Using your FRM handbook with External Guides

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

 

7 Reasons to always use your handbook

While reading for your exams, you need to ensure that you leave no stone un-turned to reach the highest level of preparation. 

Hence it is important to go through all types of materials that provide you with relevant and quality content to crack your test.

While there are tons of study materials available through both online and offline resources, you have to ensure you rely only on the best. 

The use of your official FRM Handbooks is prescribed by GARP but these are often ignored.

As such, students miss out on many crucial aspects of preparation.

Reading from an officially-prepared guide is one of the best things to do when you are faced with a really tough challenge such as the Financial Risk Manager examination!

 

1. The official content will always be accurate

A prescribed guide will have all the information that is being thoroughly checked and scrutinized for accuracy and preciseness.

Any reputable educational institution will always try to ensure that the content that they provide is always the best and GARP is no different.

They will make sure that all the data is checked and proof-read before it is compiled and sent out to the public.

You can rest assured that the official texts will always be correct factually and conceptually and the knowledge that you derive is going to fetch you the knowledge require to pass your exams. 

So it is always great to rely on the accuracy of official guides when it comes to exam preparation.

 

2. You will only be exposed to relevant information

Your prescribed guides are made considering the exams that you have to appear for. 

The content that is available is as per examination patterns of the GARP institution and the content included is purely included to serve the purpose of the examination.

As such, you won’t have to waste any time scrambling through piles of unimportant information and you simply focus on what is going to be asked in your examinations.

 

3. Who knows the content better?

Your study guides are often directly-or-indirectly prepared by individuals closely associated with GARP themselves. And the ones who set your test papers are also the same members of the institution.

That means the faculty members who help set the question papers will refer to these guides that they have created themselves. 

So, if you are preparing for your exams from these official notes, you certainly stand a better chance of scoring better than if you were reading materials from other publishers.

 

4. Relevant case studies

All professional courses are incomplete without case studies. Your official books will contain enough number of case studies that will be useful for your exam preparation and development of your conceptual knowledge.

These case studies are prepared based on the curriculum that is laid down and on the basis of your learning goals while being in the program.

Hence, these are extremely useful and beneficial for your overall learning progress. Not to mention the additional real-world benefit you’ll receive when you complement your work efforts with these historical cases.

 

5. A balanced and logical representation of information

With your official guides, you’ll always get a balanced approach of facts and information.

Rest assured, the content creators in this program know very well that the entire syllabus has to be adequately represented within your texts.

As such, all the information will be presented in an extremely lucid and logical manner. You will not get superfluous information in your handbooks. They will simply contain what’s needed and what is relevant.

The idea here is to create a better understanding by providing information with a greater level of detailing and description.

 

6. A complete course covered

All your guides are made so that they provide you with the complete course material in the provided books. 

The Institution makes sure that your entire curriculum is expertly covered so that you do not have to go hunting for other books in the market.

As such, if you diligently study your texts, it should be enough for you to cover the entire syllabus and provide the necessary knowledge required.

 

7. Combined inputs

Your GARP handbooks are prepared from the combined inputs of several faculty members who have years of experience in their field. 

As such, the resulting content in your hands is a compilation of expert knowledge from professionals in their respective fields.

You will be exposed to the best-of-the-best! And trust us; you’ll be hard-pressed to find better value than what’s available through the official channels. 

Having covered the importance of using your official guides, let’s look at the importance of third party offerings in the next section.

 

7 Reasons to use external guides

The FRM course is one that demands a lot of hard work, patience and perseverance. But nowadays, it’s not the hard workers that always win. The winner is often the smart worker.

And to facilitate this smarter work ethic, you utilize all those resources that are available to you. Third party study materials and guides are made taking into consideration the various kinds of conceptual needs of students.

You can get a detailed guide on almost every subject matter that you require help with. Guides that make difficult and complex information look a lot simpler.

Below are a few of the reasons we believe external guides should never be ignored by any student.

 

1. Another perspective will always be useful

Sticking to just one view on any topic is not necessarily a great way to prepare yourself. 

In addition to books prescribed by the institution, you can get the opportunity to explore a new (and perhaps better) perspective of a concept or a subject matter.

So, that means those difficult concepts can become clearer once you read from a different author with a different perspective.

This ensures you have clarity of thought that translate into clarity of expression when it comes to writing actual answers in the examination room.

 

2. Exposure to tougher questions

There are hundreds of question-bank books for students preparing for the Financial Risk Manager course. Preparing with tons of questions with varying degrees of difficulty is an excellent way to get ready for any test.

With this methodology, candidates can prepare themselves for every type of question that may be asked. 

There are question banks prepared after a lot of research and collations from various exams and hence you get a level of exposure that will definitely help on D-day.

These books also equip you with the confidence to face any question GARP may throw at you.

 

3. Additional practice can only help your efforts

There is a good old saying that says practice makes perfect. And indeed it does. With the convenience and availability of many questions to practice with, your level of preparedness only gets better.

The more you work through these papers, the sharper your acumen gets. Chances are that many of the questions on the actual exam paper will have some sort of resemblance to those you have already practiced with.

That means you will be better prepared for the final showdown and the long day ahead. These practice books are a perfect aid to your preparation efforts to excel and be successful in your exams and career.

 

4. Improved understanding of concepts

The availability of additional data means that you have alternate resources to your official texts. 

Many of these third-party books are specially written to explain things in an extremely simple way in order for many to comprehend.

These books can provide excellent additional readings or reference option for you to understand and improve your conceptual understanding.

Once you understand the core concepts and the essence of the chapters being read, you will be able to answer questions in a more efficient manner.

 

5. Additional ideas

At times, official guides may not be exhaustive for the reason that they need to cover the entire syllabus. As such, you may not find the best and detailed explanations for all topics in a given section.

This particular issue may be compounded by the fact that the official notes may only contain ‘to-the-point’ information that will help you understand the basic concepts in brief manner.

Third-party guides, on the other hand, may help you by providing comprehensive and exhaustive content on almost every topic. And a fuller understanding means you’ll be able to perform better in your exams.

 

6. Additional case studies

With third-party help, you can get a lot of information and additional details on every topic. Case studies are no exception as well. 

You can get to read through many well-documented case studies that will improve your understanding of the basics as well as those complicated areas.

Learning through case studies and illustrations can be a good way to improve your knowledge. This, as you are learning through real-life incidents that have taken place in the industry.

 

7. A new approach for answering questions

Many external guides will include questions along with model answers and explanations. This will be a tremendous benefit to those who are seeking more than just answers. 

The best guides will clearly explain how the answers were arrived at and, in turn, will boost your knowledge and understanding across the board.

They also provide you with the benefit of familiarity with questions and the way in which you should dissect the questions in order to arrive at the correct solution each time.

 

In conclusion

Now that we have discussed the benefits of using your FRM handbook and guides from both the official source as well as an external or third-party outlet, it is a pretty-much foregone conclusion that you should be using both options as a means to get ready for exam day!

Yes, there are more than enough reasons to go with both, so why not boost your chances of success by employing the best of both worlds?

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The QuestionBank Family