questions

[andrewabert]

1. about how many points out of 120 do we have to get to pass the exam?

2. how detailed does the answer have to be? i looked at the solution for last year's exam, and i really don't think i can put down nearly as much detail as the solution...

[namssa]

Everything is extremely subjective with essay exams. Even if you could make a reasonable estimate of how many points you need to pass the exam, there is now way to estimate how many points any particular grader will assign for any particular answer. I suppose that you could estimate it, but there are so many dimensions of uncertainty that it wouldn't mean much.

[invisibulman]

It's roughly 60% of the points. Each question gets a score of 1-10. Those scores are then weighted by the point value of the question. The 1-10 score is based on how many of the major and minor points you hit that are on the grading outline. If you hit all the major points and none of the minor points, count on getting a 4-5 for that question. So, yes, your answer should be fairly detailed. Knowing the concepts is great, but some of this just comes down to straight memorization.

[andrewabert]

thanks a lot!

[campbell]

Also, once you hit a certain number of points on the grading outline for a particular question, you max out, meaning even if you put more items down you won't get any more. I.e., quite a bit less than all possible items on the grading outline will get you a 10 on a question.

So, if you've really nailed a question (within your time constraints of 3 minutes per point), move to another. Larding it on past that point will get you no more grading points. You want to work on your marginal questions instead.

[andrewabert]

thanks! another question...do they give fractional points? or do we just get either 1 point or 0 points?

[The Smokin' Cracktuary]

thanks! another question...do they give fractional points? or do we just get either 1 point or 0 points?

Well the process described above isn't completely acurate. Each question is not worth 1-10 pts. There is the major point value for the questions (i.e. 4, 6, 8 pts, etc.). Then for the question itself, there may be like 87 pts total. Each fact you can write down that is on the grading outline is worth a portion of those 87 points (that would probably be for an 8 point question, shorter ones could be in the 40's or somewhere in between). Major facts will be worth around 5 each, minor facts will be worth 1 each, and medium importance ones can be worth somewhere in between. The total of all these will add up to the 87 points for the question. The percenatge of the total points you get out of that 87, will be applied to the major point value of the questions (i.e. if you get 75% of them on an 8 pt. question, you will get 6 pts). Maybe they translate that into a 1 through 10 score and then apply, if that is what someone was trying to say, but the way it is graded is from an outline with an arbtrary point total that happens to be the total of the facts with point values weighted by importance.

It is also true that the major facts will be worth the most, but that still is usally around half the total points, at most.

What Mary was saying is that while there may be 87 pts for a particluar question, the denominator they use to get your percentage is less than that, maybe 75 or 80. So you can get 75 pts out of 87 and it would be a perfect score for that question. Any more than that and you are wasting time.

As someone said you need around 60% of the points to pass.

Good luck!:tup:

[andrewabert]

Well the process described above isn't completely acurate. Each question is not worth 1-10 pts. There is the major point value for the questions (i.e. 4, 6, 8 pts, etc.). Then for the question itself, there may be like 87 pts total. Each fact you can write down that is on the grading outline is worth a portion of those 87 points (that would probably be for an 8 point question, shorter ones could be in the 40's or somewhere in between). Major facts will be worth around 5 each, minor facts will be worth 1 each, and medium importance ones can be worth somewhere in between. The total of all these will add up to the 87 points for the question. The percenatge of the total points you get out of that 87, will be applied to the major point value of the questions (i.e. if you get 75% of them on an 8 pt. question, you will get 6 pts). Maybe they translate that into a 1 through 10 score and then apply, if that is what someone was trying to say, but the way it is graded is from an outline with an arbtrary point total that happens to be the total of the facts with point values weighted by importance.

It is also true that the major facts will be worth the most, but that still is usally around half the total points, at most.

What Mary was saying is that while there may be 87 pts for a particluar question, the denominator they use to get your percentage is less than that, maybe 75 or 80. So you can get 75 pts out of 87 and it would be a perfect score for that question. Any more than that and you are wasting time.

As someone said you need around 60% of the points to pass.

Good luck!:tup:

Thanks so much!

[namssa]

Where did this "need around 60% of the points to pass" guideline come from?

After looking at the number of possible answers on the 2007 exam, it seems that it would be an extremely unlikely for someone(myself especially!) to get 60% of the possible points. I definitely don't think that I would have passed two essay exams if I was really really required to have 60% of the points to pass.

[The Smokin' Cracktuary]

Where did this "need around 60% of the points to pass" guideline come from?

After looking at the number of possible answers on the 2007 exam, it seems that it would be an extremely unlikely for someone(myself especially!) to get 60% of the possible points. I definitely don't think that I would have passed two essay exams if I was really really required to have 60% of the points to pass.

You have to remeber it's 60% of the points. Not 60% of the facts. Not all the facts are worth the same amount of points. The major ones are worth more.

60% of the points could be only getting 30% or 40% of what is on the grading outline, which does not show the point value assigned for each fact.

[campbell]

You have to remeber it's 60% of the points. Not 60% of the facts. Not all the facts are worth the same amount of points. The major ones are worth more.

60% of the points could be only getting 30% or 40% of what is on the grading outline, which does not show the point value assigned for each fact.

Yup.

The main thing to keep in mind is this: you're not going to be able to figure out numerically how many points you've got on a problem, but you should be able to feel whether you've nailed a problem or not. If you've nailed a problem, MOVE ON.

You will increase your final score more by shoring up weak or mediocre answers than adding to an already almost complete answer on another problem. Indeed, you may not affect your score at all if you try to perfect an adequate answer.

Try to answer as many problems as you can. You can leave a few problems blank and still pass, but you cannot leave a lot of them blank or barely answered, no matter how well you answer other problems.

[andrewabert]

Yup.

The main thing to keep in mind is this: you're not going to be able to figure out numerically how many points you've got on a problem, but you should be able to feel whether you've nailed a problem or not. If you've nailed a problem, MOVE ON.

You will increase your final score more by shoring up weak or mediocre answers than adding to an already almost complete answer on another problem. Indeed, you may not affect your score at all if you try to perfect an adequate answer.

Try to answer as many problems as you can. You can leave a few problems blank and still pass, but you cannot leave a lot of them blank or barely answered, no matter how well you answer other problems.

if I put down a wrong statement, does that get me negative points? or is it just ignored?

[The Smokin' Cracktuary]

if I put down a wrong statement, does that get me negative points? or is it just ignored?

It is ignored. Unless you put down two things that contradict each other. So if you forget whether a model is mean reverting or not, you can't just say that it is, and then it isn't. You don't get negative points, but you won't get any points.

However, if they ask you for the weaknesses of a credit model, and you can't remember which is which, you can just write the weaknesses for all of them, and will get all the points to the extent that two facts are not contradicting.

Follow?

[campbell]

As Mr. Cracktuary says, there are no negative points. We just add up points when you hit what we want to see from the grading outline (keeping in mind that we will change the grading outline if we find more reasonable answers).

The only way a false statement gets negative points is when it cancels out a contradictory true statement you've written, as mentioned.

So do not put down contradicting statements, thinking the graders won't notice. But don't hesitate to write down anything you can think of, if you have the time to spend. Irrelevant or untrue statements will not lower your score. This is how many of the model solutions have outright falsehoods and errors in them, and still managed to get full points on the problem -- they hit enough of the grading points to max out. Making errors beyond that didn't lower their scores.