How do you feel?

[looploop]

5 days to go till the exam. I've gone over the Goldfarb problems like 3 times. I don't know how much more I can do at this point. It will be very disapointing if I do not pass this one. I guess it will come down to speed and not making stupid mistakes like I am doing now when I'm not fully concentrating. I almost feel like doing the problems too many times is actually hurting me since I become a robot when I recognize a problem I have seen before and solve it the same way without even thinking.

[asymp_normal]

I feeling pretty good about this one, as long as they don't go too far off the beaten path and start saking things like pricing warrants, Gaussian cupolas, treasury bond future pricing and nit-picky little details about the papers. Most of the past years exams were straight-forward, so here's hoping for the same this time. I'm very afraid of the questions that can be asked regarding the new additions to the syllabus.

I think becoming somewhat robotic about many of the problems will be beneficial, especially with the time constraints.

I still get tripped up working the bond problems ala Hull, with continuously compounded rates, when the exam problem is assuming annual rates ala Bodie.

[rsgoldfarb]

Just a friendly reminder that the "Goldfarb problems" were intended to teach the fundamentals and cover the learning objectives, but they are not the full list of all possible exam questions.

If you're getting too robotic redoing those, be sure to do the questions from BKM (especially those I recommended) and even some from Hull (especially the examples that are included within the text).

Now is also a good time to make sure you can do the problems quickly, with no errors. And, of course, make sure you remember all of those pesky details, like Put-Call Parity when the stock pays dividends, the formulas for Vega and the key findings of the empirical studies of CAPM (just to randomly name a few that are particularly difficult to memorize).

And most of all, good luck!