GARP FRM Part II Study Plan: Reading, Cases and Mocks
Use an adaptable eight-block FRM Part II plan for official readings, quantitative cases, Current Issues, error review and four-hour mixed practice.
Start from your registration’s curriculum
Use the official 2026 books, Learning Objectives and corrections for a 2026 sitting. Inventory your strengths in Part I probability, valuation, derivatives and statistics before scheduling Part II. Repair specific prerequisites alongside the applied topic that uses them rather than restarting all of Part I automatically.
The plan below is an editorial eight-block schedule, not an official timetable or a promise that eight weeks is sufficient. A block can occupy a week or longer according to reading depth, prerequisite gaps and available time. Reserve meaningful time for calculations and the assigned Current Issues papers.
Eight preparation blocks
| Block | Main work | Evidence to retain |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Market-risk measurement: VaR/ES, tails, dependence and backtesting | A worked loss-distribution comparison and a clear test interpretation |
| 2 | Market valuation, risk mapping, hedging and assessed capital methods | A backward-induction calculation and a sensitivity/hedge explanation |
| 3 | Credit and counterparty risk | A default/recovery calculation plus exposure, netting and pricing assumptions |
| 4 | Operational risk and resilience | A control-failure analysis, model-governance decision and dated capital comparison |
| 5 | Liquidity and treasury | A cash-flow stress, correctly defined liquidity ratio and earnings/value distinction |
| 6 | Risk and investment management | Portfolio contributions, benchmark-relative performance and mandate constraints |
| 7 | Assigned Current Issues and cross-domain integration | A reading matrix: mechanism, evidence, limitation and risk-management implication |
| 8 | Mixed practice, timed checks and targeted rereading | An error log showing improvements on fresh questions, not memorized answers |
Read Current Issues throughout the earlier blocks when a paper connects to the topic: AI with model governance, private credit with credit/investment risk, and digital resilience with operations. Do not leave all eight papers to the final evening.
A repeatable practice session
- Read a bounded set of official outcomes and summarize the mechanism without looking at the text.
- Attempt fresh Finance Prep topic questions before viewing explanations. Write units and conventions for numerical work.
- Review every option, including correct guesses. Record whether the error was a fact, assumption, method, arithmetic, polarity or interpretation problem.
- Rework the mechanism with a changed value or condition. Return later to a fresh mixed set.
Keep a short formula register with definition, inputs, units, assumptions and failure boundary. Knowing a symbol is less useful than recognizing when its formula applies. The official exam provides no formula sheet; practise recalling important relationships while retaining scenario-specific conventions.
Four-hour pacing
The official 80 questions / 240 minutes give an average of three minutes per question, not a rule to spend exactly three minutes on each. For an editorial pacing exercise, target a first pass of approximately 200 minutes and reserve 40 for flagged calculations and checks. Avoid letting one difficult tree, capital formula or long case consume the time for several other items.
Budget the rehearsal and its debrief separately: 240 minutes answering + 90 minutes explanation review + 30 minutes error logging = six hours. Extend the review when calculations or prerequisite gaps need more work. Split the two-hour debrief into another session if necessary; do not count it inside the four-hour attempt.
Use the free 80-question exam once as a fixed check. Repeating it may reward recognition. Follow with fresh app mixed sessions and focused work in weak domains. Neither a public-set score nor the app’s editorial readiness reference establishes an official pass probability.
Before exam day, verify GARP’s current logistics, calculator and candidate policies . Use the Blueprint for scope and the Cheat Sheet for compact recall checks.