Course Study Plan Guide

[ProfZero]

Hello @Malfurion

Welcome to Bionic Turtle! I see that you just purchased one of our study packages recently. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what you mean by the "new" questions. Our new practice questions are all published in the PDF files in the study planner. They are first posted in the forum here: https://forum.bionicturtle.com/forums/todays-daily-questions.53/ and then when we have a full set of questions for that specific reading or chapter, they are published as a Practice Question PDF. The only new practice questions that I have not published yet are the ones that were posted in the forum this week on Monday for Topic 10. Those will be published in a PDF set today.

We retain the older questions in the PDF set if they are relevant, but the new practice questions are always added at the very top of the PQ set so you don't need to go line by line (sorry I'm not really sure what you are referring to here...are you referring to the airtable XLS where we list all of our practice questions?) If so, that is updated once per month with the new practice questions that were published. You will see that there is a column that says "Active" and the answer for each practice question will be "True" or "False" which means they are either still relevant or not relevant to the current curriculum. This is a guide for those who would like to see what we offer for practice questions and it also helps us to keep our practice questions organized. As a member, you don't need to use that XLS to find the new practice questions, as they are always posted in the forum and then published in the study planner.

Also, I update this thread every time a practice question set is published so you can easily see when new PQs are added to the study planner: https://forum.bionicturtle.com/thre...d-published-materials.23056/page-2#post-83487. We also have a very useful FAQ page here that explains our practice question process: https://www.bionicturtle.com/bt-faq/what-do-your-frm-practice-questions-include/ . I hope this helps to explain our process, as we have tried to make it as easy as possible to quickly find the new PQs.

Nicole thank you so so much! You're absolutely right, I was not clear in the first place.

Basically what happened is that on July 22 I downloaded all .pdfs from the Study Planner section. Ever since then I started working on the exercises from the .pdfs.
Yesterday I happened to have cleared them all (some were very, very challenging!), so I accessed the website and landed on this very interesting page (https://www.bionicturtle.com/bt-faq/frm-practice-questions-included-question-sets/) where I saw the very same exercises I cleared, plus some others I didn't see. Thus I concluded, there may have been more questions in there!
Cool, I'll then head to the forum to check what exercises I have already cleared and what others I didn't.

Thanks again!

 

[Nicole Seaman]

Nicole thank you so so much! You're absolutely right, I was not clear in the first place.

Basically what happened is that on July 22 I downloaded all .pdfs from the Study Planner section. Ever since then I started working on the exercises from the .pdfs.
Yesterday I happened to have cleared them all (some were very, very challenging!), so I accessed the website and landed on this very interesting page (https://www.bionicturtle.com/bt-faq/frm-practice-questions-included-question-sets/) where I saw the very same exercises I cleared, plus some others I didn't see. Thus I concluded, there may have been more questions in there!
Cool, I'll then head to the forum to check what exercises I have already cleared and what others I didn't.

Thanks again!

You're welcome! I just wanted to make sure that I was understanding you correctly so I could give you the right answers. If you go to the Updated Materials thread in the forum, you can quickly see which PQs were published since July 22nd.

 

[Jay Kent]

Hello Nicole,
I see that you mentioned airtable in the thread above Link. Is there an Excel version of it available? It is an excellent resource to keep track of questions you have solved hence.

Thanks
Jay

 

[Nicole Seaman]

Hello Nicole,
I see that you mentioned airtable in the thread above Link. Is there an Excel version of it available? It is an excellent resource to keep track of questions you have solved hence.

Thanks
Jay

Hello @Jay Kent

Sorry, but we do not currently have the practice questions key in Excel format. It is only available in airtable, which was the best way for us to keep track of the practice questions that we have available. We originally created this spreadsheet for our internal use only so we could have a list of all of our practice questions in an easy-to-read document and when edited, it would update in real-time on our website (I update it monthly with all of the new PQs that we published during that month). A few years ago, we decided to share this with our members, as we had received many questions regarding the number of practice questions available. You should be able to print the airtable spreadsheet, although it would be a very long document, as there are over 4,000 practice questions listed.

 

[Jay Kent]

Thanks Nicole, no problem.

 

[seevvlee]

Hi, I just wanted to get some tips on how people are managing the content for part ii. Given the sheer volume, I always seem to forget Market Risk by the time i'm done with Current Issues. What can I do?

 

[Oxana C]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to BT. I plan to retake my FRM part 1 exam sometime in 2021 (probably in July). Unfortunately I failed it first time back in November 2019.

As GARP changed its curriculum, I have to repurchase study notes/books. I used Kaplan books + Kaplan question bank the first round, even though I was really happy with the level of detail and explanations in the books, I found the questions to be on the easier side compared to the actual exam. Therefore I plan to use BT question bank this time. However, I am not sure which books shaould I purchase.
I would really appreaciate your advice in regards with the study material that you would recommend, given the recent changes GARP has made to its curriculum. Is it better to buy new FRM books + BT questions and notes, or should I repurchase Kaplan books + BT questions?

Thanks,

Oxana

 

[ucaksbu]

Hi,
there are a significant number of topics in past 2 Op Risk Management that I cannot find in the book (anything past UK operational resilience) - are these optional / no longer relevant?
Best
Sam

/Edit: I think I found my answer (they will not be tested). Maybe would be good to put that on top of these chapters somewhere (or maybe I just didn't see it)

 

[Nicole Seaman]

Hi,
there are a significant number of topics in past 2 Op Risk Management that I cannot find in the book (anything past UK operational resilience) - are these optional / no longer relevant?
Best
Sam

/Edit: I think I found my answer (they will not be tested). Maybe would be good to put that on top of these chapters somewhere (or maybe I just didn't see it)

Hello @ucaksbu

If you are referring to the Regulatory Readings, it states the following in the Candidate Study Guide that candidates should be following for their studies:

"OPTIONAL REGULATORY READINGS FOR REFERENCE

Candidates are expected to understand the objective and general structure of important international regulatory frameworks and general application of the various approaches for calculating minimum capital requirements, as described in the readings above. . Candidates interested in the complete regulatory framework can review the following:....."

We leave these in the study planner even though they are listed as optional for those candidates who choose to review this.

 

[thanhtam92]

So what are your suggestions for the last couple days before the exam? I am kind of overwhelming now. I currently go back and redo all BT practice questions for each part

 

[SheOlya]

So what are your suggestions for the last couple days before the exam? I am kind of overwhelming now. I currently go back and redo all BT practice questions for each part

That's how I passed FRM part 1. I took one week off before exam.
1. Go through practice exam.
2. Go through each book (preferably each LO).
3. If time left go through BT practice questions. If not that much time, go through questions for the most important topics.

 

[LucreziaB]

How much more difficult is the exam than the GARP practice paper? It’s frustrating to hear from some that it doesn’t match the difficulty of the exam.

 

[SheOlya]

How much more difficult is the exam than the GARP practice paper? It’s frustrating to hear from some that it doesn’t match the difficulty of the exam.

From my point of view, it matches about 70% of the exam. If you understand the concepts, you will fine. Some questions are just tricky rather than very hard. Some questions contains a LOT of not important info.

 

[thanhtam92]

Is there any question related to Insurance and Pension Plan topic? I am having hard time to understand and memorize the ways to calculate these probabilities and premium payment and such? and I seriously dont wanna try to remember since there are more important topics to remember than this one.

 

[LucreziaB]

Is there any question related to Insurance and Pension Plan topic? I am having hard time to understand and memorize the ways to calculate these probabilities and premium payment and such? and I seriously dont wanna try to remember since there are more important topics to remember than this one.

It’s in the syllabus so definitely fair game for the exam. No one here can tell you if it will be on Saturday’s exam. I would do both BT and GARP end of chapter questions and connect the material back to Bayes in Topic 2 Chapter 1. If you can conceptualize which probabilities are conditional vs. unconditional and why, then you won’t need to memorize. Same with the rationale behind calculating premiums...I think of earned premiums for life insurance like expected loss.

 

[thanhtam92]

In general, Do you find GARP end of chapter questions are helpful for preparation? Or should I just focus on BT questions. I don’t have enough time to go through everything lol

 

[nc27]

In general, Do you find GARP end of chapter questions are helpful for preparation? Or should I just focus on BT questions. I don’t have enough time to go through everything lol

Focus on BT questions

 

[SheOlya]

Is there any question related to Insurance and Pension Plan topic? I am having hard time to understand and memorize the ways to calculate these probabilities and premium payment and such? and I seriously dont wanna try to remember since there are more important topics to remember than this one.

On the exam it can be the case that there will no questions on this topic, but also possible there will be 2 questions.

 

[vvishnupriyaa]

Hello Guys !

I'm new to this forum and also to the world of quantification and statistics - I am looking to take up FRM this July and am quite lost as where to begin. Can someone guide with this? A study planner?

Also, I understand FRM needs strong quantitative skills, since I totally come from a compliance background, I almost lost - would appreciate any smallest tip to get through this. I started my preparation, and am quite lost with the quantitative analysis module(more precisely the formulas). I don't quite understand how some formulas are arrived at. Also, Is it necessary that I memorize each one of them?

Thankyou

 

[Nicole Seaman]

There are a number of threads in the forum that discuss formulas. You can find them by using the search function here: https://forum.bionicturtle.com/search/?type=post. Here is one example of a discussion: https://forum.bionicturtle.com/threads/formulas-and-equations.6709/. Our study materials are extremely helpful in learning all of the concepts, including the formulas. Our practice questions are written by our CEO, David Harper, and are in-depth so all of our members can learn the concepts that will be tested on the exam. The paid section of the forum is also included in our study packages. This is where every practice question has its own thread, and the formulas and concepts are discussed and explained.