CA3 - scrap it

I don't say it's the only reason. I am saying I think it's a significant one. Too many people assume that because the exam is not technical, they can waltz through it.

 

The 1st day of the course was supposed to train people to pass it. Clearly it wasn't very good since around half the people still failed. Having been on one of those courses, I didn't identify a single person who struck me as being extremely shy, introverted etc. or had poor command of the English language.

 

Compare and contrast with CA2. For the CA2 course I went on, only 2-3 people were failed after a day's training.

Must wonder why the CA3 pass rates are so different. Then again, CA3 is a 'gateway' exam and candidates aren't anonymous in it.

 

mpyan1 Keeping it real, as always!

 

My post wasn't meant to be an advert for the CFA . I should note that CFA students complain about their exams just as much as we actuaries do and the amount of material in the CFA is also very large....it's just the exam system is a lot less annoying!

I think CA2 should be scrapped as well. If people actually worked in the way the CA2 exam expects you to, we would get nothing done! In the 3 companies I have worked, I have never seen anyone work in this way. At least with CA3 they are trying to improve communications, which is a valuable skill. What are we trying to achieve with CA2? Companies have their own audit procedures and it is not an area that IFoA need to interfere with. What this means is students have to learn a skill simply to pass an exam, which is a sad state of affairs.

 

Reading between the lines, you work in a sector which is legendary for poor modelling and poor model interpretation. It's hardly surprising you and your colleagues don't follow these practices. In other areas of technical actuarial work, TAS standards are followed and even held up as justification for doing or not doing a piece of work.

 

I don't know which sector you are referring to, but I have worked in a life insurance consultancy, a life insurer on the asset side and currently work for an asset manager. I only encountered the TAS in the consultancy - they don't exist in the investments industry, but there are similar rules/guidelines that are not called "actuarial standards" for obvious reasons. The compliance and audit rules in the investment industry are just as stringent as for an insurer and in many cases a lot more so.

What has any of this got to do with CA2? In CA2, building a good model is a complete waste of time since the model itself is only worth 10 marks. One of the tricks to pass this paper is to build a poor model and then spend 5 hours documenting it. Is this your recommended way of working in real life?

What most people actually do is talk to each other so that we don't spend 80% of time writing a summary that could have been done in a 30 minute catch up around a desk. Maybe we need a CA4 exam in efficient working...

 

I have no appetite for more exams. Having said that, if it's 2 years of playing the Russian roulette SA/CA3 game or having a CFA qual then, hmmm that's worth thinking about if CFA opens doors that actuarial exams don't.

 

I think the "Russian roulette" analogy might be a bit hyperbolic for CA3. They're not asking you to sacrifice your life - just 70 hours study (an approximation based on the 50 hours suggested scaled up for expected resits). Fair enough the SA's require a LOT more of a sacrifice.
I agree with the lottery analogy to some extent but probably not as negatively as is implied. Any exam you need luck - turning up healthy on the day, getting enough quality study done beforehand, maybe crossing paths with topics on the exam in the lead up to the exam day, getting a manageable paper, performing to the best of your ability on the day, controlling the nerves - so many variables. My attitude for the SA was i would be happy to qualify for a "lottery" - that the hardest part was getting your hands on a "ticket". You can't win unless you're in. Ok ok enough cliches The advantage of this way of thinking actually puts a lot less stress on you - once you realise its not totally in your hands and indeed a failed exam does not mean failure on your part.
Hope this helps. A problem shared is a problem halved - ok, ok, I'll get my jacket

 

If you are building a model that many people will use/maintain/extend then yes. If you are building a model that only you will use for a short period then fair enough. Although it's surprising how often temporary models for one person become permanent models for many people. It's also easy to forget how your own model works if you park it for six months.

I've worked in banking and General Insurance. The difference in philosophy is huge. Banks have a much greater tendency towards black box models. General Insurance companies (largely thanks to actuaries) tend to towards simpler models that everyone understands, even the CEO. Unfortunately Solvency 2 and ROE-driven firms are pushing GI more towards the black box.

 

Sure not your life but certainly a great deal of hopefully the most meaningful part of your life: your spare time AGAIN after you've spent years getting to that stage, only to be told you can't qualify for... reasons they struggle to explain to you.

Also don't forget some people don't get funding from their employer for multiple sittings and tutorials.

 

Exactly!

I find CA2, CA3 and the SA exams (to a lesser extent) are rather pointless. At least in the CT exams, CA1 and ST you end up learning something you didn't know before. I think employers are catching onto this fact, as many specify nearly/newly rather than state it's an essential to be fully qualified.

 

I think we are firing at the wrong target here: I don’t think CA3 should be scrapped. Rather, CA3 should be changed so that it is relevant to the real world.

There is a lot of issues going on here so let’s bust a few myths:



• Selection bias: There is a selection bias here, as with all IFoA exams. I hope that all actuaries would understand this concept of selection bias, but evidently some do not: those that pass the exams think of the exam as having been not too difficult and the exam system as “fair” (whatever “fair” means), and those that fail would tend to think the opposite.



• Ill-defined arguments: A lot of the replies on this thread in support of CA3 as it is rely on ‘pub logic’; a vague notion that communication skills should be tested, without being clear about what communication skills are, when they are needed, and how they should be tested. Moreover, actuaries have ‘talked themselves down’ as being ‘bad communicators’ and so to some extent CA3 supplies an apparent solution where in many cases there is no problem to solve.



• Hypocrisy of the IFoA: The communication skills demonstrated by whoever wrote much of the IFoA’s core reading (and I can substantiate this with examples) falls short of the standards of communication that I would consider acceptable. Eg. CT8 refers to ‘interest rates going negative’. Since when has this been acceptable English? The same applies to ActEd text which frequently refers to “it”, eg. “it can be seen that it...” when the context of what “it” is actually referring to is poorly defined. In light of this I find the IFoA’s comments frankly patronising. They should get their own house in order before lecturing on communication skills.



• The fallacy of the concept of jargon: When the IFoA and David Wilmott of ActEd refer to “jargon” they are not being specific about what they mean. Of course what is “jargon” and what isn’t is a function of audience. If your audience (or you are told your audience, say in an exam) is one who is likely to understand rudimentary financial concepts then use of a commonly recognised technical term like “discount rate”, “commutation”, “rating factor”, etc should be permitted – and should not be branded as “jargon”. It would frankly be ludicrous for these terms not to be permitted; the length of explanation needed would render comprehensive explanation impossible and importantly lead to potentially dangerous misunderstandings. On the other hand, if your audience is a lay person (say a pensioner member of a pension fund or a policyholder of an insurance contract) then the information should be explained to them in such a way as they understand it: if this demand the use of a technical term such as “interest rate” say in an annual SMPI then a definition of the term should be supplied. Else, again, not using the correct terminology succinctly can potentially give rise to dangerous misunderstandings, eg. the policyholder would not be able to compare with confidence that they are comparing the same things!


• The problem with actuaries (and humans generally!): That said, I agree that the ability of certain actuaries to express themselves clearly and elucidate a complex concept is frankly appalling. Equally, the way I have seen some calculations in spreadsheets laid out (for repeated use or future reference) is poorly thought-through. This applies to trainees as well as qualified actuaries. Clearly many actuaries qualified in times when all that was sufficient in terms of communication was to write legibly in the three-hour paper exams.

• Not answering the question asked: I also agree that trainee actuaries (and people in general) show a tendency not to answer specific questions with an answer that is relevant to the question, and no more – I think this in human nature, although we can train ourselves to be more specific. However, this problem is exacerbated by the IFoA not setting exams that are fit for purpose. The IFoA revels in setting exam questions, particularly for the CA, St and SA subjects that play on the ambiguity of the question asked. It’s pretty simple really: if you ask a garbage question you will get a garbage answer!


• A solution?: Relaunch CA3 as a face-to-face course taught by people who work in business who can actually communicate complex issues in plain English. These are people in the real world; not ActEd employees, so-called “communication experts” (really just English graduates who can’t get a proper job), and the like.
• During the course candidates will have to write clearly to explain a technical concept, speak in front of the group, and sustain attention to listen to others speaking.

 

Having recently failed CA3 and receiving exam counselling I completely understand much of the frustration people have with CA3.

Until I sat CA3, I thought that communication was one of my strong points. How wrong was I!

On the randomness point, I think a large contributor to this is not knowing where you went wrong. It would really help if they split the feedback you're given into a grade on each section with an overall grade (and then ideally to show it's not a money spinner only requiring a resit of the failed section).

On the application, many of the units you had to watch in the build up to the exam were poor at best. Only a handful of the presenters showed enthusiasm and many of the presenters failed to avoid the mistakes that were highlighted throughout the units.

As part of the online exam process they make you test you're camera settings, and I was informed that my setup was fine. It then came as a shock in my exam counselling to find out that I had lost marks through the examiner not being able to see any gesticulation due to my arms being out of sight.

Personally, I would prefer CA2 and CA3 to be replaced by an improved WBS system in which you did minor projects that were reviewed by a qualified actuary. As currently the CA2, CA3 and WBS hurdles add little to no value (this not just my view, but the view of the two actuarial companies that I have worked for who both gave no salary increases for these exams).

 

COYS1988: "Until I sat CA3, I thought that communication was one of my strong points. How wrong was I!"

Don't think that about yourself! Just because you failed CA3 that does not mean that communication is not one of your strong points.

Is what you have written in your post poor communication? No!

CA3 is the problem in all of this - not you. See what I said in my post above.

 

Some candidates have used the Data Protection Act's Subject Access Request to try and get hold of these details. This works, since comments written about you by the CA3 examiners in your presentation are classed as your personal information (not theirs, as many mistakenly think). The IFoA have had to release these. That may be a cost-efficient way of getting feedback compared to paying £200+ for exam counselling.

The exam counselling is some actuary who wasn't the examiner trying to tell you why you failed. I think that situation is flawed as well. Why can't the examiners themselves write a report to tell you exactly where you went wrong? They spend 3 months before giving you the grade.

 

Great post jdx.

I've quoted the above just to help underline the point I hope. It's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy isn't it, to tell ourselves we're poor communicators then set up an exam with a persistent 50%+ fail rate to 'prove' the point.

Reminds me a bit of politicians who say there's poverty and boast about how they will 'combat' it. Then their solution is to create some kind of elaborate expensive poverty commission or suchlike, employing lots of useless people on inflated ill-deserved salaries, who spend most of their working lives sitting on committees, busily working to 'combat poverty'. The top jobs in it oay fat cat salaries with the bonus of very little public accountability.These jobs are reserved for the cronies of politicians such as party donors or some other type of political party brown-noser, who eventually will use this as a springboard for honours by the queen or a seat in the Lords.

The quango fails to work as there's still poverty in society, so they throw even more money towards those complaining employees of the quango who claim they can't combat poverty properly until they get more resources. Funnily enough the poverty persists and politicians continue to rob taxpayers to fund this failed quango. But it makes them feel good, it's a convenient way to reward their cronies and/or a pleasant career after failing as a politician themselves. However, the poverty persists.

Hmm, a bit of a tangent there but I can't help feel that if CA3 pass rates did get up to 80-90% then justifying its continued existence would be harder. Additionally, it takes way more than a CA3 exam to address whatever communication issues actuaries have. Just like with the quango example, the IFoA have set this up as a tick box exercise to show they're doing something, when in reality we know that it's a farce.

 

If I expressed exactly what I think of what you were told there I would probably be banned off this forum.

 

Haha! They did this in the past and had to sack them as they were terrible...

..and if you think English graduates can understand actuarial techniques then it's clear that you don't know any English graduates

As for ActEd tutors, they have to present a mock-tutorial as part of the interview process, and from what I've heard the tutors employed are a very select bunch of actuaries who actually have an ability to communicate without sending the audience into a coma...

 

So is saying CA3 is a lottery then not bothering to study for it then failing which then "proves" your point...

 

bobbathejobba, I think you have misread what I wrote?

1. I am saying that English graduates are precisely who we do not want to be assessing CA3.

2. ActEd tutors may well have needed to run a mock tutorial as part of their interview process. I don't think that qualifies them as particularly good communicators. Indeed, some (not all) ActEd tutors I have come across have been atrocious at explaining concepts as soon as they become remotely technical. But this is irrelevant to my point anyway; I'm saying that the CA3 course should be taught and assessed by assessors who are real life business leaders (not necessarily actuaries, but could be) who are qualified by experience and who are acknowledged as good communicators.