How the paper is marked, and how to study for it

Two papers, two registers

AFM 121 is examined in two registers, and the way you study each one is different. The memorisation register is tested by multiple-choice questions in the vocabulary of the Canadian Securities Course: which body, which market, which rule. The calculation register is tested by Excel: you are given the inputs, you build the formula, and you report the number.

The 2020 midterm paper shows the shape. Part 1 was 30 multiple-choice questions, 30 marks, 40 minutes, closed book, with a non-programmable calculator permitted. The parts that followed were solved in Excel and marked on the final value alone. The final examination is cumulative, weighted toward the calculation half, and — in the words of every review since — carries "questions you may never have seen".

Worked example — reading a marking scheme

Suppose a fictional learner, Priya, sits the Excel part and is asked for the future value of a $4,000 deposit at 5 % for three years. She types =FV(0.05,3,0,4000) and reports −4,630.50. Her method is right and her sign is wrong; whether a marker accepts a negative where the question asked what the deposit grows to is not something to gamble a mark on. Beside her, Marcus writes the correct formula on paper, mistypes 0.5 for 0.05, and reports 13,500. He earns nothing for the method: there are no part marks on the Excel part.

The lesson is not that Excel is unforgiving. It is that the marking scheme decides what "knowing" means:

• On Part 1, knowing means telling CIRO from CIPF from CDIC from CDS when all four appear as options.
• On the Excel part, knowing means the exact number, to the rounding and in the units the question asks for — a rate as a decimal if it says decimal, a dollar value to the cent.

Mapping the eleven topics onto the registers

The syllabus runs eleven topics, one lecture and one Excel tutorial each. Weeks 1–3 (the industry, the capital market, regulation), week 5 (economics and policy) and weeks 10–11 (efficiency, pooled investments, the stock experiment) are MCQ-register. Week 4 (time value of money) and weeks 7–9 (bonds, equities, derivatives) are Excel-register, with their vocabulary still fair game for MCQ. Week 6 (fixed-income features) sits on the boundary: its terms are memorised, its prices are computed.

This course keeps that split visible. Modules 1–8 are the midterm's material; Modules 9–14 are the final's calculation-weighted half. Every calculation lesson types the Excel formula that produces its answer, because reproducing that formula under time pressure is the skill being marked.

Six stems, sorted

Try sorting these before reading on: (1) "Which body clears MX-traded derivatives?" (2) "Compute the price of a 5 % semi-annual bond yielding 6 %." (3) "Equities in Canada settle on…" (4) "What is the monthly payment on $18,000 at 7.2 % over 4 years?" (5) "The Bank of Canada's policy rate is…" (6) "Find the IRR of the cash flows in A1:A5." Stems 1, 3 and 5 are MCQ-register; 2, 4 and 6 are Excel-register. If you sorted 5 as a calculation because it has a number in it, notice that the number is recalled, not computed — that is the tell.