I studied hard and felt prepared. But definitely left the exam – just not knowing how to feel . . . maybe Schweser only was not the right way . . .how did other people feel? I was hoping to feel great but that is definitely not the case . . .
I also left the exam with the same feel. I prepared only from Schweser. For problems, Schweser is definitely not the right way.
Felt the same way and i only prepared from Schweser as well however having used other products before i tell you that is not the problem. The problem is when you have 76 chapters to study for 1 exam where you will be expecting to maybe have 1 question from each chapter, you will need to go over the curriculum 4 or 5 times to memorize or at least vaguely remember most of the concepts.
Some of the questions asked were very specific and if u didnt remember what u exactly read then you will need to analyze the question and try to chose the most logical answer.
I asked 3 or 4 more persons taking the exam with me and they all felt the same. I even remember reading comments here months ago about how people felt once they finished and it was the same as we are feeling now.
I’m not sure if i will pass but if i do it will be by a small margin! Having reviewed some questions with people on a different forum i am feeling a bit more confident now but believe me i dont know if i’ll be able to read the email once GARP sent it!
Both posts were really helpful. You described my experience perfectly. I felt like instead of knowing exactly the right answer – many times I was eliminating choices and making the best bet possible - which just is not a great feeling after studying for 2.5-3 months . . .
I spent 2 months of hard work preparaton and took 2 weeks vacations before exam.
I used Schweeser + Garp practice exams. My average score was around 80-85%.
But yesterday L2 exam was really difficuilt.
I hope for discount for difficulty for pass rate this year.
I can confirm that this doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the quality of the Schweser material (and I am not affiliated to Schweser or any other provider). I built my strategy on the basis of the original FRM readings (four volumes plus the “Current issues in financial markets” readings available online). I started off with the Credit/Market Risk Management and Measurement volumes, which I found the most appealing and close to my job profile (and which had the largest page count). I read these cover to cover over the course of about two months and took notes for my final review. I took about ten days off from work to go through the rest of the volumes (operational, investment management and current issues) and distilled these into notes. The last three days before the exam I took mock exams from the FRM website and reviewed my notes over and over again. I have to say that I ended up questioning my strategy for the following reasons: it turns out that there is a fair amount of overlap among the readings, and the differences in notation and the sometime conflicting formulae (plus the occasional typos in key places – subscripts, superscripts, linearizations, operators) made it very challenging to build a consistent mental map of the concepts or to follow the line of argument in a seamless fashion. Absent course provider insight, I had to decide by myself which quantitative or qualitative concepts are testable and which ones are just adjacent expositions meant to consolidate the main concept (proofs, differential calculus, stylized formulae narrated within block text). All these built up in my system over the course of my preparation period such that I ended up going into the exam half-heartedly but somehow trying to comfort myself that I am overly concerned about details, confident that the exam would be administered in non-equivocal and focused manner. I have to say that on exam day my fears were confirmed upon going over the first ten questions: off-focus questions (at least off my focus), weak contextualization of questions (what are they probing for?), probing of quant concepts presented in questionable notation in the source readings (Allan Malz readings are terrible), probing of concepts that I could not locate in my mental map (did I miss a reading? – credit, market, operational, investment, current issues – was there something else?). It felt to me that GARP did not actually fully go through the readings themselves (at least to the extent I did) and speculated that candidates will also fail to do so, so that they went too generic on some concepts. Again, it is highly likely that my preparation strategy was flawed – trying too hard to master all concepts and the mathematical apparatus behind them, at the expense of losing the bigger picture and ending up with a convoluted aggregation of topics – but I also feel that the question selection did not optimally reflect the readings content. I have an uneasy feeling about it.
So neither Schweser nor GARP (nor both) gave anybody meaningful comfort level after yesterday’s Part 2. How about BT? Did anybody use BT in combination with another source, or on its own, and feel they were reasonably prepared?
My experience is pretty much as above. I used Schweser only (some GARP).
Questions were confusing, misleading and completely different to the practice exams, and Schweser self tests.
Felt a very strong urge for lots of alcohol as I left the exam centre. (I satisfied that urge straight away).
I was very confident that I will make it before the exam. Afterwards, I dont feel so confident anymore.
Good luck to everyone.