So I passed the ERM Exam with a 6. Yay!
Ok, the time to celebrate is over. I'm going to take Foundations of CFE in the spring. I'm using TIA as my study material this time around. I am signed up, and there aren't any videos yet! There is a study manual though, so that is enough to chew on for now. The first wave of videos should be available this weekend.
Good luck to all of you who are studying for spring!
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Thursday, January 9, 2014
First FSA exam thoughts, waiting for results!
I’m awaiting my result for the ERM exam – it will be released tomorrow! I never provided any additional updates or thoughts on the exam, so I’ll share them while I wait.
I found that FSA exams are very different beasts to prepare for. For a prelim exam, you get a group of practice questions, keep working on those so you can learn more and more concepts, and you have a pretty good idea when you are ready to take the final exams. For FSA exams? No such structure!
As I mentioned in the last post, I finished the reading towards the end of August, and then I had two months left and no real structure (ie get 70% on practice questions, etc). I found that very difficult to deal with, as I never really knew where I was in my studying. I ended up both buying flashcards and making my own “study manual”, both of which helped a lot. When I say I made my own study manual, what I really mean is I took concepts from the texts and flashcards and put the main ideas in my own words. Doing so really forced me to understand the concept and helped expose weaknesses.
I found the flashcards were really helpful at first, but after a while I couldn’t memorize anymore! I bought the ACE flash cards (which I liked a lot), and there were about 300 cards. I was able to memorize the first 60 or so, but after that I just couldn’t memorize additional cards. I still reviewed the flashcards to try to learn the concepts, but I just didn’t have the capacity to store any more information verbatim.
So, towards the end of September and into October I was very frustrated, stressed, and discouraged. As I mentioned, with the prelim exams I was always very organized, structured, and had a specific plan. I couldn’t figure out an organized plan for FSA exams, and it made studying very difficult. To compound things, given that I was so frustrated, I found it difficult to put time into studying! I would take certain nights off entirely, or when I did study I would end up quitting earlier than usual just because I didn’t have specific goals/identified weaknesses, etc. So, my study hours were not what I would have liked. You might think memorizing flashcards would be a specific goal, but as I said I just couldn’t use that approach after a while.
I would up discouraged, tired, and essentially limping in to the final week. The only thing that really kept me focused to any degree was the project of making my own manual. I ended up reviewing all the concepts, thinking about how to structure the information, and using that as my main study document.
The morning of the exam I was resigned to my fate, prepared to take it again in the spring. I remember sitting in Panera, having a bagel, and taking one last look at my study document to try to absorb what I could, but mostly thinking the document would be a good start for spring studying.
I went to the exam center, and as the exam started I was actually pretty relaxed due to my acceptance of my fate. As the exam started, I read the questions during the 15 minute reading period and little by little realized I could answer some of the questions. I started writing furiously, figuring I could at least get some of the points and make a good showing. As I completed some questions, I would look at the remaining questions and realize for most of them I could provide an answer that would at least get some, if not all, of the points. I ended up writing until there was 3 minutes left, and felt pretty decent about my exam. I did end up totally making up answers to a few questions that I knew were incorrect in the hopes of maybe getting a point for getting a small part correct, but I saved those to the end and made sure the answers I was more sure of were completed first.
On the exam itself, there were 80 possible points. I felt like I had about 38 of them for sure, a good chance at another 17, and maybe I’d pick up a few of the remaining 25. I have no idea how many I’d need to pass, I’d guess 50 or 55, but perhaps it could be as high as 60 (of the 80). So, assuming my estimates are correct I should at least have a chance of passing. We shall see tomorrow!
Going forward, I’m not sure what I would change next time around or how my strategy will change. I will start working on my own study manual and on flash cards starting from day 1, but it remains to be seen if that will provide more structure and less stress!
I found that FSA exams are very different beasts to prepare for. For a prelim exam, you get a group of practice questions, keep working on those so you can learn more and more concepts, and you have a pretty good idea when you are ready to take the final exams. For FSA exams? No such structure!
As I mentioned in the last post, I finished the reading towards the end of August, and then I had two months left and no real structure (ie get 70% on practice questions, etc). I found that very difficult to deal with, as I never really knew where I was in my studying. I ended up both buying flashcards and making my own “study manual”, both of which helped a lot. When I say I made my own study manual, what I really mean is I took concepts from the texts and flashcards and put the main ideas in my own words. Doing so really forced me to understand the concept and helped expose weaknesses.
I found the flashcards were really helpful at first, but after a while I couldn’t memorize anymore! I bought the ACE flash cards (which I liked a lot), and there were about 300 cards. I was able to memorize the first 60 or so, but after that I just couldn’t memorize additional cards. I still reviewed the flashcards to try to learn the concepts, but I just didn’t have the capacity to store any more information verbatim.
So, towards the end of September and into October I was very frustrated, stressed, and discouraged. As I mentioned, with the prelim exams I was always very organized, structured, and had a specific plan. I couldn’t figure out an organized plan for FSA exams, and it made studying very difficult. To compound things, given that I was so frustrated, I found it difficult to put time into studying! I would take certain nights off entirely, or when I did study I would end up quitting earlier than usual just because I didn’t have specific goals/identified weaknesses, etc. So, my study hours were not what I would have liked. You might think memorizing flashcards would be a specific goal, but as I said I just couldn’t use that approach after a while.
I would up discouraged, tired, and essentially limping in to the final week. The only thing that really kept me focused to any degree was the project of making my own manual. I ended up reviewing all the concepts, thinking about how to structure the information, and using that as my main study document.
The morning of the exam I was resigned to my fate, prepared to take it again in the spring. I remember sitting in Panera, having a bagel, and taking one last look at my study document to try to absorb what I could, but mostly thinking the document would be a good start for spring studying.
I went to the exam center, and as the exam started I was actually pretty relaxed due to my acceptance of my fate. As the exam started, I read the questions during the 15 minute reading period and little by little realized I could answer some of the questions. I started writing furiously, figuring I could at least get some of the points and make a good showing. As I completed some questions, I would look at the remaining questions and realize for most of them I could provide an answer that would at least get some, if not all, of the points. I ended up writing until there was 3 minutes left, and felt pretty decent about my exam. I did end up totally making up answers to a few questions that I knew were incorrect in the hopes of maybe getting a point for getting a small part correct, but I saved those to the end and made sure the answers I was more sure of were completed first.
On the exam itself, there were 80 possible points. I felt like I had about 38 of them for sure, a good chance at another 17, and maybe I’d pick up a few of the remaining 25. I have no idea how many I’d need to pass, I’d guess 50 or 55, but perhaps it could be as high as 60 (of the 80). So, assuming my estimates are correct I should at least have a chance of passing. We shall see tomorrow!
Going forward, I’m not sure what I would change next time around or how my strategy will change. I will start working on my own study manual and on flash cards starting from day 1, but it remains to be seen if that will provide more structure and less stress!
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