status of preparation

Has anyone done the GARP practice exams yet? There are I think 3 level 1 exams and 3 full exams…I believe they are freely available to registered candidates. My plan is to finish the qbank this week, including the end of book questions (which are also from previous exams). The qbank questions may not be representative of exam questions, but still provides good review coverage of all the material. Starting this saturday I will shift my focus to the GARP practice exams, handbook questions, etc. I’m also reviewing schweser final review guidebook daily, which is a good summary of the high-level concepts.

still have book 4 to finish, might skip most of it in the end since it’s just 10%. I heard the online questions aren’t that good so I’ll focus on end-of-shweser book questions and practice exams next week. Too bad I still have to work full time until the day before exam.

I’m just doing Level 1 but I have been looking into the GARP exams. The Schweser end of book questions are taken from prior years exams so it probably only makes sense to use the 2009 free GARP practice tests. It does say though that even this version is largely taken from the 2007 exam questions so might be largely a repeat of the end of book questions in Schweser with a couple of additions.

Good luck everyone. I personally didn’t use qbank, but did do the end of chapter questions in schweser. I passed comfortably last year. My advice is to know VaR inside and out as it can appear many times. Also focus on the big percentage areas of the exam (you know, the same way you focus on FSA and Equity in Level II of the CFA). I also never did any practice exams. Before the exam, I read all of the chapter summaries as someone above mentioned. Know definitions too as these are easy points. -DoubleDip, FRM

doubleDip, Thanks for the tips. Few follow-up questions: 1. Did you use the Schweser notes exclusively? 2. Do you have a risk background? 3. How long did you study? Thanks again.

He has a phd in financial mathematics and chaired the basel committee and worked at RiskMetrics, and CreditSuisse in the risk management departments for the last 25 years. He also invented the var measure and monte carlo simulations, as well as the poisson distribution.

Rydex Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > He has a phd in financial mathematics and chaired > the basel committee and worked at RiskMetrics, and > CreditSuisse in the risk management departments > for the last 25 years. He also invented the var > measure and monte carlo simulations, as well as > the poisson distribution. LOL

Finally finished all the readings. Time to cram.

yup same here - I still working full day today tho :frowning: the studying will begin tomorrow

Working tomorrow… so Friday is the day :slight_smile:

same, i have a business flight in couple hours and wont be returning until Thursday night… I will surely be studying in my hotel though. Friday is my day off for one final cram session. I have the last Schweser exam (PM only) to go, then off to the GARP prac exams. I’ll probably be reviewing these exams and re-reading the Key Concepts pages on Schweser on the final day.

I finished studying the Schweser material. Skipping Jorion entirely. I got FRM 2007 and FRM 2009 practice exams and the Schweser exam booklet… I finished all FRM 2007 and all questions at the end of each Schweser book. What I do is I give myself at least 30min to review stuff after each half practice exam… So I can improve some stuff and see what I did wrong…

Oof. I’m getting hammered by the Schweser end-of-book questions, and it’s pretty depressing. I suppose it’s a good way to review what it is I’m missing in my studying. I’m missing a ton of topics, like Basel II (I’ll admit, I skipped over most of it, but I am planning on reading the Schweser topic), CR+/CM/KMV comparisons, and most of the case studies (besides LTCM, I don’t remember a lot of the specifics), to name a few. If it’s any indication, without any additional review, I’m scoring somewhere between 50-70% on these end-of-book questions. And then I get 4/20 correct on the first 20 of Book 2. ARGH Good luck studying, all!

@Wat I suggest you to solve questions on operational/legal risk given in FRM Handbook (Php Jorion) , Infact I had skipped a lot of Basel II but i studied it from Handbook , I agree that Handbook chapters are lengthy but you can just solve questions and if you face any problem read the relevant topic , one good thing in Handbook is the questions are in between the chapters so its easy to locate the topic . Also GARP Practice exam II is a good practice

I have to admit I haven’t read any of the core readings. just the whole handbook and Schweser final review books. who have read the core readings and how many of them or which one? and was it helpfull?

i think core reading helps to drill down the concepts , if one is ready to put in lot of time and effort to understand , i studied Hull and Gujarati and found it to be well explained than schweser , but Handbook is also very good , you should be fine if you have done full handbook