SP7 September 2020 discussion

Hi,
How did you find the exam?

 

I found this SP7 paper quite difficult. I was secretly hoping that they would make it slightly easier given that the pass rate in April 2020 was 20% (which I think is ridiculous!!!). There were very minimal bookwork questions compared to the past papers, but I guess they remove them on purpose given that is an open-book exam. This makes the paper overall harder !

The hardest question on the paper for me was the last question on capital models. How to parameterise Copulas, how to roll-forward parameters... I really had to use my imagination to come up with ideas but not sure if any of them are actually valid ways. Overall, the paper was very long and the chain ladder calculation did take a lot of time to do even when using excel.

I think the pass rate for this exam will be quite low again, but if it's as low as April I'm not sure that would be fair since all other SP exams have an average pass rate of 40%. IFOA need to adjust their marking somehow!

 

I found this paper harder than average based on the ASET pack. I didn't have enough time to finish so skipped the adjustment step in the triangles question and a few marks in the final question.

There seemed to be a lot of questions on regulation.

 

I found this paper very challenging compared to all the past papers I did. In particular I found question 7 (chain ladder) very difficult to complete in the allotted time and I feel I couldn't give due consideration to the final question as I was rushed and so found myself giving some sketchy answers. Like Yasmin, I was quietly hoping that this paper would be easier than it was due to the very low pass rate at April.

For question 7 I presented my answer by pasting tables from excel and then typing out the workings underlying the table, for example column a = column b + column c. Did anyone else use this approach to presenting their answer? I thought that the guidance on presenting calculations was a bit ambiguous and am unsure if my approach will be enough to be awarded the marks.

 

This was the same approach I took.

 

How did everyone’s results go? I failed with a 55 which was expected as I thought the paper was pretty tough. Interested to see what the pass mark was. Anybody know yet?

 

I failed with 58, also interested to hear what other pass marks were

 

The pass mark was 59

 

Examiners report is out. 399 attempted and only 80 passed. 20% pass rate again like April
They have explicitly stated in the report that given the open-book nature, this exam will be more application based.
Welcome to the new era of exam papers I guess!

I failed this session and part of my concern is associated with past paper practice.
A lot of the pre-2020 papers have significant amounts of bookwork in them, hence in all fairness I'm not sure if they are a true reflection now of these online exams.

Acted tutors - could you please advise alternative question practice papers that might be more suitable?
I'm considering to order the Acted Mock Pack and Additional Mock Packs however I'm wondering if these also contain more bookwork than the online exams? If so, would you be updating these materials?
I'm only asking because I had done the Acted Assignments for the September sitting however I found that some of them had a bit too much bookwork Qs compared to the balance we now see with these online exams.

 

Agreed with the above - even the mock exam for September still contained several book work questions. It would be great to understand what ActEd will be doing about this.

I’m also a bit miffed about the 20% pass rate two sittings in a row though. Both online versions of SP7 have had incredibly poor pass rates (I think the lowest of the SPs for both sittings) - does that not indicate something fundamentally wrong with either the difficulty of the paper, or the adequacy of the study materials available for this exam?

 

I agree with you. I understand it's tricky given that the exams are now open book, so the examiners can't allocate the same amount of bookwork marks as they used to. However it does leave us in a slightly tricky place and does make you think about the question setting I guess.

I found this exam very time-pressured and it was challenging given that the last 2 Qs accounted for 40% of the paper, so you really had to weigh up where to spend your time. That last Capital Q was tough - especially the parts on how you would parametrise a copula. Makes you wonder how to best prepare for these type of Qs, especially when a lot of marks are allocated to them.

Anyway, it is what it is - we live and learn!
Given what you've said about the Mock, I really believe it would be beneficial if the Mock & Additional Mock packs were updated (if not already) so that they are aligned with the current exams. I've found them really useful in the past for other exams - especially the marker feedback. So I would definitely like to use them again!

Congratulations to those who passed by the way!!

 

I failed both in April and September by just 1 mark (even less than that actually but they allways round down). I find it really unfair that they can control both the pass mark and the pass rate. Why should they decide to pass only 20% in both sittings where for other papers they have 40% passing with sometimes even lower pass marks? I am sure by having the SP7 pass mark being 1 or 2 points lower you wouldn't have 60% pass rate. They can do whatever they want without even justifying it and they don't even accept appeals because all they say is you can't question their academic judgement. Not really sure if I want to be part of this institute anymore...

 

I failed in April and in September again.. by 2 marks. 20% pass rate is just not fair.. SA3 had a 45% pass rate and it is supposed to be the hardest exam. This is just ridiculous and incredibly unfair. How do they even decide on the pass rate?

 

The whole process of the exams is just very unfair - you would think that on SP exams would have the same pass mark, so that they are all equally as difficult, or at the very least the same % of people pass, similarly with the SA exams. The worse part i've found is when you get the SAR and find one examiner passed you by 5/6 marks and the 2nd failed you - and so it goes to a review and they just fail you by a mark or half a mark because of rounding down. Really what is the difference between you failing by 2 marks, twice and the person who hits the "made-up" pass mark in the April exam, and again for a different exam in September. A slightly different question and it could so easily have been the other way round, or even if the 2nd marker had passed you it would never have gotten to the third marker.

 

I think it's definitely not fair and unless we complain together it's going to remain like this for future sittings as well. There needs to be some consistency between other SP/SA exams. It's so bad that they don't even feel the need to justify why this is the case as no one can make a complaint or do something about it. Do they not have someone regulating this? I feel like I wasted a year of my life all for half a mark and because they decided that the pass rate should be 20%.

 

I echo this comment as this is exactly what I thought when I discovered the September 20 pass rate was just as ruthless as the April 20 pass rate.

Thankfully I did manage to get over the line by achieving a mark of 60. My condolences to those that had to go through either of these harsh sittings and didn't make it.

 

I have emailed the IFoA education team at: Educationcomplaints@actuaries.org.uk

And I urge others to do the same, I have copied my message below for use if you agree with its content. I feel, as a lot of you do, that the exams this year have put students at a disadvantage, its fine for an exam to be hard but the standard of a passing candidate should surely remain consistent.

If people don't complain, it won't change. And I note Ians comment above about materials being reviewed for 2022, that is unlikely to affect those on this thread as we're sitting the exams now so this is irrelevant to us.

"Dear Education complaints team,

I was extremely disappointed to read the examiners’ comments in the September 2020 SP7 examination that states that because the exam was online, it was designed to have a larger proportion of higher order questions, which are, by definition, more difficult. It states that candidates score lowest on these questions, whilst acknowledging that some candidates score well. It also stated that the institute intends to continue with this style of exam for SP7 in the next sitting.

This change has meant that essentially the overall exam has become harder and a student is disadvantaged purely from sitting this examination in 2020 as opposed to 2019 and prior. Therefore, the current system is penalising students that have unfortunately had to take this exam in 2020.

This change was brought in for the April 2020 exam, but the examiners’ report did not state that there will be more higher order skills questions on future papers. The study material was not changed, and it was also not mentioned in the tutorials. Without this key information, students were not adequately prepared.

I understand the reason for this change is to replace knowledge-based questions, such as definitions, which a student could have an advantage with when sitting the exam online. However, if the exam has become more difficult, this should be reflected in the pass mark so that the ‘standard of a passing candidate’ is kept consistent. Logically, the exam structure and design should be kept the same as the paper version and the pass mark raised accordingly; or the new design with the majority higher order questions should be accounted for by setting a lower pass mark.

This unexpected change has meant that students may have delayed qualifying by a whole year, because the institute has failed to transparently communicate and adequately prepare candidates for a fair chance at passing the exam.

Therefore, I ask that you listen to this complaint and any others raised, to reconsider the following:

· your decisions taken in the calculation of the September 2020 pass mark

· your decision to continue with majority higher order questions in future online sittings of SP7 without adequately adjusting the pass mark to reflect the increased difficulty

· to reflect the change in examination format in study materials and other forms of education

· to ensure that measures are taken to transparently communicate future changes with candidates and tutors to put students on the same level of understanding as the examiners and give them a fair chance of passing SP7.
Regards"

 

Have you got any reply from the message above? I will send them a similar one today.

 

They replied last week to acknowledge receipt of the complaint and to say they will respond within 30 days, but no formal response yet.
Yes please also send in your thoughts to them - feel free to use my message above or to use it as a template.

 

I was inspired by @ActedStudent9 to also compose an email. I attached a breakdown of the pass mark, number of candidates, number of passes and the pass rate for every Specialist Principle exam which took place in 2020. I applied a colour scheme to the average pass rates per exam, and SP7 stands out like a sore thumb. I can't seem to paste it properly here, but the values are at the bottom, free for anyone who also wishes to use them.

I can get over failing an exam, but the harshness of this exam versus other exams which should all be of reasonably similar difficulty is just downright unfair. I would encourage anybody who also sat this exam in October and failed (80% of candidates!) to compose something similar to give their own thoughts.


"Dear Education Complaints Team,


I recently sat examination SP7 – Reserving and Capital Modelling in October 2020. I failed the exam by 3.5 marks. I received my SAR request and found one examiner had passed me, while the other examiner failed me. As is the usual protocol, a third reviewer marked my script and failed me – while disgruntled, I acknowledge that this is simply how the system works, and I accepted this result.


The examiner’s report for the October sitting of SP7 states that the fact the exams were online, meant that it “impacted the overall candidate performance in the exam, as exhibited by a relatively low pass rate compared to previous sessions.” I have reviewed every examiner’s report for every Specialist Principles exam from each of the April and October sittings in 2020, and no other exam has such a comment associated with it. The weighted average pass rate for SP7 across these two sitting was 20.4%. With a total of 653 SP7 sittings taking place over these periods, I don’t believe that a small sample size is a sufficient explanation. The next lowest for an SP exam across the same period was 31.5% for SP4, with the pass rates for the other exams ranging between 33.5% for SP9 and a high of 48.0% for SP2.


I would like to query as to why this is the case. The pass mark for SP8 in October was 57, with a pass rate of 37.1% - both reasonable figures for an SP exam. The pass mark for SP7 for the same period was set at a higher figure of 59, which resulted in the much lower pass rate of 20.1%. It simply does not make any sense as to why the pass mark could not be lowered by a couple of marks to allow for the difficulty of the exam. In the vast majority of cases, students who work in General Insurance will sit both SP7 and SP8, and so these candidates are essentially from the same cohort of student actuaries – there is no reason to believe there would be a difference in standard from one exam to the next.


As actuaries, one of our main roles is to take past data and attempt to predict the future, whilst applying actuarial judgement to spot outliers and trends. Before sitting the SP7 exam in October, I had seen that the pass rate in April had been 20.9%. However, I knew this was an anomaly, and that the pass rate would revert to a more typical figure for October. Ultimately, the final pass rate actually deteriorated further still. This now appears as though it could be set to stay. I have major issues with this, as the result of this will not increase the standard of actuaries working in General Insurance due to working harder for their exams; it will actually encourage them in the direction of doing different exams of minimal relevance to their daily work. While most actuaries learn the key aspects of their role on the job, the fundamental theory behind many methods of reserving and capital modelling is learned through the subject SP7, and this will be lost on students who choose not to sit the exam in order to avoid the overly harsh pass rate.


I implore you to review this with a matter of urgency in time for the April sittings this year. A reputation for an exam is extremely difficult to shake off, and if students feel a lack of trust and fairness from an exam which has substitute options in the first place, then they will avoid doing it at all.


Looking forward to hearing from you.


Regards,
"

Apr-20 Sep-20
Mark Sat Passed Rate Mark Sat Passed Rate Avg rate Weighted avg
SP1 60 206 91 44.2% 60 276 128 46.4% 45.3% 45.4%
SP2 56 421 182 43.2% 60 599 308 51.4% 47.3% 48.0%
SP4 62 177 46 26.0% 63 226 81 35.8% 30.9% 31.5%
SP5 64 249 112 45.0% 62 336 162 48.2% 46.6% 46.8%
SP6 60 37 22 59.5% 60 68 23 33.8% 46.6% 42.9%
SP7 58 254 53 20.9% 59 399 80 20.1% 20.5% 20.4%
SP8 60 274 111 40.5% 57 337 125 37.1% 38.8% 38.6%
SP9 64 268 68 25.4% 61 329 132 40.1% 32.7% 33.5%