Hi guys, I passed and I scored: 1. Weight 25% Q2 2. Weight 25% Q2 3. Weight 25% Q3 4. Weight 15% Q4 5. Weight 10% Q4 Lets assume that I have maxed all quartiles in all areas. After doing the math it appears that my maximum overall score could be : 56.25% So given that I passed I assume many people did not well on the exam. I was used to CFA rates where it was at 67% level. Does it mean that FRM level 2 is hard? Maybe somebody has a score bands even lower than me, so pass rate is even lower?
I passed both parts of November 2014 exam! However, I think I barely passed Part2. Actually, the questions of Part 2 do not much match FRM’s LOSs. The part asks very wide range of knowledge in all testing topics. Also, part 2 is unique part of FRM exam and not covered by other designation exams. Also, Part 2 does not contain many calculation problems, rather focuses on qualitiative and practical applications. In short, It is not easy to figure out how to prepare for and what to study for Part 2 of FRM. Due to threse factors, Part 2 is somewhat more difficult than CFA. Part 1 would be easy because most topics are quant and similar to CFA 1 &2.
Yes, I agree, but i didn’t know that FRM level 2 passing score is so low i.e. somewhere around 50%. I was using Schweser notes and GARP sample exams from 5 last years and I scored around 75%. On the actual exam I found questions totally different in terms of style, lengh and calculations… I must admit that I randomly picked like 20-30 Qs and I would bet any money that I have failed. That was really nice surprise on 2nd Jan, yet I feel that I did not deserve for a pass.
I wonder how you work out that passing score? 56.25%=0.5*0.75+0.25*0.5+0.25*0.25?
But the quartile just means that you score in the top 25% 50%… for that single category, compared to other candidates, not that you got 75% or 50% correct! We don’t know exactly what the others score? It could be that more than half score higher than, say, 20/25 for a category.
Yes, your 56.25% calculation is correct. Sorry, but I think you are wrong in the rest of your reply… if you got lets say 6 points correct out of 10 in a given area it means that you are in quartile 2 so 50-75%. It does not show your “place” in ranked ascending results of all candidates from a particular topic area. The same applies to score bands in CFA exam, but in CFA you got only 3 bands being: 0-50%, 51-70%, 71-100%
^ the quartile results just tell you about how you performed relative to other candidates, but they do not tell you the range of marks you got for given areas. So, I guess you cannot really estimate the passing score based on the quartile results.
CFA Institute let me know how well I performed in the CFA Exam. But GARP only gave a bell curve. The vertical line is “Number of Candidates”.
OK - in that case why do I passed, having the worst quartile in 25% weight of the exam, having another 25% in almost worst quartile, and only half of the exam in a quartile 50-75%, i.e. Q2? How this is a pass?
OP- No offense but pl. stop acting like a child. I hope none of your employer or prospective one is actually seeing this post. On second thoughts, yeah may be you REALLY didn’t deserve to pass. How on earth you are able to decipher your marks??? I mean… either u r completely ignorant about bell curve distribution or you actually took the Part I the rote to route to pass especially in your quant section. Again no bias, but FRM forces you to learn Probabaility Distribution at a much higher level than CFA and as far as risk management is concerned you can’t move an inch if you don’t have a solid understanding of probability distribution. It surely is a fundamental requirement. Your performance in the exam is only relative to other fellow examinees. Period! You can never decipher your actual marks. Pl. don’t stretch on this unless you are hell bent upon proving your point.
I did a worse quantile pass (2,3,4,3,4)and I also looked at another fellow’s quantile who scored exactly the same quantile as mine yet he could not clear! So where is the marks? And yet, there was one more guy who scored 1,4,2,44 and yet he passed… so where is the marks? ( Refer https://www.bionicturtle.com/forum/threads/frm-part-2-november-2014-exam-feedback.8149/)
It is another thing to speculate and having gone through quite a few posts, my guess is that the cut off could have been somewhere around 55-56%, I may have scored around 58-59% and anybody above 62% would have mostly all quartiles at 2(or majority), and anybody more than 65-66% would have all quartiles at 1(majority).
But then again, we need bigger sample size to decipher that also and that too with note more than 70-80% confidence.
GARP offered a tough exam (Part II) and espcially the Nov. 15 2014 exam was really quite a few notches higher than one could expect. Kudos in a way they maintain that standard. However, what they offer in terms of exam depth is compensated in higer pass rate simply because the cut off (mps) could be considerably low than CFA (10%… if I may guess atleast this one seemed like). What one should feel good about is that one has cleared it. It is foolish to ever compare for anything of FRM with CFA. FRM distinguishes itself on multiple grounds and they would like to keep it that way. If the quality of exam GARP offered being maintained and the cut off being elevated to 65% (the CFA notion)… what could have been the pass rate…??? Any guesses…May be less than 38%. WAIT FOR 2020. My hunch is GARP will start consolidating and FRM pass rate may come down. Do remember 2017-- the BASELIII compliance enforcement commences. So FRMs may be in demand till then and much more after that.
Personally, I never felt good after coming out of the exam hall, but I was determined to sit through it all. I believe I was underprepared and my performance could have been atleast another 5-6% better than what I did. Especially BASEL i did not study well. But little can be done now, even if I want to go back and retake the exam I cannot. So I thank my god and my stars and am happy!
^ Though you points were valid, but rant was not neccessary. I think they should add as “not being a dick” as part of the Professional Standards.
… Love your title er alias er reality 
Pretty rude, dudes… must be stressed out.
My apologies to the public, I just don’t like people who are full of themselves.