Good questions.
When I left the exam I felt a little surprised that I had a few minutes to spare as I'd have assumed I would be running out of time before finishing.
Back when I was in school I found that when I felt like I'd mastered a test – I usually didn't….
…and when I felt like I did lousy leaving the examination – I ended up doing fairly well.
I left FAR confused… as I had one simulation that seemed totally off the wall. Lots of information regarding the hedging of bond holdings. Stuff you'd never see in a textbook I've ever been exposed to. There were several (6 or more) MCQ's on the ratio/formulas which weren't the 15 or so I'd studied. (It seemed like they were basically the formulas I knew but tweaked so you'd have to use two formulas condensed to make a formula to answer their question.) Thankfully, its quite possible they didn't even grade the bond hedging simulation as I've heard they only grade one of the two. Moreover, it was the 1st of the 2 simulations and I'm glad I didn't get bogged down in it – it would have been EASY to panic and then to have never finished the exam!!
Sooo….I felt as though I had done “good enough”, but one can never tell with the whole mysterious grading process – until it actually arrives.
I will admit the having to waitwaitwait for the snailmail…then finding the state added a release date 26 days after their last release date…THEN having the grade get lost in the mail – really makes you fear you fell flat on your face. Especially when your contact at the state replies with one line answers to your inquiries and then fails to even use any punctuation in their one line reply. (If they reply at all). Its a little disheartening. On one hand you don't want to bother them or inquire at all…and on the other hand its been almost 8 weeks without a peep so you do inquire and then they seem completely disinterested in you.
Not complaining really. Things just seem a little disproportionate. They are constantly trying to evolve the test questions to keep it a dynamic exam. Then there are states using snailmail to send out grades that in some cases (like mine) don't arrive at all – an extremely old mode…moldy mode of information delivery.
Time to buckle down on the REG…gonna' sign up in the next day or two for a day to sit for it.
Just don't get bogged down in the exam, roll on. No matter how seemingly challenging the questions/simulation…just do your best and roll on. If you put in the time studying, you'll have the tools to muster through when they hit you with the stuff you find to be ambiguous.
ROLL ON financeguy! roll on!
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