Almost done with quant and would appreciate if you could experts please help guide: 1) Lot of the quant probs are solved quicker on a calculator - when studying do any of you go through the manual calculations, as in writing formulas, etc., to better understand how the answers are derived. I suppose the understanding may not necessarily help on the exam as long as you can use your HP or TI. But knowing the guts of how numbers are derived manually may give an extra edge, possibly? 2) Will the questions on the exam be grouped by topics or will they be scattered. 3) Can a perpetuity have uneven cash flows. I know that a perpetuity is an annuity with infinite series of payments - but can these payments ever be uneven, or do they always have to fixed in order to define them as a perpetuity. 4) Took me some time to get used to the sign convention in my HP12. Is it correct to say that all cash outflows must be represented by a negative sign and the inflows by a positive one, and that PMT and FV/PV must always have opposite signs. Any other HP12 quirks I should be aware of while doing quant problems? Thanks for your help guys.
In response to #3, I can gather that perpetuity in the real world tend to have fixed coupon payments. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetuity]. However, I don’t think they have to be fixed coupon by definition.
Thanks scarletyoke…that’s exactly my line of thinking as well - just want someone to validate whether uneven cash flows are possible in theory. Anyone else dare to take a stab at the 4 Qs above? I know there are quite a few experts lurking around the forum at any given moment…
- Make sure you know what the theory behind the formulae. If you don’t your calculator will be useless. 2. If by topic you mean, quant, FSA, econ then yes. 3. I would disagree with your definition of perpetuity. My belief is that a true perpetuity always has the same cash flow. 4. I don’t use this calculator
Sujan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Almost done with quant and would appreciate if you > could experts please help guide: > > 1) Lot of the quant probs are solved quicker on a > calculator - when studying do any of you go > through the manual calculations, as in writing > formulas, etc., to better understand how the > answers are derived. I suppose the understanding > may not necessarily help on the exam as long as > you can use your HP or TI. But knowing the guts of > how numbers are derived manually may give an extra > edge, possibly? > > 2) Will the questions on the exam be grouped by > topics or will they be scattered. > > 3) Can a perpetuity have uneven cash flows. I know > that a perpetuity is an annuity with infinite > series of payments - but can these payments ever > be uneven, or do they always have to fixed in > order to define them as a perpetuity. > > 4) Took me some time to get used to the sign > convention in my HP12. Is it correct to say that > all cash outflows must be represented by a > negative sign and the inflows by a positive one, > and that PMT and FV/PV must always have opposite > signs. Any other HP12 quirks I should be aware of > while doing quant problems? > > > Thanks for your help guys. A lot of the quant questions on the exam were word problems. I can’t remember using my calculator to solve any of the quant problems during the exam. I might have used my calculator for quant questions only once. I agree with soddy1979 that you should know the theory behind all of these formulas or else your calculator will be useless.
1). I’ll just back up Damil here- most of the quant problem were theoreticals, so you need to know what each test measures and when to use it. Memorizing the formula’s behind the calculations is useless- you have to understand what they are doing and why. You’ll find that once you get a solid understanding of what is happening (you will after going through it 2-3 times), the quant problems you need to solve become very easy. For example- they will not ask you to calcuate pooled variance, but have a good understanding of what it is and why you use it. A typical question for that would be to describe a situation, and then ask which test should be used to calculate the answer. 2). They are sorted by their group, i.e. quant, economics, FSA, but the questions can be scattered within those groups. 3). As for a exact definition, I can’t help you, but for testing purposes it’ll be a fixed cash flow. There may be a few uneven ones before it, but you just discount those separately. 4). I used the BAII Plus Professional, and found it very easy to use. I’d get one of those if I were you, but if you’re comfortable with the HP, by all means use it, as you’ll look badass in the exam.
Appreciate your time guys. The responses to quant question is certainly interesting. Lot of the Schweser probs on quant cannot be solved without the help of the calc in 1.5 mins. I have yet to finish all of quant however…so will fire back with other questions at a later point 
Cheers!