I will be taking the FRM this year (my books are to are to arrive Tuesday). From friends who have taken it…the exam is hard as hell. Schweser seems to be best for newcomers, and the GARP material is good for people who have already taken the exam once or who already have a good background. I’m still a bit burned out from the CFA so I will take it easy with Schweser. If I fail (which is likely) I will get GARP material next year.
Do not, do not, do not by any means waste your money on buying the Institutional Investor CAIA materials. Flimsy, cheap, irrelevant, wrong, shoddy, and a rip-off vs. Schweser or Uppermark, both of which I used.
I think uppermark makes the best CAIA materials. Longer and superior to Kaplan.
Ah, did you use each for each of the levels. If so, I may consider switching as well from Schweser (L1) to UpperMark (L2).
Upper Mark Pros - Well explained concepts with many examples - cheap option to buy study materials($499 for Online Q bank, 3 study hand books and formular sheet)- $599 option(same price as essential solution from Schweser, with flash card) Cons -Online Q banks(1130 questions) seems too straight forward. Almost same or a little bit harder than CSC(Canadian Securities Course) questions. Quite worry about whether test level of difficulty is as same as this. -Wish there is actual past exam questions in the hand books. There are none.
Uppermark’s materials are 200 pages longer and much more detailed. The Kaplan book (at least of 2007) was too bare bones.
Hi, Not very relevant to post but taking liberty to do so : do you think non-finance person can still able to pass, given only two months left. If yes, how many hrs per day required.
Yep, I think it would be possible. They recommend something like 120 hours for someone with some background…