Hi Snazzlefrag,
I love the name! How did you come up with that one?
To answer your questions, I just took the Principles of Finance exam last Monday, the 8th, and the University told me it should only take 2 weeks to get my results (they FedEx the test to the Dantes people). I'm not actually too worried about the results, because I studied like crazy for that one.
The funny (or not-so-funny) thing is...I also took the test for
Personal Finance that day, thinking it would be a piece of cake (it's about mortgages, wills, life insurance, banking, etc.) and
that test kicked my butt!!!! I hardly studied for it all, thinking that at age 47 I should know all that stuff, but they had a LOT of questions on there that your "Average Joe" wouldn't necesssarily know. Of course, I can't remember now what they were, but my advice to anyone planning to take Personal Finance is to get some study materials and study up before you take it! (I'm going to be really embarrassed if someone posts and says "I took that test and it was a piece of cake"!)
Anyway, to answer your other question about using a financial calculator: I just used a regular, simple calculator because the only types of calculations I needed to do were multiply, divide etc. (plus they don't allow programmable calculators during the test). And yes I definitely needed to know the formulas, terms, etc.
I read what other people here had posted regarding what types of things to study, and their advice was right on the money, so thanks everyone! I love this place!!
Macroeconomics is next - on June 2nd. The studying begins again!
JoAnne
P.S. Since I'm a newbie, can you tell me how you bring in part of someone else's post into your reply?? Thanks!