beginner advice

Thinking of taking the FRM and need advice on some things, my reason is that it’s relevant to my job.

Also more and more i am thinking that being a CFA Charterholder is not enough to be competitive. Every grad is taking the exams and need to differentiate myself even further.

  • Booking test centre for FRM…we just go online and chose a pearson vue test centre??? Not going to excel centre would be magical.
  • Time spent and difficultly, ive glanced at the books and have to say it looks just as difficult as CFA?
  • Finally how do you prepare, does GARP provide past papers, i dont see end of chapter questions or blue box exercises, is there an exam book or what?

Thanks, I am 28 yrs old

Hey friend,

Did you get the answer to the last bullet? I’m suffering there too.

I have the GARP working papers but no obvious test questions to pull from.

To prepare, you can pay the 250 bucks to get the GARP reading list. I did not do this, so cannot comment on them. Most candidates I assume use Kaplan or BT. From my understanding, use BT if you have no knowledge. For those that have done a level or two of CFA use Kaplan.

Garp gives you a full 100 question practice paper. You can use search engines and the BT forum (at the very bottom) has past papers. Previously Garp only gave you a sample of 25 questions as an FYI.

I used Kaplan exclusively. I did not use their videos. I just went through each book and did the 10 questions at the end of each reading. After finishing I started doing practice questions from Kaplan Q Bank. Then I did 4 practice exams. Two from Kaplan and two from Garp. David Harper from BT also has youtube vids which are good. I used them on my way to work but not a lot. I would also noted, the Garp questions across exams tend to repeat. In addition, you will also see common themes around calculations (ie unexpected loss). My friend and I used this plan and we both passed with flying colours; however, we did level 2 cfa in june. We started on August 1 and studied up to the exam day. I would say 1-2hr per day in the week and more on weekends. I finished all readings one month before. did two weeks of Q bank and then practice exams with review.I took the thursday and friday off before the exam.

The questions on the exam are harder than cfa level 1; however, cfa level 1 is 6 hours and more questions. I also think the pass rate for frm are slightly lower which kinds of makes it a mixed bag of yes and no between them. I would say the questions are around level 2 standard with some being a lot harder and some being easier and straight forward. CFA don’t try to trick you but garp can through in some subtlety to their questions that if you miss read, then you will get an incorrect answer. If you haven’t done cfa level 2, then frm is a good prep. if you have, then it will make it easier to pass. There are some similarities and you will find that garp does calculations and examples a bit differently than cfai.

I have a number of pdf exams, if you want, private message me and i will email you them to you. Im just getting back from holidays, so anything else, just ask.

many thanks i have put this on ice this year maybe next year i will find the energy.

one question though that really want to know is test centre.

do you take the exam alone, some random centre or with a bunch of people somewhere?

I’m thinking about taking both parts in Nov. I saw Study material and seems interesting and something I’m familiar with. Both parts have about 2000 pages in total and should be like entire one CFAI level.

Haven’t been on in a while as trying to finish CA and CFA. For me, the exam was held at a university and not in the cbd either. 45mins away and public transport was an issue, so took an uber. I don’t drive as an expat in Australia. I don’t mind going to a university but the same university has a CBD campus…go figure that one out. Exam proctors are nothing like CFA. They were the uni students and probably paid at lower rates. I saw one bring out their phone during the exam…however, there is one head proctor who was ruthless. you show up late, can’t take the test. someone’s alarm went off and they got escorted out.

The problem with having the exam at a university is the seating. Stadium seating is made to look at a presenter and presentation, not for 4hrs looking down at a piece of paper. The seats were small. The little, A5 notepad space that was desk was hard to navigate throughout the exam; picture shifting through your exam paper and your calculator constantly. They do try space you out every few seats, so I used the seat next to me as well. Every hour some university bell would go off for a whole minute…which was pretty distracting.

It may not be like this for exam centre, just my experience.

Hi,

Thank you for your elaborative note on how to prepare for FRM Part 1.

Could you please share the mock/practice papers? That would be of a great help.

Thanks,