Assignment X5 slides (and others?)

[r_narshi]

Hi
Just been looking at the solutions for the X5 assignment presentation. In here, there are 3 slides, each of which has 2 charts/graphs (one line and one bar). None of the charts have a proper title, though the commentary with the charts are probably enough to explain the content.

My question is, are these slides too busy and crowded? The charts/graphs look too small as well.

Based on CA3 notes and the online app advice, including more than one chart/graph on a slide would appear to make it too crowded. I always assumed there should be no more than one chart/graph per slide to avoid overcrowding.

Also, why aren't there titles?

And why not a separate slide for questions, like the advice suggests?

Surely you'd be marked down for these (albeit minor) points in the exam. For some it could be the difference between a pass and fail.


Any thoughts appreciated.

Ritz

 

[David Wilmot]

A fair challenge Ritz! There is no 'perfect communication' and we can always look to improve what we do. However, notwithstanding the comments below, the model solution is a 'strong pass' despite not being perfect!

You should certainly aim to keep your slides simple and avoid them becoming overcrowded. Avoiding having more than one graph on a single slide is a good rule of thumb. The thinking behing this rule is 'keep it simple for your audience', e.g. by avoiding having too many themes on any one slide. However, in the case of X5 the theme on each graphical slide is a particular product. We judged it to be most helpful for the audience to have all the key information for each product on a single slide.

We didn't include slide titles as the graphs are well labelled and the narrative clarifies their meaning for the audience.

How do you think this could have been done better? One possibility would be to have the market share info for all three products on a single slide, and then the profit contribution for all three products on another slide. Do you think this would be better or not?

I'm not aware that ActEd advises the invitation for questions to be on a separate slide (i.e. after the conclusion/summary slide). Where have you seen such advice. I do know we've had questions like this in the past and, having enquired of the IFoA, I don't think it is significant in terms of marks. Personally, I would have thought the audience would prefer the conclusion/summary slide to stay on the screen during the Q&A session - so as to act as a reference point - rather than having a largely blank slide on the screen!

With regard to your final point, I do appreciate that scoring every mark is important, however the above issues are typically not the main reasons for failure in the CA3 exam. The main reasons for failure (due to the high number of marks associated with them) are: not fully/correctly identifying the key questions being asked ('the why') and/or not using simple enough language (e.g. using jargon and/or unnecessraily complex language).

 

[r_narshi]

Thanks David.

WRT the questions slide, I thought I'd seen something in either the notes or in one of the videos in the online app from the IFoA. But may have mis-read/understood what I saw/read.

 

[David Wilmot]

I do know that at least one of the Education Actuaries at the IFoA prefers the invitations for questions to appear on a separate slide, but this is just a personal preference. The CA3 Examiners are not going to regard this as an important issue - they are much more interested in whether a candidate has correctly identified 'the why' and tailored their answer to 'the who', so that the recipient(s) is/(are) completely satisfied by the response.