Yeah this thread is dead compared to the Exam 7 one…
There are a few of us that met here to organize a study group. We have good discussions weekly.
I was just thinking that. I think studying is going well enough, though. A few things are clicking better than last year.
I’m feeling like studying is going fairly well. There are definitely some topics I need to just read over and over for it to click for me. I’m a bit worried about a question involving the spreadsheet environment. I have no idea what to expect for that.
Coming over from Exam 7 forum. There is a small side of me that wishes I had studied for this than Exam 7. For those who passed Exam 7, could you kindly please give any advice on Exam 7? 
Has anyone taken any of the Crystal Clear PEs? Thoughts on difficulty of the first one compared to the actual exam?
What about the Rising Fellow PEs?
I’m finding swaps to be surprisingly tough to wrap my head around and I don’t think they should be. I’m almost done with Crystal Clear practice problems so I should be moving on to her PEs next week and I’ll let you know. I used RF last year and didn’t find them much more challenging if at all compared to the question bank.
Swaps were tough for me to get to work out right, but I think I worked out a process that I can repeat:
- Figure out who has the competitive advantage between the two parties. That company will borrow (and repay) at their best rate. So the other party takes the other rate.
- Figure out how much advantage the other party will get for entering the swap. This is 1/2 * (competitive advantage - bid/ask spread)
- Draw in the payment of LIBOR across the parties, which turns the fixed to floating, and vice versa.
- Sum all the payment streams for one company (including an unknown X) and set equal to the rate they could have borrowed at if they hadn’t chosen the one they did in step 1, adjusted for the advantage gain in step 2. [To keep signs consistent, I do amounts they are paying as positive and amounts they are receiving as negative.]
- Solve for X. If X was an outflow for that company, then it will be an inflow to the other company (after adjusting for the bid/ask spread). So put that flow to the other company.
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Does anyone have the older exams (pre 2017) in excel format that they’re able to share? This is my last exam before FCAS. Finding the material to be more than expected to be honest. Going to come down to the wire, slowly grasping more concepts. I’ve been focusing on RF/CF. Do we think the CC questions are worthy of doing ? To be honest, I bought CC for exam 8 and found it a bit lacking. Just my personal opinion. I have for 9 and found the study content the same. Wondering if I should bother with the questions given it’s crunch time now. Again, solely my personal opinions. Last question - for those that have taken the exams recently I assume the difficulty has also been ramped up a bit (like 7 and 8) compared to prior sittings?
I did all a year ago. Crystal Clear PEs are very hard. Rising Fellow are too easy. Neither are like the test. CC at least makes you think. It will also make you depressed.
I have the exams from like 2015 and on, maybe 2013 and on. I can send it to you if you PM me.
Ahhh thank you for this feedback.
When you say CC too hard, do you mean conceptually or computationally (or both) compared to the actual exam?
Both. But think really hard problems and some qs very thought provoking that might make you cry.
The 2-3 people I know failed last year said the exam wasn’t bad, just wasn’t prepared enough
Based on the published Exam 8 “spreadsheet” questions, they still aren’t testing advanced spreadsheet functionality. It seems to be more about the volume of calculations you can do in a spreadsheet vs. pen/paper.
That being said, learning how to quickly set up certain types of problems in a spreadsheet has definitely been a point of practice for me.
Agree with this. RF practice exams are way too easy.
The CC ones are good for really testing your understanding. I think the overall difficulty level of the CC PE’s is higher than the actual exam, mostly because hers don’t have any “gimme” points.
There is also a lot more points and questions on her test compared to the real thing. So don’t go crazy if it takes you 5 hours.
I should finish up Crystal Clear practice questions today and then it’s on to practice exams for the next month (CC, RF, and old exams).
After taking the first CC PE I scored ~60% of the total points after grading myself. 4 hour time block. Agree it’s a beast.
Real exam you need > 72% of points typically for a pass?
Last year when I got a 7 and all coworkers got a 7, I assume the pass score was under 70%. But who knows.
I think when I took CC exams my second attempt I got an average of 65%, and when I took it the following year on my third attempt when I passed I averaged around a 75% and like 88% on all the other exams.
Hi, is it possible for me to join the study group?