Exam Feedback FRM Part 1 (November 2014) Exam Feedback

[sandeep erramilli]

passed 2/2/3/3 Still nt believing

 

[BlackSwan]

I PASSED! winner winner chicken dinner

 

[Sai8402]

Failed part I (2234)

 

[Tural Hasanov]

Passed!!! 2122

 

[GregW]

Passed 1212 - thanks David and Co for all the help!!!!!

 

[hamu4ok]

Congrat to those who passed! I passed too (2,2,3,2).

 

[JDGutzmann]

Big thanks to Bionicturtle, only used the material provided here. Especially big thanks to all the help from the forum. Looking forward to P2 in May!

 

[mohallaron]

PASSED! 1, 2, 2, 2. Thanks David. Will be using BT for L2 in May!

 

[CrisHo]

Thanks David and BT team! Passed with 1/1/1/1, cannot quite believe it, didn't feel that convinced coming out of the exam. Without the BT material I most certainly would not have passed at all! Will take the 2nd exam in May then.

Cheers

 

[capri.g.c]

3-4-2-2, unfortunately I failed. The negative result I got for the quantitative part was quite unexpected and it is frustrating without the possibility to check the answers...anyway thank you BT for the great material you provided and David, Nicole and all the bloggers for your continuous help.

 

[hamu4ok]

Thank you BionicTurtle team for your assistance in the preparation for FRM. Those who failed don't give up and try to retake FRM with the help of BT as obtained knowledge after a second go is more important than just pass!!! Good luck in your endeavours!

 

[Heidi]

Didn't pass the part one exam. My results are 2243. I actually didn't expect a 4 for financial markets and products. Will have to repeat the exams and of course with BT products.

Thanks @David Harper

 

[CYLoh]

I passed!! 2/2/2/2

Thank you so much BT team. will do part II using BT notes again!

 

[M_RAMAN]

There was a 2-question set about hedging with futures and options. The first question is about the value of option contracts if I remember correctly, and the second one is what you should do if price increases and other factors stay the same. What is your take?
I also have no clue of the answer for the question about projected forward rates and swap rates for 6 months, 1 year and 1.5 years.

If interest rates go up call option increases in value and put option goes down in value

 

[M_RAMAN]

I was panic in the last 50 question because I only have 1h40 left. So i was not sure i have committed any more mistakes

I was just done 45 question with 1 hour 30 minutes remaining so we all had a difficult time with time management

 

[M_RAMAN]

Good morning,

I wrote my exam yesterday in Amsterdam and overall i am rather happy with the exam and my preparation. The level of difficulty was less than anticipated (rather like a mock exam of the year 2010-2013 + the addition of limited amount of tougher questions). After 30 questions I felt that I knew 80% of the questions at least - unfortunatelly this % dropped somewhat. In the end I had 10 questions I did not know, 10 sophisticated guesses between 2 choices, 10 qualitative answers I found made sense but i know that they are not a sure thing and 2,3 calculations of formulas I know very well but that somehow did not fit 100%. With the help of BT material and GARP mock exams I felt that I was very well prepared and there were so many questions that I could tackle with a lot of routine. This made the whole exam really fun to be honest.

That being said of course i have now idea if I passed or not. If not I will be a little puzzled though because my preparation was the best I could deliver and the exam was the fairest I could have asked for.

I had some difficulties with the binominal steps:

1. Last question (2 step binominal) was not so though but i was unsure about the dividend (add it to -r when discounting, right?) - my result didnt fit so I guessed between C/D (took D i believe)
2. I believe the one step one only gave step up/down but not all the info required to calculate the binominal step. Left it of the end and didnt have time to really work on it. Felt I had to find a way how to directly get the option price change in relation to up/down step change but again ... no time

Difficult for me:

1. Highest cost of delta hedge for a short position: I timeboxed my activities and had to guess. The cost to hedge delta should be indifferent to if you hedge 5 of -5 so disregarded the short position. I compared the two calls and identified that the one where S0 and K are different this will have a higher d1 and therefore N(d1). It was then difficult for me to assess if any of the puts can have a higher absolute value of (N(d1)-1) so I just picked my first choice with the call.
2. APT: there was a questions with two b factors (gdp, interest rates). One had to decide which of the four choices had a positive outcome. Would be nice to know how people solved this conceptually.

Would be great if anybody knew these answers.
Greetings,
Tim

The binomial model answer is right. option D is correct.