The "value" of the SA series and Practice module

[monkey catcher]

Out of interest, my employer has taken the old 400 series pay rise and split it equally between the Practice module and the SA series. This seems really stupid as the Practice module is far , far easier to pass than the SA series paper. I'd have expected more of an 80:20 split or something like that. What has your employer done?

(Please note I'm not complaining about the relatively easy money for the Practice Module, but it seems to undervalue the SA series!)

 

[Mike Lewry]

SA v Practice Module pass rates

You'd expect the Practice Modules to be much easier to pass, wouldn't you?

However, the pass lists through up some odd features:
- The pass rates for P1 and P5 were both lower than their respective SA Subjects (small sample sizes though)
- 53% pass rate for P2 suggests it wasn't that easy to pass
- Based on the results for all my SA2 students, there seemed to be no correlation between passing SA2 and passing P2 in April - half those passing SA2 failed P2

Since a pass at a practice module is required to practice as an actuary in the UK, some employers might place a premium on this requirement, I suppose.
Or employers might be worried that some students won't take a multiple-choice paper seriously and therefore fail, so might try to refocus attention by giving it a disproportionate pay award.

Based on the conversations I've had with students so far, the approach to pay awards for the SA/PM subjects seems very varied. It will be interesting to read other responses to this thread.

As an extra question, I'd be interested to know how people think the actual questions compared with those on the Specimen Exams.