2012 April exam

What do you think about the April exam?

I found it was harder compared to previous years. In particular the Basel II Tier 1 capital question was really a surprise, given it was a close book exam. Why are we expected to remember this if we can just look it up at work?

The other question that it is more important to predating the trend than the amount of change in interest rate and foreign exchange was also a bit tricky to me.

 

Hey, I reckon the ST9 exam is pretty difficult too. I rushed through Q7 and Q8. Pretty bad time management. I am unsure what they wanted for interest rate and exchange rate question too.

 

I have to agree that I found the paper quite challenging and very disappointing. Given the wide range of topics on the course I was disappointed how abstract certain questions were. More than a few people in my centre echoed the sentiment that it would have been possible to make a fair attempt at the paper without having reviewed the course notes.

I thought Question seven on Basel I was a bit unfair - the formula for the Tier I ratio isn't defined explicitly within the Acted notes and from my reading of the notes I had placed more emphasis on understanding Basel II and Basel III.

Question 8 wouldn't have looked out of place on a CA1 paper and given the large question on VaR on the Autumn 2011 paper I was surprised to see it appearing again.

Given all the tricky maths on the course I felt like I had wasted my time spending a good chunk of time trying to understand the mathsy parts of the course particularly chapters 10-16.

Overall I thought the actual questions were very open ended and ultimately difficult to pick marks up on. I reckon I could be back for seconds in September unfortunately !