Post CFE thoughts

Well, I feel better after taking CFE that I did last time.  I think I got around 58 of the available 100 points.  For my previous 2 FSA exams, I estimated that 54 or 55 percent of the available points was the pass mark, so hopefully I can squeak by on this one.

As for the exam, I felt the morning session was pretty fair, and the afternoon session was pretty rough.  Based on comments online that seems to be a pretty universal feeling.  For the morning session, I felt that if you studied the material you would have a decent grasp of most of the things they were asking for.  In also felt the morning questions were pretty creative approaches to the material and I enjoyed reading and thinking about them.  The afternoon session was not like that.  I thought it was more representative of what a very difficult version of the exam would look like.  I’m not saying it was unfair, but more on the highly challenging level.

So, we shall see how results go.  In the meantime, I’m going to work on my final module and the DMAC, and start to review the syllabus for the next exam once it is released.

If you are waiting on results as well, good luck!

CFE update

It’s been a while since the last update!  I took CFE in the Spring, and had the same types of issues with structuring my studying that I had with ERM.  I just never felt like I had a great strategy except for “learn as much as possible”.  While that is a nice goal to have, it really doesn’t help break down into weekly and daily goals, except for the very basic “Study this section this day” division of material.

I ended up with a 4 on the Spring sitting of CFE.  I don’t quite know how to feel about that. There were two questions I COULD have gotten the points on that would have gotten me to passing.  One was a question that referred to the case study but it never occurred to me that the factor I needed to make my math work was something I had to pull out of the case study.  I was pulling apart the problem back and forth, knowing I could do it, and I never figured out what I was missing.  Right after the exam I asked someone else who took it about the question, and they mentioned that the factor I needed was in the case study.  Doh!  I never even thought to look there, though it should have been obvious.  There was another question that was entirely devoted to a topic I could not recall anything about.  If I had been able to get some points on that question, and get the calculation factor from the case study I would have been very close to passing.

So, the good news is I had a good shot to pass in the Spring, even though I did not.  I don’t know how to feel about that.  Should that give me confidence?  I suppose it should, but given a new set of questions on a new set of topics, I can’t assume I’m starting from a 4 and working my way up, I have to assume I am starting from 0 again, and while it is good to know I scored a 4 once, I can’t assume I will just be able to do that again.

As mentioned above, I still have no idea how to feel about preparedness for these exams.  Oh, how I long for the days when I knew I could do 70% of the practice questions on a prelim!  I feel like I know a lot of the material, but there will always be sections, subsections, lists, etc., that I don’t know yet!  So as I prepare, I always have that feeling like I DON’T know things, which is both discouraging but also motivating as it keeps me focused on trying to learn the next thing.  The only real strategy I have figured out for these exams is to learn as much as possible about everything, which is ok with me as I am genuinely interested in the material, but I am never going to be able to really master every topic and calculation.  To risk stating the obvious, I hope to know enough to score a 6 and be able to move on.

For anyone who is curious, my study strategy for FSA exams has basically boiled down to this:

1. Read the source material
2. Read the study guide
3. Make notecards or review purchased notecards
4. Review past exam questions, noting the types of questions asked and the calculations asked for
5. Try to distill the material into digestible chunks.  For the ERM exam I wrote my own study guide, but I have only done about half of one for CFE – I just don’t find the material as adaptable to writing up on my own.  For CFE, I am going through each section and determining whether it is best served by notecards or just reading the study guide (for sections that are too dense to easily make cards from)
6. Review what I put together in step 5 and continue to review past exam questions I noted as significant in step 4.
7. Use my last bit of available energy to take the exam, crossing the finish line collapsed flat on my face with one hand over the line.  (In my head, this is similar to an image of cartoon character I remember from my younger days, but I can't quite place the memory to find the exact image.)  

13 Days left for me.  Hopefully, all of you who are reading this – both current day and in the future – are finding the motivation to keep working hard until exam day!