Just saw in the actuarial students email it says: “E-Shop – discounted price on pre-used Formula and Tables books These copies of the Formula and Tables books have been used by candidates sitting examinations in locations around the world. Now that all our examinations are held online they are no longer required in examination centres and so are being offered for sale at a discounted price of £10 each. (Condition cannot be guaranteed.)” Do you think that confirms exams will be online forever?
Hi, Yes, the IFoA has confirmed that both April and September 2021 exams will be held online. If you browse via the exams 2021 page, you will see this.
We don't think they have officially announced it but don't think they have any intention to switch back to in- centre exams. Selling off the old Tables would certainly support this theory.
Will exams continue to be morning UK time? Seems like us lot who are 6 hours behind are getting the short end of the stick here, I had to sit SP6 at 2:30am! Now I'll have to sit SP5 and SA7 at 2:30 am as well? Hoping the next exam period is my last but there has to be a better solution for this going forward surely for other candidates?
The solution adopted by other exam systems is to have different papers for different time zones. Usually two papers is enough to deal sensibly with most time zones. Hard to day if the IFoA will adopt this though.
Just to update on this - the IFoA town hall this morning announced they would be continuing online post Covid.
Unhelpfully it sounded like they wanted to stick to using Microsoft word for exams still, with the exam formats being changed to fit with it. Hopefully there will be more clarity on that for anyone doing earlier exams in April