My thought too (moving to SOA)! Also why take exams and pay the fees when there is every likelihood of the exam being made tougher and you might be booked for plagiarism due to intransigence in looking at an alternative way of conducting an exam that is fair to the candidates. I am also planning to wait for exam centers to open up before writing the exams (CS2 and CM2). Not only fees, the time spent can be utilized for other more useful purposes.
Imagine the combo
1. Tough exam
2. Could be accused of plagiarism with no recourse to candidates - banned from exams and the like as punishment
3. Have to type it in word, making it tougher
All because...
1. IFOA is not willing to listen to the woes of the candidates
2. Is stuck on plagiarism despite its chances being 1 on a scale of 10 and not finding ways to handle it without making it tougher for candidates
3. Because IFOA cannot find a way to proctor the exam
4. Stuck on a format which makes the exam tougher instead of focusing on how to make it easier for candidates by seeing how the difficulties can be overcome without making it tougher on students.
5. Students are not writing this for fun. It takes months of studies and practice. How come making it tougher for them a good practice? It is not as if we are asking IFOA to set a paper that is easy. All we are asking is do not make an already tough exam tougher just because you cannot or do not want to find a better solution that aids rather than hinders students.
6. How come highly reputed universities that follow a system of handwritten answer papers uploaded to the server is not a good example to follow? If you cannot come up with a good system the least you can do is to follow a good system that is working.
In short, it would appear, for IFOA, candidates are simply exam fees paying ducks to be played with at will. Sad.
Last edited by a moderator: Jul 7, 2021