I’m looking into doing the FRM Part 1 in either May or November 2013…and am trying to decide whether to go with Schweser/ Bionic Turtle. I have read some of the posts saying Schweser Notes are good, but for practice questions BT is better.
I have seen on the BT website that the Study Notes are " Summary notes support the video tutorials" . I don’t see any posts (or I have probably missed them) talking about BT Study Notes. Just wondering if those will be sufficient, or do I really have to go with getting both Schweser & BT? Any thoughts would be appreciated, thanks a lot!
I completed the program some time ago using GARP’s core readings and Bionic Turtle. BT not only has many well-elaborated and challenging questions, it also has great tutorial videos (over 30 hours). These videos are focused on the topics that the instructor expects to show up on the exam and are a great source to help with any areas that you were having problems in the curriculum. They also provide a great source for reviewing the material later on your preparation. The BT notes are summaries of the readings and are short and sweet to the point. The consensus from the BT forum is that they do not provide any background and as a result, unless you are already familiar with the topic, they will not be usefull to study only to review.
I have a few co-workers who finished the program using only the Schweser Premium package. If you are serious about preparing, I would start with Schweser notes and complement with the BT videos and questions. You need to start now to study though unless you are not a full-time worker.
I completely agree with CFAFRM’s assessment. I only used the Schweser package to pass Level I, but I did feel that it was a bit light in some areas. Fast forward to now, as a result of that experience, I still bought the Schweser package, but I also supplemented with the Tier I level from BT. Now, since GARP has been late with their new readings/AIMs, I have been forced to start reading the 2012 material available on the BT site (another plus about BT – paying for access means you can immediately download even the old stuff). I figured to read the BT notes is better than nothing, but CFAFRM is right – it is very much a review. In fact, as I read the old BT notes from last year, all I can think of is that I can’t wait for my fresh 2013 books to ship from Schweser so that I can actually learn the material from the beginning, as opposed to merely review (because, well, how can I review what I haven’t yet learned?). Schweser does that the best in a single concise package, even though their FRM product does admittedly have many flaws (and listen, you’re going to get the folks on here who got undergraduate degrees or better in various math programs and they are typically the ones who like the BT material as their primary source. If that doesn’t describe you, then Schweser may be your best bet). Having said that, I am still happy that I bought BT in addition this year, but it isn’t for the notes – very simply, it’s so I can have access to more practice questions. Schweser tends to be very light in terms of the practice questions for FRM, so any additional testing I can do before entering the exam in May, I feel, will benefit me. But the BT notes, I have to say, I would not solely rely on for your core studying.
I think I was lucky to pass FRM part 1 in Nov 12 using Schweser material only! I seriously felt the material wasn’t up to the mark in many areas. It seems that Schweser is much better for CFA (I used for L1)| than FRM. Now that I have registered for FRM part 2 in May 13, I am unsure if I should stick to only Schweser material. Please share your opinions regarding difficulty level, material recommended and time it usually takes to finish the material.
Wow. Just got receipt from Schweser…2/22 is the available date for the hard copies of the study notes. I realize the eBook is now available but you cannot print it out, highlight, etc. This is terrible – how on earth can one prep correctly for this with less than 3 months from the point of receiving the material until the test? This isn’t Schweser’s fault – GARP released their curriculum updates too late. They should have had those changes ready for release shortly after releasing the test results. Instead, it took them longer than a month. Now I’m freaking out.
Any thoughts would be appreciated, thanks a lot!