CT8 April 2018 results

I wouldn’t just keep going. If you think something is wrong, do something about it. I kept going and the IFoA has ruined my life

 

And what if you fail? Are you ready to buy all the material again and take two exams rather than one on a topic you’re not likely to ever use in your entire career?

 

Have they released the exam fees and recommended study hours for that yet? I wonder how it compares. Also would students have to buy new notes. I feel really bad for the 70% who failed this time and are now stuck with one CT8 attempt left or thrown into new system with added time/costs to worry about.

 

Well if we fail we fail. What else can we possibly do? Of course i'd rather not buy all the material again. But as you say the IFoA agreed to allow a 31.6% pass rate to stand for this very tough paper. They are the authority here so we are pretty much stuck with whatever they decide.

 

That's a good point. I think IFoA need to be held to account for this.

 

"Nine hundred and eighteen presented themselves and two hundred and ninety passed."

Goodness me that's 628 people failing this exam.

 

Surely students have to query this with IFoA, also I'd suggest get in touch with newly-elected Council members rather than just IFoA staff. FRC won't look at anything until you've exhausted your complaints with IFoA first. Ultimately it's a matter for Director of Education Mr Clifford Friend clifford.friend@actuaries.org.uk

 

That's really good advice - thanks. In your experience, have the IFoA ever rectified something like this or do they always stand by their original decision?

 

Dear all,
You are reasonably intelligent people.
Take a step back.
Ask yourselves the following:
If 95% of people passed CT8 (as is the case on the imperial course) How much money would the IFOa lose in the next 1,2,4,5,10 years???
You have been failed for a reason.

Search Imperial uni Actuarial science Masters. They boast about 95% exemption rate.

If you think that is bad, have a look at the following:

 

A competence standard must be an essential requirement for working in the profession. are we to assume that all qualified would pass the exam? if not why not?? If the standard is too high, then it cannot be an essential requirement. The irony of this is that you can only challenge this if you are disabled. If there is an equivalent exam in other countries where the pass rate is much higher, then yuo might have a direct or indirect race claim based on nationality.

 

In my experience they fail to rectify and resort to obfuscation. Regardless of past conduct one has to put the matter to them to give them a chance to address it before taking it elsewhere, as anyone outside IFoA will need to see their final response before proceeding. I say be careful of delay tactics tho - I don't see why this matter requires more than 14 days for a response given they've already made their decisions. My understanding (hopefully not out of date) is that final pass mark is decided by a Board of Examiners meeting attended by Director of Education.

 

I would add that you have 3 months less 1 day to bring proceedings in the ET and 6 months less 1 day for the small claims or county court.
If you can find any European body with easier exam papers, then yo might have a direct or indirect race claim in the ET.
The other alternative is the IAI. I use to get 70-80 % on them I could nail them. They have a 50% pass mark. That might be the better solution.
Get in touch if you want help with your claim. DONT WASTE TIME.

 

If it was all about the money then I expect they'd let more people pass so that we all have to pay fellowship membership rates for little extra cost to them.

 

They have no authority. They are ranting on about how they are a regulator but they are not. In 2005 the government already put the FRC in place to monitor the IFoA due to the dissatisfaction of members as well as the failings of the profession to “regulate” its members.

I know it is difficult to complain as they don’t even have a complaints process.

If you want to take action please get in touch with me privately.

Action is being taken and you’re welcome to be a part of it.

 

You will have to pay higher membership. That’s why they’re introducing Chartered actuary. You can be qualified and start paying higher membership fees sooner. In the meanwhile, nothing wrong with collecting a bit more in exam fees and making people repeat a few exams to add a couple of their time to qualification is there!?

 

Don’t forget you can’t join the IAI if you’re British... only Indian nationals can join and have 4 bites of the cherry. British people are only allowed 2

 

According to the chief execurive of the IFoA there is no risk in moving to the new curriculum. The IFoA have lied to stakeholders to get the new curriculum out in place. If people were properly informed

Yes they’ve released the study hours. It’s 200 or 250 per “subject”. There are two exams in each subject and the IFoA have changed their mind several times after publishing the curriculum about whether the individual papers of the “subject” can be sat and passed seperately. I was previously taking 1 CT at a time due to other commitments. That was 125-150 study hours officially although one student on here claims to have spent 300 hours. Now the study hours are 250 each sitting and I will lose exams CT6 and CT1. Where do I find 30 days or more study time especially when I have only been following the “long term planning guidance” published by the IFoA which has just vanished from the internet. It is of serious concern to the public that the IFoA acting in an unprofessional and unethical manner

 

I passed with 60, first try.
I don’t think the exam was harder than usual, but unfortunately, the Acted material for this course was not clear enough, or complete. The chapters about b&s, could be better, The example with the two bonuses scheme, where b&s formulas were applied, was important but not too well explained (whent to use d1, or d2, or what they mean) Also the last two chapters, lacked clarity. I struggled to understand Martin-Girsanov theorem just by reading the course notes.
I felt it could be better, as it usualy is.

 

Does CT8 go from being 125-150 to 200-250 hours then, oh my

 

So if the historic pass rate was maintained then over 200 people who have failed this time would have passed.

 

Congratulations DYH, you did very well to hit 60%. I thought that I had potentially done enough to hit the 58% mark but I must have made a calculation error on one of the questions as I scored a few % lower than this.

Personally, I found that I was consistently scoring 15% higher on the past papers (where pass rates were 55-60%) on the lead-up to the exam. So I still think that the exam was considerably harder than usual - otherwise I would have scored 15% higher!