Comparison to May exam

[McMoM]

Just curious...

[McMoM]

My vote is that FET was easier than AFE, but I'm not sure if I attribute it to the material or just the fact that AFE was my first essay exam.

[yanz]

I took AFE. I thought the level of difficulty was about the same, and I probably scored approximately the same number of points (give or take, of course). However, I think the small sample size of the AFE benefitted me with the high variance it probably created, so I ended up doing very well. With more people taking FET, I expect the passmark to be more stable, which reduces my chances of passing (hopefully not by much, though)

ETA - why is there no option for "same difficulty"?

[McMoM]

ETA - why is there no option for "same difficulty"?

I thought about it, but kind of wanted to force a decision.

[yanz]

I saw a poll in one of the other DP's asking ppl to compare the morning session to the afternoon session. It made me think about how I would rank the two, and I found it to be a tossup, since I liked the Qs in the afternoon better, but got through far fewer of them because of the insane time pressure.

Did anyone else feel like there was almost too much time in the morning and not nearly enough time in the afternoon to answer the Qs?

I found myself thinking that if I had a total of 6.5 hrs for the entire exam vs the two 3.25 hr sections that I had to stick to, I would've done much better since I'd be able to allocate some of my extra* time in the morning to relieve some of the time pressure in the afternoon.

*I don't mean that I was sitting around twiddling my thumbs. I just mean that in the morning, I had ample time to write down something for every part of every question, while in the afternoon, I was skipping 1-2 pointers left and right just trying to stay on schedule and get through all the problems.

[Allacalander]

See the key is to be partially unprepared. I wasn't able to even work on three of the afternoon questions, leaving abundant time for the others.

Oh also, don't make any early calculation mistakes that require you to rewrite the entire question. Did THAT a few times.

[yanz]

my point is [actually, the point really belongs to someone I spoke to earlier, but that doesn't matter], that the exam writers don't actually sit down and attempt to complete the exam in the alloted time [AFAICT]. It's possible they test to see whether each individual Q can be completed in approximately the amount of time that should be allocated to it, but they don't seem to think about how the exam balances as a whole. IMO, it makes sense to balance calculation Qs with list Qs with analysis Qs, since everyone tends to have one category that takes more time than the others. Having one section be all calculation Qs while another section be all list Qs will put everyone in a bind, where some people do well on one section while others do well on the other section primarily because of the time they each need for the various Q types. Mixing it up a bit more so that there's a good balance of the 3 Q types in each session makes it easier for everyone to allocate time as they see fit and still have enough time to complete all the Qs.
If the exam writers actually sat down and tried to take the exam (or paid/asked some volunteers to take it), then it would be much more evident whether the points are allocated correctly and whether any of the Qs are defective.

[McMoM]

Did anyone else feel like there was almost too much time in the morning and not nearly enough time in the afternoon to answer the Qs?


Definitely.

I felt like I got a legitimate amount down for every question in the morning. But in the afternoon I jotted a couple notes on a few questions thinking I'd have time to come back and write more to feel like I solidly answered the question...instead that time got sucked up by other Qs.

[Roto]

ETA - why is there no option for "same difficulty"?


b/c let Epsilon = the absolute value of the difficulty difference.

For all Epsilon there exists a delta > 0 such that delta < epsilon and
Max [Difficulty(FET), Difficulty(APM)] - delta > Min [Difficulty(FET), Difficulty(APM)]

Duh!

Even a dumb ILA-DP kid knows that!