I am reading quant and I understand the material while I’m reading it, but do we really have to memorize all those forumlas and calculations? I mean there is SOOO much stuff. I have heard that you only have to pull out your calculator about 10 times during the whole test because it is conceptual, but the questions are all calculations at the end of the schweser notes.
Whilst I haven’t seen first hand whether we need to know the formulas, there have been several on this forum that said that you only need to understand the fundamentals behind the formulas–i.e. kurtosis of 3 (or excess kurtosis of 0) represents a normal/mesokurtic distribution. When it comes to inferential statistics where you’re constructing confidence intervals and perform hypothesis testing, I’m not so sure.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the formulas. The concept behind it should be strong. Make sure you know t-distribution though.
I concede that the volume of material is one way to make an exam difficult. However, the volume is that same for all candidates so that in this sense it is no more unfair for one candidate than it is for another. At the same time, absorbing concepts by reading only accomplishes awareness and familiarity of a concept. Actual learning and retention comes from doing the homework problems. Performing the exercises can be demoralizing because it exposes how little one recalls and understands. However, it is much better to make mistakes now than on the actual exam.