I have made this argument before and I don’t mind publicly saying that Wiley and I don’t agree on this point at the moment, re: selling the study notes and FRM questions separately.
For Wiley and I, this is a long term marriage, not just a financial transaction, and, like all marriages, we will figure this out sooner or later so I’m not worried at the moment but the “question of questions” does have near term consequences for students.
Here is the dilemma: I treat the FRM questions, and the very long form answers I authored, as uniquely distinct from anything on the market as a learning tool because they directly compliment intuition distinct from a test of wrote memorization.
You can memorize learning objectives all day long and still fail the test. (Have you taken the exam and seen any question where you thought “Oh, I remember that exact LOS”?)
This exam is not a test of learning objectives, it is a phenomenally rigorous test of understanding and intuition and that means reading one ro two steps beyond the learning objective. I believe the notes and the questions are one and the same and that bundle as I wrote them is critical - aka not optional - to passing the exam. Wiley disagrees and is selling them in pieces.
Personally, I wrote the study notes as a cookbook and then I stepped back and wrote the practice questions as if I had the same cookbook but had a few missing ingredients. How would I fill the gap? That is intuition. That is the Wiley difference and is also the reason I would ask anyone in the world to give up on Kaplan in 2017 and accept our pass guarantee.
RE: Questions. I think I am going to ask Wiley to let me do a Part I and Part II question dump here so you can see how differently I write and how much the focus is on the exam itself.
On a completely unrelated note, I know this stuff isn’t cheap. I grew up very, very poor and often didn’t have the most basic tools I needed to teach myself the things I knew I needed to know. If you want to learn, and legitimately cant afford my program, here is my personal email: christian.cooper.us@gmail.com. Let’s talk about getting you what you need to get you across the finish line. I’ll personally pay to make sure you get what you need.
Never choose the low cost provider when the high cost provider knows what you are going through.
-Christian