Part II: How to fail Certified Treasury Professional (CTP) Exam? Recipe to failure

How to fail Certified Treasury Professional (CTP) Exam? Recipe to failure

This is Part II of a series of posts, sharing experience of Certified Treasury Professional Exam, and what is the recipe to failure?

If you want read Part I, here you go what did I do to fail?

 

Okay, so here is the trick.

Look for something entirely new (Treasury Management)

• A book with ~1000 pages in Mandarin 
• Home-made flash cards 
• And of course - a couple of kids (add, as many as you like - not to mention, of your own) 
• Some Liquidity (that is: *Cash* not yet claimed by your wife) 

Mix all of it well, and well… you’re all set to fail.
 

With nothing making sense... I had to think of a different approach, different angle.

Decided to change the strategy, and therefore started from the end part of the book.

Yes, the Appendix-part. Why?

Because that would help build understanding of the terms used in the book – so when I read chapters I am familiar with the keywords/terms. That’s One.

Two: Instead of the going through the chapters, I started the Chapter-wise Question/Answer section at the end. Why? Because that part was making sense a little, it was to the point and very specific.

Three: Prepared flashcards kept in my pocket – and started reviewing them daily during my travel in metro, back/forth to office and everywhere else.

Started attempting the mock exams on the third-party websites. Reviewing the answers, and explanation.

With above change in strategy, I started getting the hang of it. It appeared.

Formulae Havoc.

More than 60 formula from Treasury, to Payments, to Netting, to Forward, Futures, and Options – a Blackhole.

Nevertheless. It required practice.

A lot of Practice, And Patience And Persistence.

All Friday/Saturday mornings (early mornings, 6 to 10am) were for formula based questions only.

Days, Flying By

With this silence-before-the-storm, I realized I am left with 10 days only.

1 Week Crash Course

So, last week left I couldn’t gauge my comfort level yet with an exam in a week’s time:

· Read book end to end 2 times, Check
· Learn-by-heart more than 15 formulas, Check.
· Attempted AFP Exam-Prep-Guide 170 x 2 questions, twice, Check.
· Attempted, all of the Chapter-wise questions from TMExam-com, Check
· Attempted, all the numerical questions from TMExam-com, Check

Some-Thing is missing?! A thought, in the last week from the exam date.

A bleak thought: I should have tried AFP online practice questions.

Keeping above checks in mind, I kicked the thought out.

I was confident, decided to cover end-to-end once again in the days remaining.

I came up with a plan. The idea was to utilize all times of the day. As the legend used on the whiteboard (image below) has it:

• M: Morning, 6 to 8am - Durations (2hrs each)
• E: Evening, 4 to 6pm
• A: Afternoon, 12 to 2pm
• N: Night, 8 to 10pm
• Flash: Meaning, review flashcards for those parts (P1, P2, etc.)
• Test: Meaning, attempt a test for that Part.
• P1: is part-1 of the book, contains 1 chapter(which is chapter-1, of course)
• P2: is part-2, contains, 6 chapters
• P3: containing 7 chapters
• P4: containing 3
• and P5: 3 chapters.

Yep, that’s the whiteboard that I borrowed from my daughter for that week on the promise that I’d buy her a Doll “Set” and she will not touch the board.

Well, knowing her she couldn’t resist herself to buck me up.

 

Dooms Day

With all uncertain progress, the testing day was there.

Hoping to pass with flying color.

Woke up early, and left the place around 7.

The testing center was Etisalat Academy, Muhaisna – Dubai.

Academy looked deserted. I walked through the corridors peeking in the all office rooms where I could find something and query about my examiner, and exam room.

While I walked around for a bit, luckily, a lady appeared on the front desk. She called someone and requested me to wait. I was 40 minutes early, so I waited. And waited and waited for next 30 minutes.

And an arab gentleman walked in. Apparently he was on the way to office, and was caught in traffic jam (very common *reason* in Dubai).

With 10 minutes left for the exam to start, I was getting impatient.

Judging myself, he told me not to worry and that I will have my full time (4 hours).

A little late, I finally entered the exam room, and started.

Well, and the result after 4 hours of exhausted energy.

Result, was printed on the spot: DID-NOT-PASS. Following image dump; a nice way of saying, You Failed.

Sad, a little mad, with heavy heart I came home and slept for hours and hours. Happy failing!


Next, read on: “It’s not over,until I win” - How I Passed CTP Exam?