Sure it is like any other loans. But loans aren’t tested. Bonds are. And bonds the principle is always the same. Sure fundamentally maybe you can say they are similar but payments and interest is not really thought about when discussing bonds.
I guess I can’t point to exactly where on the syllabus it tells you how to treat loans like that, but I thought that was more pre-requisite knowledge learned back on exam FM.
I imagine if you made a reasonable assumption about the interest and stated that assumption, then did the calculations properly given your assumption you would’ve gotten credit, but idk
I don’t think the interest rate is the issue here. The issue is knowing how the principle prepayment and the tranches interact. That is not discussed on the syllabus. Sure a few people might have figured it out. But, it was unreasonable to expect candidates to be responsible for it.
My main issue with exam 9 is that they don’t test the actual material, instead they test how smart you are. It really annoys me.
You may, but it still stumps you and sends you into panic trying to figure out what in the world they want. You can test tranching without this or you can define how cmo works without taking away from testing the concept of tranching.
There was one exam 7 too where you had to solve a bunch of systems of equations. We can all do it, but it tests algebra, not syllabus. There is no reason to put it on exam aside from making the question longer.
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I completely agree the CAS has been trending more towards this with exams 7-9 in recent years.
That’s the one I passed! It was because I got the right answer to both the Cape Cod and Brosciuos questions. My only differentiator on that exam.
Me too, but i hated wasting time showing my algebra skills.
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I agree that the 2019 mortgage question probably wasn’t a “fair” question. I took it as a practice exam and was confused by it. I think in hindsight, some of the components of the question did make sense, but I think it’s more likely to make sense if you actually have a mortgage and understand how they are supposed to work. In the constraints and panic of an actual exam sitting, I would have probably spent wayyyyy too much time spinning my wheels on that one.
Maybe I’m alone here, but TIA’s downloadable audio has always been a HUGE supplement to my studying. I have to absolutely bombard myself with the material to have any shot at passing, so listening to the videos while knocking out chores (or whatever) is another angle for cramming beyond the usual dedicated study time.
I also agree that their flashcards were a great starting point.
My big beef with the mortgage question is you have to guess how the tranches work then try to process all the rest of the stuff on the fly. If there was adequate syllabus coverage on these types of tranches then I think it’s fair game, but there wasn’t and the question needs to lay things out more clearly in order to be viable. They are completely different than how the tranches are explained in Coval unless I completely missed this in the text, which I doubt.
This is coming from someone that (I think) got it 100% right, but I still think it was completely out of bounds.
I always found watching TIA videos working through problems very helpful as opposed to just reading a written solution. But everyone is different, I guess.
Has anyone heard anything about marking?
I believe I saw a linkedin post of one the exam administrators thanking the graders for starting to grade… so I guess they have started.
That’s what I was wondering about too; I know some people are still taking exams, but I don’t see why they can’t start grading now. I’m feeling extra antsy right now because usually this is around the week we would find out our results.
Seeing you guys discussing 9 just ensures me that I failed. I always thought 9 was the easiest among the three and didn’t spend as much time as I normally would for other exams. I thought I’d fail this time because this sitting was challenging to me but it seems that I’d fail simply because I totally underestimated this exam.
They have historically passed a high percentage of people so you never know… It’s just frustrating that it’s really hard to prepare for this type of exam.
I used Crystal Clear and Rising Fellow. I like the CC high level summary. I did not read the source material. Not sure if it will make a difference if I read them.
The materials of Exam 9 is probably the easiest among the upper level exams. I think that’s why the questions on exam 9 tend to be more bloomsy than the other 2.
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