Saturday, December 19, 2009

Money Launderers Beware!


I'm happy to announce that I passed my exam. Now I am a Certified Anti Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS)!

That's one weight off of my shoulders. No more studying at the crack of dawn every morning. This morning, a Saturday, I woke at 6 AM (which no one should be forced to do on a weekend) to make sure I got to the testing center on time. The Prometric testing center is conveniently located in the Financial District. I entered the room and joined the line of other test takers. The others were taking different types of tests. I heard a couple of folks taking the TOEFL and one person taking the GRE.

The rules are strict - no watches, no face tissues, empty pockets except your ID card and the key to the locker, where you store the rest of your personal items. They give you a couple pieces of scratch paper, 2 pencils and then lead you into the computerized testing rooms. Fortunately the testing center provided headphones to block out surrounding noise because there was one test taker who seemed to need a lot of assistance from the proctor.

I had not taken an exam like this in a while, so when the digital timer started counting down, I was a bit rusty. After a while, I got more comfortable with the questions, and I was in the test taking flow. The CAMS exam consists of 120 multiple choice questions that you must answer in 3.5 hours. The passing score is 75%. After I reached my 120th question and had double checked my work, I was ready to press the finish button. With bated breath I awaited my results. Luckily I passed and have good news to share with others. It would have been embarrassing to have to tell my boss that I did not pass.

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