Hi friends, A question for those who have actually taken this Nov 09 exam - Was the Schweser’s material found sufficient for the exam especially level 1. Which combination of materials were found most suitable. Did the core readings found inevitable to wade through.
I took the full exam and found Schweser Material lacking depth and structure. I felt Schweser material provided a good base, but Schweser allone underprepared me for the exam. I scored around 80% with the Schweser Q-Bank. This gave me a false sense of security. Other then reading the core assigned readings, I don’t know how this could be corrected. Some people report that Bionic Turtle could provide an additional edge.
Schweser is definitely a good start, but Bionic Turtle challenges you more, and Dave at BT is very receptive to questions. The only problem is the website is frustratingly slow. I bought the BT material with a week and a half to go after reading the blogs for three months and found it quite helpful. I would suggest purchasing both if only to get two viewpoints of the exam. If you have to choose between the two, go with Bionic Turtle.
I second eqal’s comment. I used solely Schweser, and when crunch time came, I found the real exam to be somewhat more elusive and qualitative in nature. The only positive is that I’m in this industry, so I’m quite aware of some of the concepts. Overall, Schweser did provide a good foundation, but the questions provided a false sense of security indeed. I comfortably scored in the high 70s, low 80s, but on the GARP practice exams, I only maintained low 70s… The real exam tested on two or three ideas per problem, unlike the Schweser stuff, which was straight forward. So if you get stuck or overlook, say converting from 95% annual CI to 99% daily CI, then it doesn’t really matter if you get the other “parts” correct.
schweser notes for FRM is getting MUCH better every year in the past 3 years… there are reasons to believe next year’s note will be better and more closely tied to the exam
agreed. Final judgement should be reserved for after the results.
I just bought Bionic Turtle and I am starting with the video materials, I’ve got 6 months to prepare and probably will also get the Schweser materials around september
agree with egal … I felt schweser lacked depth but it gives a very good base and highly useful for revision .even though I had planned to completely rely on that but later I studied core readings barring credit risk also I studied FRM Handbook to fine tune . I really liked the ops risk part of FRM Handbook and finally solved every question in the Handbook . I did get a chance to watch few BT videos which my friend had got , they are extremely good and the BT practice problems digs deep into the concepts . If I were to do it over again I would go with BT and not schweser + Core readings and FRM Handbook
I know this thread is really old, but hopefully others who have recently taken or are taking the exam soon can chime in. It sounds like whether it’s Schweser or BT, one of the two is useful. Then, there’s the Handbook for hundreds of bucks and the FRM provided textbooks for hundreds of bucks. So, is it recommended that for Part I, you buy: -FRM textbooks -FRM handbook -BT (or Schweser) or can one or more be omitted and still achieve success on the exam?
The Schweser FRM packages provide everything you need to pass the FRM exams. http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?25,1233717 If you go with Schweser FRM, you don’t need to buy the FRM Handbook, or the official FRM readings.