PLEASE READ: Publishing Process for 2020

[Nicole Seaman]

Hi guys, I've read your publishing process, the replies in this forum and I understand it takes time.. But.. we're in May 2020 now! The curriculum has been available since December of something? The entire Chapter 4 in Credit Risk is still missing! I find this a bit disconcerting.

Hello @s.yerbooty

I am not going to comment on the curriculum being available since December or the fact that we are in May. Our publishing process hasn't changed, and since you stated that you read through this entire thread, there is nothing more that I can say to explain the process further and the time that is put into creating materials. I'm sure you realize that Bionic Turtle is not a huge corporation with unlimited resources (it is operated by two people).

It looks like you are referring to the DeLaurentis reading in the GARP textbook that is labeled Chapter 4. Your comment made it sound like an entire section is missing until I looked up what you were referring to (we don't label the study planner according to the GARP books. They are labeled according to the actual curriculum.) Yes, that one reading in Credit Risk does not have study notes published. The DeLaurentis reading has actually been discussed many times in the forum. We have provided practice questions for this reading and there are many forum threads discussing the concepts, which are probably better resources than any study notes that we could create for this reading. Not every reading in the FRM curriculum is worth writing study notes for. This is just ONE comment that David has made over the years regarding this reading:

HI @Linghan My book has +ROI*0.176 (?!). See below. Of course I agree with you, the signs should match. Re the parens, I agree with you they are confusing; better to simply use addition throughout (e.g., +MTCI, +SHARE) and enter their coefficients as negatives. When I was writing questions for De Laurentis, I sent them an email asking (i) if there was an errata and (2) is the XLS/software available, because I spotted several errors in the text. Candidly, it's lame book in my opinion, I don't like it. (I haven't received a reply from them). I hope that helps, thanks!

Here are a couple of links that are also worth reading regarding any materials that may not be published:

• https://www.bionicturtle.com/bt-faq...-every-single-reading-in-the-garp-curriculum/
• https://www.bionicturtle.com/bt-faq...-planner-but-they-are-in-the-garp-curriculum/

 

[s.yerbooty]

Hi, thanks for responding. Yes sorry it's chapter 3 of the book (and chapter 4 in the Credit Risk reading). And yes, there are practice questions, which is great of course.

But why would you include 'study notes' with a 'coming soon' remark in the course content?
I don't like this particular reading very much either, that's why I was hoping to revert to the BT material for this one. Not sure if browsing the entire forum for related topics would be beneficial though..

Some more remarks:

On the following page:

https://www.bionicturtle.com/course...s-chapter-3-ratings-assignment-methodologies/

It is clearly stated "After reviewing the notes you will be able to apply what you learned with practice questions & answers. "

Is it that unfair to be expecting study notes based on this?

Then over to the practice-questions, the first learning objective is:

Learning objectives: Describe the role of ratings in credit risk management. Describe classifications of credit risk and their correlation with other financial risks. Define default risk, recovery risk, exposure risk and calculate exposure at default.

I can't seem to find this learning objective in the 2020 Learning Objectives published by GARP:

Giacomo De Laurentis, Renato Maino and Luca Molteni, Developing, Validating and Using Internal Ratings:
Methodologies and Case Studies (West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2010).
Chapter 3. Ratings Assignment Methodologies [CR–4]
After completing this reading you should be able to:
• Explain the key features of a good rating system.
• Describe the experts-based approaches, statistical-based models and numerical approaches to
predicting default.
• Describe a rating migration matrix and calculate the probability of default, cumulative probability of
default, marginal probability of default and annualized default rate.
• Describe rating agencies’ assignment methodologies for issue and issuer ratings.
• Describe the relationship between borrower rating and probability of default.
• Compare agencies’ ratings to internal experts-based rating systems.
• Distinguish between the structural approaches and the reduced-form approaches to predicting default.
• Apply the Merton model to calculate default probability and the distance to default and describe the
limitations of using the Merton model.
• Describe linear discriminant analysis (LDA), define the Z-score and its usage and apply LDA to classify a
sample of firms by credit quality.
• Describe the application of a logistic regression model to estimate default probability.
• Define and interpret cluster analysis and principal component analysis.
• Describe the use of a cash flow simulation model in assigning rating and default probability and explain
the limitations of the model.
• Describe the application of heuristic approaches, numeric approaches and artificial neural networks in
modeling default risk and define their strengths and weaknesses.
• Describe the role and management of qualitative information in assessing probability of default.

Is it possible the learning objectives still need to be reviewed and updated?

 

[The Intrepid]

Is it possible to have dates of when the notes were updated last on the chapter page so we know we are working with the latest version of the notes that we downloaded earlier. Getting this information just from the blog is not very ideal.

 

[Nicole Seaman]

Is it possible to have dates of when the notes were updated last on the chapter page so we know we are working with the latest version of the notes that we downloaded earlier. Getting this information just from the blog is not very ideal.

Hello @The Intrepid

Any time a set of materials is updated, I add it here in both the list of the thread and in a new comment:

• Part 1: https://forum.bionicturtle.com/threads/2020-part-1-new-and-updated-published-materials.23056/
• Part 2: https://forum.bionicturtle.com/threads/2020-part-2-new-and-updated-published-materials.23057/

If you click on "Watch" in the upper right corner of that forum thread, you will have the option to receive an email notification any time a comment is added to that thread. So, anytime I add my comment about specific materials being updated, you will receive an email. Sorry, I'm not sure which blog you are referring to when you say, "Getting this information just from the blog is not very ideal." We do not post anything on our blog page regarding materials being updated.

 

[carroleo]

Hello Sam,

I moved your post to this thread, where many of our members have provided advice on their study plans. Reading through the discussion may help you to create your own study plan.

Regarding the practice questions in the forum, those questions are the same as the questions in the study planner (Practice Question Set PDFs). We post all of our practice questions in the forum first. When we have a complete set, we compile them into a PDF and publish them in the study planner. So, there is no need for you to go through all of the questions in the forum unless you want to follow them as they are posted. Having a forum thread for each practice question provides a place for our members to ask questions about that specific practice question. The practice question PDFs include the corresponding forum link on the answer page. It keeps our forum organized, and allows our members to easily find information with the search and tag functions. You can read detailed information about our practice questions here: https://www.bionicturtle.com/bt-faq/what-do-the-question-sets-include/.

To answer your question about the difficulty, our practice questions are generally more difficult than those that you will see on the exam. The practice questions that David writes go in-depth so you are prepared for the exam. If you study questions that are too easy, that would make the exam very difficult. The reason for the difficulty of our practice questions is also to make sure that you are learning the concepts and not just memorizing them for an exam. The link that I provided above explains more about the difficulty of our practice questions and the reasoning.

The Global Topic Drills will help you to make sure you understand the concepts that were covered in that specific topic. We also have interactive quizzes available in the Advanced and Professional study packages. These quizzes are both interactive and in PDF format. They are a review of the concepts in each topic also.

I hope this helps to answer your questions!

Hi Nicole,

Your response has been helpful, however, I have a couple of follow up questions.

After completing the first two chapters of Quantitative Analysis in the 2020 GARP book and the BT study notes, instructional video and practice question set, I have noticed that the learning objectives from the level 1 2020 GARP book can be slightly different to learning objectives for the corresponding chapter by product (my definition of a product being defined as either (i) worksheet (ii) study notes (iii) practice questions set (iv) Instructional videos) on BT. For example, the learning objective for Quantitative Analysis, Cpt.2 Random Variables is defined in the GARP book as

• Describe and distinguish a probability mass function from a cumulative distribution function and explain the relationship between these two.
• Understand and apply the concept of a mathematical expectation of a random variable.
• Describe the four common population moments.
• Explain the differences between a probability mass function and a probability density function.
• Characterize the quantile function and quantile-based estimators.
• Explain the effect of a linear transformation of a random variable on the mean, variance, standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis, median, and interquartile range

These learning objectives appear to be exactly mapped across to the BT study notes, however, the BT instructional video and the BT practice question set appear to follow a slightly different format (I am assuming older, although very similar) set of learning objectives, as set out below.

• Interpret and apply the mean, standard deviation, and variance of a random variable.
• Calculate the mean, standard deviation, and variance of a discrete random variable
• Interpret and calculate the expected value of a discrete random variable.
• Calculate and interpret the covariance and correlation between two random variables.
• Calculate the mean and variance of sums of larger variables.
• Describe the four central moments of a statistical variable or distribution: mean, variance, skewness and kurtosis.
• Interpret the skewness and kurtosis of a statistical distribution, and interpret the concepts of coskewness and cokurtosis.
• Describe and interpret the best linear unbiased estimator (BLUE).

Que 1: Can you please confirm if my understanding regarding different learning objectives as outlined above is accurate, and to what degree?

Que 2: I can observe from the practice question set for the Quantitative Analysis, Cpt.2 Random Variables, that the questions follow the learning objectives as mapped in the instructional video, however, what learning objectives or "mapping" do the questions at the end of the study notes follow? I can observe some overlap (303.1 - 303.7).

Thanks,
Eoghan

 

[Nicole Seaman]

Hi Nicole,

Your response has been helpful, however, I have a couple of follow up questions.

After completing the first two chapters of Quantitative Analysis in the 2020 GARP book and the BT study notes, instructional video and practice question set, I have noticed that the learning objectives from the level 1 2020 GARP book can be slightly different to learning objectives for the corresponding chapter by product (my definition of a product being defined as either (i) worksheet (ii) study notes (iii) practice questions set (iv) Instructional videos) on BT. For example, the learning objective for Quantitative Analysis, Cpt.2 Random Variables is defined in the GARP book as

• Describe and distinguish a probability mass function from a cumulative distribution function and explain the relationship between these two.
• Understand and apply the concept of a mathematical expectation of a random variable.
• Describe the four common population moments.
• Explain the differences between a probability mass function and a probability density function.
• Characterize the quantile function and quantile-based estimators.
• Explain the effect of a linear transformation of a random variable on the mean, variance, standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis, median, and interquartile range

These learning objectives appear to be exactly mapped across to the BT study notes, however, the BT instructional video and the BT practice question set appear to follow a slightly different format (I am assuming older, although very similar) set of learning objectives, as set out below.

• Interpret and apply the mean, standard deviation, and variance of a random variable.
• Calculate the mean, standard deviation, and variance of a discrete random variable
• Interpret and calculate the expected value of a discrete random variable.
• Calculate and interpret the covariance and correlation between two random variables.
• Calculate the mean and variance of sums of larger variables.
• Describe the four central moments of a statistical variable or distribution: mean, variance, skewness and kurtosis.
• Interpret the skewness and kurtosis of a statistical distribution, and interpret the concepts of coskewness and cokurtosis.
• Describe and interpret the best linear unbiased estimator (BLUE).

Que 1: Can you please confirm if my understanding regarding different learning objectives as outlined above is accurate, and to what degree?

Que 2: I can observe from the practice question set for the Quantitative Analysis, Cpt.2 Random Variables, that the questions follow the learning objectives as mapped in the instructional video, however, what learning objectives or "mapping" do the questions at the end of the study notes follow? I can observe some overlap (303.1 - 303.7).

Thanks,
Eoghan

Hello @carroleo

Please note that I've moved your post to this thread, which will answer your questions. I've answered this question a number of times in this thread, so I don't want to go into a lot of detail again. If you can read through the discussion in this thread, I think it will help to answer your questions in more detail. In short, we begin to update our materials in January each year. We begin with study notes and practice question sets and then we move on to videos, learning spreadsheets, etc. But you can study everything that is currently in the study planner.

During the time of updating (throughout the exam period), there will be some materials that may show an older learning objective or may not show the new learning objectives yet. We leave the previous materials in the study planner as long as the content is still relevant. Generally, we try to remove outdated learning objectives from the previous practice question sets if the content is no longer relevant, however, this is not possible in the videos since every video needs to be prepared, recorded, and republished with the new content. This is a very time-consuming process. We focus on the quality of our materials rather than just trying to update everything as quickly as possible. We do not want to sacrifice the high quality of materials just to have something published in every single reading.

Our curriculum analysis spreadsheet (listed in the original post of this thread) is helpful to quickly see which learning objectives have been added or removed. These links can also help to explain this further:

• https://www.bionicturtle.com/bt-faq...-every-single-reading-in-the-garp-curriculum/
• https://www.bionicturtle.com/bt-faq...-planner-but-they-are-in-the-garp-curriculum/

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

And I would just add @carroleo, but i'll be brief, GARP somewhat frenetically reshuffles these P1.T2. LOs, but overall the basic set has been 90% (or unchanged) unchanged in years. The irony is their own new 2020 notes are imperfectly mapped, so next year they will get another revision because there is a massive feedback list (including non-trivial errors and yet more imprecision that need correction). Now they they've had to create some content, there will be some stability going forward. But the funny thing about the frenetic LO reshuffling is that the underlying concepts in Quantitative Methods have been pretty stable for a while. Thanks,

 

[carroleo]

Hello @carroleo

Please note that I've moved your post to this thread, which will answer your questions. I've answered this question a number of times in this thread, so I don't want to go into a lot of detail again. If you can read through the discussion in this thread, I think it will help to answer your questions in more detail. In short, we begin to update our materials in January each year. We begin with study notes and practice question sets and then we move on to videos, learning spreadsheets, etc. But you can study everything that is currently in the study planner.

During the time of updating (throughout the exam period), there will be some materials that may show an older learning objective or may not show the new learning objectives yet. We leave the previous materials in the study planner as long as the content is still relevant. Generally, we try to remove outdated learning objectives from the previous practice question sets if the content is no longer relevant, however, this is not possible in the videos since every video needs to be prepared, recorded, and republished with the new content. This is a very time-consuming process. We focus on the quality of our materials rather than just trying to update everything as quickly as possible. We do not want to sacrifice the high quality of materials just to have something published in every single reading.

Our curriculum analysis spreadsheet (listed in the original post of this thread) is helpful to quickly see which learning objectives have been added or removed. These links can also help to explain this further:

• https://www.bionicturtle.com/bt-faq...-every-single-reading-in-the-garp-curriculum/
• https://www.bionicturtle.com/bt-faq...-planner-but-they-are-in-the-garp-curriculum/

Hi Nicole,

Thank you for the quick and thorough response - Apologies, I had overlooked the link to the curriculum change spreadsheet analysis.

Much appreciated,
Eoghan

 

[carroleo]

And I would just add @carroleo, but i'll be brief, GARP somewhat frenetically reshuffles these P1.T2. LOs, but overall the basic set has been 90% (or unchanged) unchanged in years. The irony is their own new 2020 notes are imperfectly mapped, so next year they will get another revision because there is a massive feedback list (including non-trivial errors and yet more imprecision that need correction). Now they they've had to create some content, there will be some stability going forward. But the funny thing about the frenetic LO reshuffling is that the underlying concepts in Quantitative Methods have been pretty stable for a while. Thanks,

Hi David,

Thank you for your response. What you have shared makes sense - much appreciated.

Best,
Eoghan

 

[Racoon971]

Hi,

I hope your are all fine. I
would like to know where I can fin the old BT pratice exams ( I am not talking about the GARP's I know where to find them ) ?
In addition, do you know roughly speaking when the last version of BT mock exam will be release ?

On my account the page says that mock exam will be publishe at later date.

Thanks

 

[Nicole Seaman]

Hi,

I hope your are all fine. I
would like to know where I can fin the old BT pratice exams ( I am not talking about the GARP's I know where to find them ) ?
In addition, do you know roughly speaking when the last version of BT mock exam will be release ?

On my account the page says that mock exam will be publishe at later date.

Thanks

Hello @Racoon971

We do not have old BT practice exams available. However, there are over 2,000 practice questions for each part of the exam available in the study planner under the PQ sets, the interactive quizzes, and the global topic review sets. The mock exams are being prepared and will be published in June. As usual, however, I cannot provide a specific date. Thank you.

 

[The Intrepid]

Hello @The Intrepid

Any time a set of materials is updated, I add it here in both the list of the thread and in a new comment:

• Part 1: https://forum.bionicturtle.com/threads/2020-part-1-new-and-updated-published-materials.23056/
• Part 2: https://forum.bionicturtle.com/threads/2020-part-2-new-and-updated-published-materials.23057/

If you click on "Watch" in the upper right corner of that forum thread, you will have the option to receive an email notification any time a comment is added to that thread. So, anytime I add my comment about specific materials being updated, you will receive an email. Sorry, I'm not sure which blog you are referring to when you say, "Getting this information just from the blog is not very ideal." We do not post anything on our blog page regarding materials being updated.

My bad, I meant forum, not blog. But the point still remains. It would be great if there is a date on when the particular note is updated either on the specific chapter page, or on the downloaded notes itself. That would make life much easier (instead of mapping back individual chapters to the historical forum postings in the above threads).

 

[clement]

Hello,
I'm new to bionic turtle and I'm trying to find my way around (so, not sure whether I'm posting this in the right corner either). I haven't been able to find whether BT creates a practice exam (on top of the ones publishes by GARP)? If there is one, could you please show me where I can find it?
(I have found the many practice questions -- but I thought that there may be more and wanted to make sure that I was not mistakenly missing out on something).
Many thanks in advance!
Clement

 

[Nicole Seaman]

My bad, I meant forum, not blog. But the point still remains. It would be great if there is a date on when the particular note is updated either on the specific chapter page, or on the downloaded notes itself. That would make life much easier (instead of mapping back individual chapters to the historical forum postings in the above threads).

Hello @The Intrepid

Yes, it would be great if we could predict how long the materials would take to prepare (we would love to know that also and it would make our lives a lot easier too!). However, we are not able to provide dates that study notes will be published. I just posted about this in another thread, but in short, we have no way of predicting how much time each individual set of notes will take to complete. As I'm sure you can imagine, that makes it impossible to provide a specific date to our members. In the past (many years ago), if we missed any publishing date that we provided (even if it was an estimated date) people were sure to let us know that we went by that date. We cannot allow that kind of pressure (as we've stated many times in this thread specifically). Every single time we need to stop what we are doing to answer questions about publishing dates or updated materials, it takes valuable time away from actually updating the materials. There is a tremendous amount of materials in the study planner that are currently published and relevant.

 

[Nicole Seaman]

Hello,
I'm new to bionic turtle and I'm trying to find my way around (so, not sure whether I'm posting this in the right corner either). I haven't been able to find whether BT creates a practice exam (on top of the ones publishes by GARP)? If there is one, could you please show me where I can find it?
(I have found the many practice questions -- but I thought that there may be more and wanted to make sure that I was not mistakenly missing out on something).
Many thanks in advance!
Clement

Hello @clement

Welcome to the forum! We do publish mock exams (I plan on publishing them by the end of June). They will be located under the review sections in the study planner. While you are waiting, there are over 4,000 practice questions for Part 1 and Part 2 in the study planner. All of the practice questions are located under their corresponding reading. Each practice question originates in the forum so our members can discuss their concepts, but it is best to study from the PDF documents first. I hope this helps!

 

[The Intrepid]

Hello @The Intrepid

Yes, it would be great if we could predict how long the materials would take to prepare (we would love to know that also and it would make our lives a lot easier too!). However, we are not able to provide dates that study notes will be published. I just posted about this in another thread, but in short, we have no way of predicting how much time each individual set of notes will take to complete. As I'm sure you can imagine, that makes it impossible to provide a specific date to our members. In the past (many years ago), if we missed any publishing date that we provided (even if it was an estimated date) people were sure to let us know that we went by that date. We cannot allow that kind of pressure (as we've stated many times in this thread specifically). Every single time we need to stop what we are doing to answer questions about publishing dates or updated materials, it takes valuable time away from actually updating the materials. There is a tremendous amount of materials in the study planner that are currently published and relevant.

Again I am sorry if I wasn’t clear on what I meant. I am not asking for predicting when the material will be available. All I am asking is have the date when a particular section was last updated on either the note or the section page. That way I can directly go to that chapter page and confirm if I have the latest pdf downloaded on my computer (Since the PDFs have the date when they were downloaded by me). Hopefully it is clear.

 

[Nicole Seaman]

Again I am sorry if I wasn’t clear on what I meant. I am not asking for predicting when the material will be available. All I am asking is have the date when a particular section was last updated on either the note or the section page. That way I can directly go to that chapter page and confirm if I have the latest pdf downloaded on my computer (Since the PDFs have the date when they were downloaded by me). Hopefully it is clear.

Hello @The Intrepid

We already have this, which I mentioned here in the above thread: https://forum.bionicturtle.com/threads/please-read-publishing-process-for-2020.22937/post-82081. Our update threads are updated every single time I publish a new document in the study planner. Regarding the details that are provided in the update thread:

• When we publish a brand new document, I do not provide details because the entire document is new.
• If there was a mistake fixed or we've updated only a certain page, I note the details in the update thread.
• There are some notes that will be updated from our previous notes and, in that case, it is impossible for me to know every single change that our writer made in a document. If you need this information, there are comparison features in some PDF softwares that you can use to see the differences between the two documents.

 

[CMStudying]

Hi, @David Harper CFA FRM !

I downloaded chapter 11 study notes of book 3 about Commodity a couple of months ago and there were some questions at the end of it (the total of pages were 36). But, when I tried to download it again today I could see that there are some updates and the questions were missing (only 20 pages). There was something wrong with those questions or can I still use them? (But with the updated study notes, of course).

Another question, I looked in this post (https://forum.bionicturtle.com/threads/2020-part-1-new-and-updated-published-materials.23056/) to confirm that you have updated this chapter, but I couldn't found anything. This update should be there, right? I'm trying to use this link to make sure I'm reading the most recent notes and questions.

Thanks for your attention!

 

[Nicole Seaman]

Hi, @David Harper CFA FRM !

I downloaded chapter 11 study notes of book 3 about Commodity a couple of months ago and there were some questions at the end of it (the total of pages were 36). But, when I tried to download it again today I could see that there are some updates and the questions were missing (only 20 pages). There was something wrong with those questions or can I still use them? (But with the updated study notes, of course).

Another question, I looked in this post (https://forum.bionicturtle.com/threads/2020-part-1-new-and-updated-published-materials.23056/) to confirm that you have updated this chapter, but I couldn't found anything. This update should be there, right? I'm trying to use this link to make sure I'm reading the most recent notes and questions.

Thanks for your attention!

Hello @carlosmagnogfr

The study notes for Topic 3, Chapter 11 were not updated for 2020 yet so that is why it is not in the updated list. That specific reading did not have many changes from last year, so the content in the study notes is still relevant to the 2020 curriculum. We have to prioritize the update of the chapters that had a lot of changes so we can make sure that our study notes cover the content. So, the PDF that you have is the most current and relevant version. Regarding the questions that were previously at the end of the PDF, those were Hull's End of Chapter questions, which we removed from the PDF (we did this for all PDfs that contained Hull's EOC questions). That does not mean that they aren't relevant so you can still study from them if you want the extra practice.

 

[truongbaoviet86]

hello,

the videos some are way back 2 years ago, I was wondering if the material is up to date with GARP ?



thanks