How Many Practice Questions Should You Complete for FRM Part 2?

5 days ago
3 min read

A strong FRM Part II candidate should aim to complete approximately 800–1,000 unique practice questions, followed by enough targeted reattempts to reach roughly 1,000–1,200 total question attempts.

This is not an official GARP requirement. GARP does not prescribe a minimum question count or publish a guaranteed passing score. The target is a practical benchmark based on the breadth of the curriculum, the 80-question exam structure and the need to practise both knowledge retrieval and application.

Why 160 Official Questions Are Not Enough

FRM Part II contains 80 equally weighted multiple-choice questions completed in four hours. The exam covers:

Market Risk Measurement and Management
Credit Risk Measurement and Management
Operational Risk and Resilience
Liquidity and Treasury Risk Measurement and Management
Risk Management and Investment Management
Current Issues in Financial Markets

Part II emphasizes applying the tools learned in Part I to real risk-management situations rather than simply recalling definitions.

Registered Part II candidates receive two complimentary official practice exams containing 80 questions each. These 160 questions are essential, but they represent only two full exam simulations. They are better used to measure readiness than as the candidate’s entire source of practice.

A More Effective Question Target

Use the following allocation:

1. Curriculum-learning stage: 500–600 questions

Complete questions immediately after each reading or group of related readings.

The goal is not merely to confirm that you remember the material. Determine whether you can:

Select the appropriate risk model
Interpret its output
Identify its assumptions
Explain its limitations
Recommend an appropriate risk-management action

GARP Learning provides chapter practice questions, although GARP explicitly states that these questions are not necessarily representative of actual FRM examination questions. Use them for diagnosing curriculum understanding, not for estimating your likely exam score.

2. Mixed-domain stage: 200–240 questions

After completing most of the curriculum, stop practising domains in isolation.

Create eight to twelve mixed sets of 20 questions. Each set should force you to switch between credit, market, operational, liquidity and investment risk.

This matters because the actual exam does not tell you which reading or model should be applied. The candidate must identify the relevant framework from the facts presented.

Complete each 20-question set in approximately 60 minutes. The real exam permits an average of three minutes per question, although some conceptual questions should take less time so that longer calculations receive sufficient attention.

3. Official practice exams: 160 questions

Take the first official mock when the curriculum is complete and at least four weeks remain before the exam.

Do not use it merely to obtain a percentage. For every incorrect answer, record:

The domain and learning objective
Whether the mistake was conceptual, computational or interpretive
The information in the question that should have triggered the correct method
Whether the same error has appeared before

Take the second official mock approximately seven to ten days before the exam. Its purpose is to test whether your earlier error patterns have been repaired.

4. Targeted reattempts: 150–250 questions

Reattempt incorrect questions after at least three days, without consulting your previous solution.

Do not count an immediate retry as a meaningful second attempt. You may simply remember the answer.

A question becomes “repaired” only when you can:

Solve it without notes
Explain why the correct answer is appropriate
Explain why the strongest distractor is wrong
Identify the underlying learning objective

Allocate Questions by Weight and Weakness

Download GARP’s official 2026 Learning Objectives document, which contains the approximate weight of each knowledge domain and the learning objectives attached to every required reading.

Calculate each domain’s initial question quota as:

Total question target × official domain weight

Then apply a weakness adjustment:

Multiply by 1.25 when diagnostic accuracy is below 55%.
Leave unchanged when accuracy is between 55% and 70%.
Multiply by 0.75 when accuracy is consistently above 70%.

This produces a personalised question plan without allowing a favourite topic to consume disproportionate study time.

Count Reviewed Questions, Not Clicks

Completing 1,500 questions with superficial review can be less valuable than completing 800 properly.

Count a question toward your target only when you have reviewed the reasoning, identified the tested learning objective and documented any mistake. Separate your results into:

Correct and confident
Correct but uncertain
Incorrect because of missing knowledge
Incorrect because of application
Incorrect because of misreading
Incorrect because of timing

Correct guesses belong in the review queue.

The Practical Answer How Many Practice Questions Should You Complete for FRM Part 2

For most candidates, a defensible target is:

800–1,000 unique questions
At least 160 official mock questions
1,000–1,200 total attempts after targeted rework
How Many Practice Questions Should You Complete for FRM Part 2

The number itself does not determine readiness. You are ready when previously missed concepts remain correct after a delayed reattempt, mixed-question accuracy is stable, and the same error categories no longer appear across consecutive timed sets.