So did the exam experience live up to the hype?

Yah, I’ve known a couple of people that sat L1 without calculators because they simply didn’t think it was necessary. I remember after I sat L2 helping my friends take practice exams for L1. The process we used basically meant I got to take the practice exams along with them. I was easily scoring 80+%’s without a calculator or scrap paper just eyeballing the answers despite being a mediocre L1 candidate like 8 months prior. You’ll be surprised how easy this exam will look once you’ve progressed through L2. Definitely a lot of work, but looking forward to progressing is something to get excited about.
 
Black Swan wrote:Yah, I’ve known a couple of people that sat L1 without calculators because they simply didn’t think it was necessary. I remember after I sat L2 helping my friends take practice exams for L1. The process we used basically meant I got to take the practice exams along with them. I was easily scoring 80+%’s without a calculator or scrap paper just eyeballing the answers despite being a mediocre L1 candidate like 8 months prior. You’ll be surprised how easy this exam will look once you’ve progressed through L2. Definitely a lot of work, but looking forward to progressing is something to get excited about.
Would you be able to translate, say, a Money Market Yield rate into a Bond Equivalent yield without a calc? Don’t take me wrong, I am not being skeptical, I just want to know what kind of things people may calculate with their heads in a reasonable amount of time.
For continous compounding for instance, it would be just impossible to do it…
 
Of course you can’t calculate exact figures. However, we know that the effects of continous compounding are 10-15% more as compared to simple compounding over a short interval.
I was thinking to myself as well, during the exam, it was doable. Maybe 10-15 would have required a few calculations but it is definitely possible.
 
oblivision wrote:Black Swan wrote:Yah, I’ve known a couple of people that sat L1 without calculators because they simply didn’t think it was necessary. I remember after I sat L2 helping my friends take practice exams for L1. The process we used basically meant I got to take the practice exams along with them. I was easily scoring 80+%’s without a calculator or scrap paper just eyeballing the answers despite being a mediocre L1 candidate like 8 months prior. You’ll be surprised how easy this exam will look once you’ve progressed through L2. Definitely a lot of work, but looking forward to progressing is something to get excited about.
Would you be able to translate, say, a Money Market Yield rate into a Bond Equivalent yield without a calc? Don’t take me wrong, I am not being skeptical, I just want to know what kind of things people may calculate with their heads in a reasonable amount of time.
For continous compounding for instance, it would be just impossible to do it…
It’s more of an eyeballing the question then looking at the existing answers and coming up with a reasonable approximation. Maybe you miss a few, but as I said, I was knocking out 80+% on samples / mocks doing this.
 
Guys,
Just wanted to confirm if the admission ticket is taken away by the proctor during the second session?
 
Nikolai wrote:Guys,
Just wanted to confirm if the admission ticket is taken away by the proctor during the second session?
Yes, it is. Don’t ask me why, though.
 
I get the whole eyeballing thing, but it seems kind of foolish to just not bring a calculator because you think you can eyeball every question. It just seems like a extremely minor inconvenience just so you can say I took the test without one.
 
Evening was harder, overall straightforward in most of the areas. Hope to pass :)
 
They take away the admission ticket to check that nothing was written on it at any time during the exam, I believe.
The calculator is definitely helpful, but if you know your stuff, I can definitely believe it is possible to pass without it. I’m very happy I didn’t have to do it that way.
The woman who had a nonstandard calculator and being given an HP12c: it must have been horrific to try to figure out how to make it work without the equals button if she’d never seen RPN.
 
Even so, knowing that you paid a thousand dollars (excluding prep material costs) to sit for 6 hours of the exam, that is about 150-200 per hour.
I’m sure she earns lesser than that at her current job. Why not take it as another day at work and try your best?
Why give up so easily?
 
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