In deciding whether or not one should enrol for the exam next year or in the coming years - one’s task is NOT to learn about the material in the syllabus - get the best study pack, more difficult practising questions to drill - ie. getting a more sophisticated model to learn and simulate the real exam - because you cannot learn the stuff and deal with the real exam from the books, but from real life experience plus reading from the originals - but first to estimate how GARP’s strategic positioning of itself is going to evolve in the coming years, ie. first one has to do strategic gaming analysis. If it is going to continue on its current path, and may even take a few steps further along its current path - repositioning FRM as a prestigious qualification to experienced risk management professional only - and without telling the whole world it is doing it - so causing candidates to think that it is introductory like what it used to be - and thus attracting huge number of enrollments for the exam, so they can say how popular FRM has become, and then slaughter all these candidates - which can enable them to say hey how many CFA charter holders also fail… so our designation is more prestigious than CFA. And getting all the blind sheep in - without telling them the tremendous change in purpose of the exam - but use them to collect membership fee and exam enrollment fee - to support its existence and enrollment figures. Thus in attempt to doing what it is trying to do could threaten its own very reputation, credibility and existence. If that is your analysis of what GARP is going to do - then take the exam when you are experienced and good enough to becoming a risk management professional, with at least a few years solid risk management exposure, and do the reading from the assignments, and before you are experienced and good enough and are willing to do the required work, don’t bother wasting your money, time and life. But if in response to this year’s exam, the organization might just decide to go back to its original positioning, because what it is doing might just threaten its very existence, and reposition the exam as an introduction to risk management, like what it used to be - to make people in the industry more aware of risk management issues - then one can still learn the stuff from the study packs, using the old strategies, plus maybe some assigned readings. But how would you know? There is rather substantial risk involved in taking this test but all risk analysis tools will not help you get the answer. Running a regression or historical simulation or using any of the hundreds of models or formulas or any other analysis tools will NOT help. Maybe the only way to find out - is to get insider information to know which way it is going - before they should take the plunge and dive in in the deep end. The paper this year is a high quality paper, it is a real risk management test - for the fairly, if not very, experienced risk management practising professionals - although answers to many calculations do not seem to be among the choices. However, perhaps GARP should have told the whole world what it is doing - that the test is now becoming a test for experienced risk management professionals only, and candidates need years of solid risk management experience to be able to cope with the exam, rather than not telling them, hide the fact about this substantial and fundamental change - in order to attract huge number of blind enrollments - in order to boast its enrollment figures for marketing and for building up the designation, and using candidate membership and enrollment fees to support its revenue and existence. Or perhaps - to have the best of both worlds - GARP should have a basic introductory level, and then the professional difficult level - guess this is its prime and ideal solution and GARP would love it, although perhaps NOT the candidates! and if the candidates do not like it, they will not enrol, period.
the handbook has 4 years of past exam questions and i geared myself accordingly. and the questions used to be more direct and even downright easy. but unfortunately, it is not the case anymore. 
I definitely failed this one. have no excuses. studied hard. i think i can pass it next time if i get the right study materials. anybody use schewser and found it a good prepper? on the bright side, i got an intro to risk management. stuff comes in handy. sounds like a lot of people felt the way I did about the exam. lots of people wanna know, is it comparable to the CFA in terms of difficulty? given the state of material providers, compared to level 1 and 2, hell yeah. definitely. i would call FRM the “CFA 2.5”.
if it was what it was before - level 2 or level 4 depending on your background; if it is what it was like this past weekend - level 6-7 and beyond - because there are no study packs which can prepare you for it - it comes with experience, and learning from the assigned readings.
i agree with the study packs. and certainly having the study packs would’ve improved the pass rate by 20%. but honestly, i don’t think most people put in the same dedication that they did with the CFA. how many people put in 4-5 months of study? even though i didn’t study a huge length of time like I did with the CFA, i don’t think having 3 more months with the same materials would’ve helped me much more. i was reading questions that I was just not prepared to answer (perhaps i don’t have that natural intelligence they’re demanding). for most of the exam, i felt like the way i felt about the way CFA L2 had tested on portfolio managment. what do you suspect the pass rate to be? i’m guessing 30% assuming they don’t consider non-takers (automatic 15%) fail. if the pass rate is like 50%, i suspect you can pass with getting like a 65%. did anybody find the exam easy and they’re sure htey passed though?better yet, is anybody sure they didin’t fail? the two people i talked to verified what we’re saying.
http://garp.com/frmexam/frmhistory.asp http://www.garp.com/roundtables/Forums.asp?OrderID=245&ThreadID=48&ForumID=3
maybe it’s time for …PRM!!!
Billy, do you think the PRM might be a good alternative to the FRM? How is it’s reputation compared to the FRM? Is that the reason for the split - the change in direction of the FRM toward a more niche experienced risk manager market? The advantage of the PRM is that if you have the CFA designation, you only have to pass 2 at the date of your choice. Not to mention you don’t have to pay the yearly fees.
you guys are smart … maybe PRM is the way to go for those who want to learn about risk management. It seems more responsible, reasonable and manageable for training the newbies in risk management. They have a handbook which is very well organised - they didn’t have that before and there was no book and no course to study the exam for. You can take the test any time that is convenient to you, and they run training courses should you like to attend. – So with FRM becoming like this - FRM is likely to see the first time next year reverse in no. of its enrollment and exponential decrease in its enrollment in coming years. And plenty of FRM candidates will move over to PRM, and leave FRM alone to enjoy its exclusivity by itself.
I too appeared for the FRM exam last week. I am a CFA Level 3 candidate and just like everyone else found the FRM exam far tougher than the CFA L1 or L2. But that being said I think Billy your are going too far in your criticism of the FRM paper.First of all the FRM paper was always tougher when compared to the CFA ,I had asked around with my friends who had done both last year and everybody had agreed that the questions asked in the FRM are of a far higher level.Can we have someone who has personally given both the 2006 and 2007 exams verify that the increase in difficulty level was exponential this year ? Without this information it is preposterous to say that GARP is trying to make the designation very exclusive.At least wait till the results are out ,if the pass percentage is again in the 45-50% range then I would say there was no material change. And to say that to give the 2007 exam you need years of risk management experience is ridiculous to say the least.I work as a Quant Analyst in a Hedge Fund and look after the Structured Credit Investments .I have been only 10 months into the job and found the questions in the Market Risk and Credit Risk section quite acceptable.They were simply checking if you are in touch with recent market events and the ongoing Credit crisis .That is why most of the questions in the Credit Risk section focused on CDOs and liquidity risk. If you had done the concepts even decently from Scheweser and had been even following FT you would have tied the two together. I think the CFA has become too easy ,in my level 2 I finished both papers in under 1.5 hours ,here I had to use the complete 2.5 hours .People went into the exam thinking it is going to be a CFA L1 which was not going to happen .I personally think it was a beautifully set paper blending theory and a little practical knowledge something the CFA never does .
I agree with rajatb. It was a fair exam. Come on, at least 5 questions required to apply the same formula relating spread to pd and recovery rate. Respect to the CFA, I think it depends on your background. If you are comfortable with numbers and don’t like accounting particularly, then FRM is easier in my hopinion.
I’m curious, what company makes the PRM course materials?
Frank, why waste your time if you want to get into i-banking. Network, network, network! How many people even wrote this in T.O.??? Someone on here said 25 in all of Philly, I don’t think that speaks well for this certificate…just my 2
i think going for PRM because FRM is too hard is a coward’s move. don’t be a punk and fight cotto. I have a lot of respect for FRM now. Nobody can tell me, “this exam is so easy”. i recall hearing that on here before and I know its not true.
CFA, i’m going to call up some ibankers over here. seriously though, i’m not getting into ibanking anytime soon. mostly have no chance without an MBA. everybody i talk to pointed me to investment management or trading. i don’t mind it either. so long as i get to work in closer proximity to the markets, i’m fine. its all about learning at this point. there were about 200 who registered in Toronto for the FRM exam. about 15% didn’t show up. yes, we counted. i’m taking it because the information is definitely important. at this point, given that i failed, i have to make the best of the opp. which is that i learned about risk managment. i don’t think the FRM will get me a job nor will it put me out of one, so all in all, it evens out. its a challenging exam and all else equal, i would take it again and hopefully do better. i have a lot of respect for GARP now. this is definitely not one of those “push-overs”. there is only 1 guy here who said the exam wasn’t hard or very hard and he works as a quant.
Interesting. Go to Western MBA and you’ll get into I-Banking or cap markets in some capacity.
PRM was started by a group from GARP who left GARP after a severe rift in 2001 - due to differences in goals of the organisation and how it should be run. Just compare the standard of the two handbooks - the GARP’s Jorion handbook and the PRM handbook, and the FRM CD-rom on past papers, then one should form their opinion on which is better. Both the Jorion handbook and the FRM CD-rom are lousy, and GARP should be ashamed of themselves in being able to create something as lousy as that and still call themselves professional. Their CD-rom on past papers is probably the worst question CD on exams one could ever find on preparing for an exam. On FRM questions - it is common not to have the answer among the choices, and that is being professional? PRM runs many online courses and live classes which one can take should they like to, to train them to become knowledgeable about risk management and help them network. I might have overlooked, but it seems GARP does not bother to run any such training courses to train people from newbies to becoming knowledgeable and experienced professionals. Instead, they focus on collecting fees, adopting closed door secrecy policies, and don’t bother to teach and to train people. Before GARP had the lousy Jorion book and called that the standard. Now they throw down thousands of pages on you, and you take care of yourself. Is that being responsible, open and professional? It is not cowardice to move - but when you sign up for it blindly because you didn’t know how they run things, and then you realise and disagree with how they run things, it is correct to move. That is just like the PRM founders, leave - learn and apply the same set of knowledge but using a different, more proper and professional approach.
Billy, no offense, we’re all wannabe pros or pros. But it sounds like you’re very upset at what happened. i’m not upset at all with what Garp did or didn’t do. I believe, as an exam taker, the onus is on YOU to be responsible in terms of finding things out. I’m actually happy that they decided to make the exam so hard (at least hard in my eyes). so the fact i did poorly has to do with me and not because the Jorion book sucked or they didn’t give training courses. I used schweser which is a BAD choice and it was my choice in the end. Unless you read the bible they gave to you and felt that was insufficient, then there really is nothing to be upset about. they stated specifically that you should not study out of the Jorion book exclusively. btw, the Jorion book i felt was comprehensive and good in terms of presenting the material. However, i’m upset at GARP because when i enrolled, i had a problem and they owed me money. i had to chase down the accountant to get my money back becasue the email they provided to me, the VP did not respond to my concerns which was disquieting. don’t worry billy, i think 80% of the people on here failed if i read my emails and the post correctly. We should be happy that the FRM is NOT a push over and that we learned something from this.
A little more GARP history: http://www.riskglossary.com/papers/garp_letter.htm Looks like GARP may be cleaning up its act however: http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?1,70681,70932#msg-70932