FRM 2008 -- passed....

[sridhar]

Hi David:

Today was a momentous day....I live in North Carolina, but joined thousands of others on the national mall in Washington DC, for Barack Obama's inaugural...As he was being sworn in at noon on Jan 20, I kept looking at my blackberry for incoming email -- the email signal was sporadic and I hadn't heard anything for another hour or so. Well, after the swearing-in festivities were over, while walking towards the Lincoln Memorial on a bitingly cold day, there was that email from GARP.....Passed! Relief...

To be honest, I didn't feel very good on November 15th. I thought I did well on questions that I spent time on -- but I thought I did a poor job of time management. Esp. questions which had a 1/2 page lead-in to the actual questions. After the first hour, I felt I was quite a bit off the required answering pace. In both sessions, I blindly guessed about 1/2 dozen questions with one minute remaining. I gave myself 50-50 odds and decided simply to put it aside, at least, until Jan 20th. In fact, other than one furtive visit to your site, I resisted showing up

I want to join others in expressing my deepest appreciation for Bionic Turtle and your pedagogical prowess in particular. Your screen casts and brief casts illuminated many a dark hour...Couldn't have done without you. David, thank you! Now I await with trepidation, the exam analysis, which is not yet active on the FRM site.

I would like to hang out at the Bionic Turtle site for the FRM 2009 season...I talked to a couple of past successful FRM candidates, who have said that, without active engagement, the things you've learned tend to evaporate away.


---sridhar

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

sridhar -

I was hoping you would post your result, given you have invested so much on the forum. Your passing is a nice moment, for me, too! It is the right result, you spent the time. (Although, I think you f/back about the exam is important. The 2008 exam was flawed, there can be no doubt). Thanks for your post here and please i look forward to your visits in the future.

David

 

[sridhar]

David:

Thanks for your response...Again, many thanks to you. Now I've a confession to make...I started my prep in June of last year and started reading Gujarati and Hull and spent a lot of time with it...Finally in mid-July, I started reading Tuckman for fixed-income and couldn't make any progress. I got into a rut. Desperate, I met a former customer of mine (who is FRM certified) and she said -- "ditch all the GARP readings. Buy Schweser Notes and do the Practice Exams."


I've to confess that was a great piece of advice. I used Schweser as my "initial" media and Bionic for everything else. Your soothing voice, clear exposition made me feel I wasn't struggling alone. Schweser Notes are good, but the tech support is very very poor to non-existent. Your screencasts and the Editgrids rock! And of course, your pithy explanations on the many questions posed on the forum. I work with risk people at my firm (SAS Institute), but I've to confess your forum is the only place where it feels like a community. I am hoping in the FRM 2009 season, I can contribute to other FRM aspirants' questions.

Before I started the FRM prep, my strongest background was in OpRisk and that only a small portion of the FRM curriculum ("LDA at work" and some of the SOX stuff.)

I've now seen my analysis. I've scored in the top quartile in all the disciplines except the Credit Risk portion, where I came in the third quartile. I understand that this means, 50% of the candidates did better than me in Credit Risk and I placed in the top 25% in the other disciplines. I've to tell this is not at all how I felt on Nov 15th...After the first session, I was so shell-shocked that I didn't even meet eyes with the others at the exam center

I will be referring to anyone who'd listen to the Bionic site...Do you've any referral bonus program such as free access to the premium site for the 2009 season

You probably heard from a lot of your other students about FRM 2008. Can you post a summary of the flaws as you see them?

--sridhar

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

Hi sridhar,

Thanks for sharing the background on your approach. You did quite well (top quartile 4/5)!

That's interesting advice on ditching the GARP readings. I can see that for *a few* of the readings, but I hope that is not the universal approach: I feel some of the authors are world class and that the best is "from the source"...but okay, I see styles may vary

"I am hoping in the FRM 2009 season, I can contribute to other FRM aspirants’ questions." Please do, that would be great!

"I will be referring to anyone who’d listen to the Bionic site...Do you’ve any referral bonus program such as free access to the premium site for the 2009 season"
actually, that sounds like a good idea: I will add to the spec for the new site.

"You probably heard from a lot of your other students about FRM 2008. Can you post a summary of the flaws as you see them? "
I assume you read some of the threads on the forum here.
I don't have access the exam, but two views that seemed somewhat common (and that were echoed on a conf call we had with GARP): 1. exam maybe too difficult, excacerbated by too many long-winded questions, and 2. concern that some questions were not "fair" vis a vis the assignments.

My criticism, which i have shared with GARP ad naseum, is that they need to tighten the linkage between (i) the assignments, (ii) the AIMs, and (iii) the exam; i.e., in short the exam should strive to be fair test of the assignements. So, I sent them a detailed document with the following nine recommendations:

1. Vet the sample questions (i.e., because too many sample questions are counterproductive or even incorrect)
2. Marry "top-down" exam question origination with comprehensive, double-checked "bottom-up" audit for accuracy and fairness
3. Ensure that archetypal ideas are explicitly included rather than indirectly referenced
4. Vet AIMs for reasonability, timeliness and baseline quality (typos, grammar and mis-classifications)
5. Some topics (AIMs) are especially difficult and time-consuming for new learners. Include these AIMs with deliberate intent. Consider making these prime candidates for actual exam questions.
6. Identify topics/AIMs with inherent ambiguity, subjectivity, or potential conflict (with other AIMs). Consider articulating a GARP point of view (POV) or otherwise resolving.
7. Seek to eliminate, or otherwise resolve, methodological conflicts
8. Seek to standardize, if only for exam purposes, on certain key terms
9. Consider selecting continuous compounding as the default compound frequency.

Hope that's interesting, let's keep in touch!

David

 

[sridhar]

David,

Will you be at the GARP convention in NY Feb 9-11th? If you do, come stop by the SAS booth...I will be there. It will be a great honor to actually see you in person...

--sridhar

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

sridhar,

I won't be there, but thanks for asking.
I hope to very soon grow out of the "startup" phase so i can afford the time/expense of visiting conference(s).
I put out a post to recruit for some help, just recently.
So far, to achieve the current vision has required seven days a week, to tell the truth about it. I am really grateful for the result with customers, so it has been worth it.
But it has required turning down all sorts of things; e.g., I get requests to expert witness. And focusing on the site [new site coming soon, based on f/bac]/service/product to the almost exclusion of anything else. But I really hope to turn the corner on that this year with some help!!

David