on the “core concepts” as BT’s mock exam (I haven’t taken the BT practice exam but I quickly perused the questions now and will complete it tonight) when compared to the GARP practice exams and FRM Handbook questions.

Has anyone else feel the same way about Schweser’s Final Review practice exam (note that I didn’t look at either of Schweser’s other two practice exams)?

David, I’m not sure if you’ve taken a look at Schweser’s Final Practice exam, but are their questions a good proxy for exam-day questions? It seemed like Schweser had very few math-oriented questions, which I excel at, and focused almost entirely on qualitative questions, which I am relatively weaker at.

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

Hi Robert,

No, I have not seen Schweser's Final Review, so I have no basis for comment. Just a a few reactions, fwiw:

• The FRM is simply less (maybe far less) susceptible to "diagnostic prediction" than, say, the CFA. (that's no gripe, their exam methodology has been a net benefit to us. I'd prefer to call it dynamic than unstable!). Your mock exam score ought to exhibit a higher "standard error" than, for example, the CFA.
  Two reasons: (1) It is still less mature [a less stable historical pattern] but also it is dynamic by design (i.e., moving target) and 2. The ratio of (exam questions)/AIMS is in the neighborhood of ~15 - 25%; i.e., you can expect to review 60% to 70%+ of that AIMs that will not directly be tested. So, at the risk of stating the obvious, the sample of questions in the mock are a huge determinant; sample mocks ought to vary their selection bias significantly, such that only a rare candidate would exhibit high consistency across all mocks (all just my opinion).
• [Related to the lack of a stable historical pattern] There is little robust basis for the calibration of an ideal mock exam target pass ratio. You will note GARP did not include one in their mock, they did not say (eg) "you should get 70% of these correct." This lack of prospective target clarity can be very frustrating, it seems, to candidates who like to set goals for themselves. Come to think of it, i would imagine the FRM experience is frustrating to people who like to know exactly where the goal posts are placed. GARP does not know how many correct you should get on their mock. Today, a few days before the exam, nobody knows what the pass rate is because that will be determined, ex post, by the top 5%. (again, not a gripe, not at all).
• My mock exams are significantly biased toward the quantitative; I think the actual exam, especially P2, will have more qualitative questions than I asked. (it's maybe hard to be objective, but I still believe most of the qualitative concepts are better understood if the math is understood. People with only a textual interpretation of delta, just to pick any of dozens of concepts, quickly get thrown into confusion ... whereas, going the other way is usually pretty easy. Most of Stulz and Jorion's qualitative statements are based on a mathy idea somewhere, so I still think it's way more robust to error in favor of too much math). Sorry, long way of saying: I'd expect our mocks to be at least as difficult, if not a notch more, than either of the others. And, as usual, all of our questions are more quantitative, as a proportion.
• Re: GARPs 2012 Mock Exams: I'm not a huge fan of them. I am not sure they deserve great "diagnostic weight." (I am disappointed in GARP's investment here. I think they should publish full-length representative exams).

Sorry for length, if i had more time, i'd have written less