You came here asking for opinions and have been unanimously told that your planned course of action is a bad idea. No matter, you know better. I get it - I remember when I was young and still knew everything.
One story, and then I'll go. I knew a fellow who had passed the FS many years previously but had never gone for the PS. When he finally did he failed. Tried again, failed again. Applied for third time and the board asked him to show some reason to expect that he would do any better. They don't like people just taking the test over and over. It makes them think that some of the questions are getting out of the exam room. It took this fellow some time and effort to get into the testing again. That time he took it more seriously, prepared properly, and passed.
DMD stands for "Double Meridian Distance", a means of calculating areas of irregular figures that was do-able with a slide rule. It was already out of use when I took the test in '98 but it was still in the curriculum. I was obliged to learn it well enough for testing and have not looked at it since.
If you remove the logic of having to manually calculate, that means that you assert that advanced mathematics in the degree program are not necessary.
I fully agree. For instance, when construction staking just because a curve is labeled a certain way and it all joins up in the picture...that doesn't make it true. And being able to manually calculate things has saved me more than once. But, I will also admit that I get rusty.
