Exam PA tips
Just passed Exam PA this most recent sitting on my first try(God Bless). Shortly after taking the exam I started reflecting on it, as I wasn’t too sure I passed, and how I would approach it next time if I had to retake it. This may have already been said too many times but I think it’s worth repeating for new eyes.
The why is more important than the what. Defending your position. The histogram question in this recent sitting(04/26) is a great example. The color could have been both a pro or a con, given a reasonable why. New questions are the money makers( usually worth 3/4 points ). Repeated questions from previous exams are usually 1.
This is to test that you actually know the concepts and aren’t just regurgitating previous answers. The last LASSO and OOB MSE questions are examples of new questions in this most recent sitting. In the previous sitting(10/25) there was a VIF and partial dependence question that hadn’t appeared in any sitting before that.
For people that keep failing this exam I think it’s because they aren’t adapting to the new questions, the new test data. They are just able to repeat past questions and answers. If these people were a statistical model we can say that they are overfitted to the training data.
As for taking the exam, I would focus on getting those new 3/4 point questions first. Yes, they might take longer but they are worth it. Because the questions are self-contained within tasks you have the ability to move around the exam and you might be able to knock out some of them relatively easy. Then I would focus on the point 2/1 questions. These questions would most likely have already appeared on previous exams, if you studied the previous exams, which of course I would suggest you do so, you should be able to get these rather quickly and accurately. Also I noticed that I was wishing I had a bit more time at the end, so I would suggest timing yourself while taking full blown practice exams from previous sittings and the ones from the studying materials(I did this). This will help you get a good feeling for the pacing and roughly how much time you should be spending per question.
Best of luck to y’all in future exams! Don’t get discouraged🤜🏼🤛🏼