感觉自己一直有点后知后觉，之前认为风控里面就属GARP的FRM最牛了。再加上收到国内一些帖子及相关介绍的误导，对于PRM一直不屑一顾。直到前几日在国外某知名网站上看到有国外从业者对PRM的介绍，才发现PRM在找工作上比之FRM更有优势。不过国内外对于PRM准备经验的文章着实不多，即使是PRMIA的网站上也提及甚少。故分享一篇国外已过考试者写的经验谈，非常细致，希望对国内考试者有一定的帮助。原文如下：

Besides the official information on PRMIA’s web site, I was unsuccessfully looking for some comprehensive feedback of the study process for the PRM exam. Therefore I decided to write down here my own experience regarding this certification.

Note that this does only reflect my personal opinion at a given time (the syllabus may evolve). Other people may disagree or have different views and I therefore shall in no way be responsible for any disagreement or misinterpretation of the opinion expressed below.


Exam I
This may be qualified as the "nuts and bolts" for anyone who has a degree in economics + a few years of practice in risk management. This exam may however turn out to be the heaviest part of the whole syllabus for some candidates that do not have the appropriate background. Time is not an issue during the exam (2 hours for 36 questions).

KESDEE's sample exams:
They seemed to me in rather good line with the real exam and therefore quite helpful. The real exam turned out imo to be closer to the study material itself than KESDEE’s sample exams.

Required study time:
Highly dependent on your background. I’d say it ranges from (as a percentage of the total study time for the PRM certification)

• 15% if you have a university degree in economics + at least 3 years professional experience in risk-management,
• 25% if you have a university degree in economics without the relevant professional experience in risk-management,
• 45% if you do not have a degree in economics but at least 3 years professional experience in risk-management,
• 55% if you neither have a degree in economics nor relevant professional experience in risk-management.

Exam I may therefore turn out to be the really big part of the PRM exam for many people that are new to the field (e.g. people with a purely quantitative background).


Exam II
This may be qualified as the "nuts and bolts" for anyone who has a degree in physics or mathematics. The book itself is very concise and clearly written, but maybe some further reading may be required to the less quantitative literate candidates to pass the exam. Time is not an issue during the exam (2 hours for 24 questions).

KESDEE's sample exams:
KESDEE's sample exams are imo way more quantitative than the questions in the PRM exam itself. Nevertheless, you still (most likely) will be asked in the exam to carry out some basic integral, derivation, matrix multiplication and inversion, determinant, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, etc calculations.

Required study time:
Again, highly dependent on your background:

• <10% if you have a master in physics or mathematics; in this case the exam itself is a real joke,
• 20% if you do not have a quantitative background but some basic actuarial skills,
• 30% if you come from a totally different field (e.g. laws).

Anyway, most of the mathematical stuff for this exam could still be considered as high-school grade material (at least in Europe).


Exam III
This is the core of the syllabus in the sense that you capitalize on the knowledge of exams I and II. The book is extremely clearly written. You should go through it at least two times.
The way the material is written is rather quantitative oriented which will make the reading process easier for people with the appropriate background or professional experience.
Time is not an issue during the exam (1.5 hour for 36 questions).

KESDEE's sample exams:
I found KESDEE’s exams in rather good line with the textbook. Some questions were about specific numbers, the kind of questions I didn’t encounter in the real exam. The real exam turned out to be way less quantitative than I expected, asking many questions that seemed to require a very good ease with the study material. The kind of ease you mostly get from a professional experience in the field or by being familiar with a much broader set of knowledge.

Required study time:
Maybe a tad less sensitive to your background than for the previous exams:

• 20% of the total time if you already have some professional practice in the field,
• 30% of the total time if you are new to the field but have some quantitative background,
• 40% of the total time if you are new to the field and do not feel comfortable with quantitative oriented textbooks.

Exam IV
Read the study material a few times (at least two times) to get the whole picture. It seems not required to learn by heart all dates and numbers, neither to know the exact timeline. All in all this is a rather easy exam.
Be sure not to overlook the PRMIA bylaws. It seems not required know all details, however ask yourself what are the meaningful points to be known - these will most likely be asked in the exam.
Time is not an issue during the exam (1 hour for 24 questions).

KESDEE's sample exams:
The database for this exam seemed to be rather small and you’ll probably quickly get the same questions over and over.

Required study time:
About 10% of the total time, and depending of your background (if you’re already in the field for many years) this may go as low as 5% since the case studies would then most likely be already known to you.


KESDEE's sample exams
All in all they proved to be a quite useful tool. However, unlike CFA for example where you have plenty of questions (e.g. Schweser study material) that sometimes overlap questions in the real exam, this is not the case for KESDEE’s sample questions (at least from what I experienced). I do not remember having had a single question in the real exam that looked like one I had in KESDEE’s exams. Moreover:

• Be sure to take the first KESDEE exam after you have gone through the whole study material and once you feel having reached a good understanding of the material. Indeed, KESDEE’s database contains only a limited amount of questions and you’ll come across more and more known questions as you take more sample exams. Therefore since apparently KESDEE’s exam questions do not really overlap with the questions in the real exam only your first KESDEE exam is really meaningful for the purpose of evaluating your score.
• KESDEE’s sample questions sometimes do not exactly match the content of the study material. On the other hand, the real exam seems to be closer to the study material but there may be some tricky questions. All in all, it turns out to be a rather good point that KESDEE’s exams do not always exactly match the study material. This will indeed test your overall knowledge and culture of the field, which is a highly valuable knowledge to answer the more tricky questions of the real exam.
• KESDEE’s sample questions sometimes ask about very specific dates, numbers, etc (either you remember them and get it right, or you don’t…). I do not remember having had anything like that in the real exams, where questions seemed on average to be more thoughtful.

Required study material
All in all the PRMIA’s official readings (PRM Handbook + free Exam IV readings material + study guide) combined with KESDEE’s exams seem to be a comprehensive and sufficient set to go through the certification. The readings are sometimes quite dense and "googling" a bit helps building up the surrounding necessary "cloud of knowledge".