Hi All,
I have sat the cfa level 1 exam and now I am doing the FRM level 1. I wanted to know if the FRM exam format similar to CFA? Do you get given an answer sheet? or is it computer based?
Finally are the candidates allocated a seat or can you choose where you can sit? In the CFA exam plenty were sitting in pairs but I was lucky enough to have the whole desk to myself 
Thank you for your input
I wrote the part 1 exam in Nov 2012. Yes we were given “Scantron” style answer sheets to mark our responses on. One major issue, IMHO, is how corrections are handled. Most Scantron sheets allow you to erase your answers and mark down new ones. For reasons unknown this is not the case for the FRM exam. You’re supposed to mark down the new response, so that the sheet actually has two responses to a question. Then you write down the letter of your “final” response in a little square next to the bubbling area. I never saw this in the GARP website, and wish this was made more clear in advance.
The obvious question is what happens if you need to make a correction twice? (i.e. if you first chose A, then B, then decided maybe A was the better answer afterall) We were told not to erase anything on the answer sheet, presumably including the little square where you write down the letter of the “final” response. I asked the proctor, and she wasn’t particularly helpful (“Well I dunno…don’t correct twice.”) After the exam, I wrote GARP to provide them with my feedback.
I haven’t heard of any changes. It might thus be a good idea to hold off on answering questions that you really aren’t sure about, and wait until the end when you have a bit of time to think things over. That strategy might backfire if you run out of time in the end, or if you don’t have a good system to track the answers, skip an answer and (oh the horror) start offsetting the answers. With the above in mind, have a strategy and do what works for you.
We had assigned seating in my exam center, but that might be different for yours.
Good luck!
Ernest
P.S. Note that there are 3 “levels” for the CFA exams and 2 “parts” for the FRM exam.
thank you for your reply ernest. must appreciated.