1. Posts in the subject areas are now being moderated. Please do not post any details about your exam for at least 3 working days. You may not see your post appear for a day or two. See the 'Forum help' thread entitled 'Using forums during exam period' for further information. Wishing you the best of luck with your exams.
    Dismiss Notice

Acronyms in exam scripts

Discussion in 'SP1' started by Trevor, Sep 14, 2021.

  1. Trevor

    Trevor Ton up Member

    Hi,

    I am wondering if it is acceptable to use acronyms/short-forms of certain common words.
    For example:

    BE - Best Estimate
    RM - Risk margin
    SCR - Solvency Capital Requirement
    These 3 are more common in SA1/SA2 Solvency II topics, in SP1 "Capital Requirement" is more often used. But I think they mean the same thing in SP1.

    IP - Income Protection Insurance
    ACI - Accelerated Critical Illness
    SCI - Standalone Critical Illness
    PMI - Private Medical Insurance
    LTCI - Long Term Care Insurance

    NA - Net Assets
    PVIF - Present Value of Future Profit
    EV - Embedded Value

    The application of these will obviously be within the context of the question.
    For example, "NA" used in an embedded value question will be pretty obviously referring to Net Assets.


    I understand the safest way is to write them in full, or have a short note at the start of the paper listing the acronyms used in the script.
    But this is not always possible given the time pressure in exams, we may be rushing really hard that we don't have time to even make this note.

    Can anyone advice on this?
     
    Trevor, Sep 14, 2021
    #1
  2. Mark Willder

    Mark Willder ActEd Tutor Staff Member

    Hi Trevor

    I'd definitely recommend defining these the first time that you use them in a question. And then defining them again if you use them in a later question (as markers tend to mark a batch of question 1's and then a batch of question 2's, they won't be looking back through your script). The examiners will want to know that you understand these terms.

    I agree that solvency capital requirement and capital requirement can be used interchangeably. It feels more natural to abbreviate this to SCR.

    The examiners may define terms in a question, eg they may use the abbreviations for the products, in which case you can too.

    I agree that the exam will feel time pressured, but it is important not to rush. It is very easy to miss the point of a question and write lots of things that miss the marking schedule. It's better to allow for some thinking time, you will write less but score more. Be strict and move on when the time for a question is up - it's always easier to score marks at the start of a question than squeezing out the last half mark at the end.

    Best wishes

    Mark
     
    Mark Willder, Sep 14, 2021
    #2
    Trevor likes this.
  3. Trevor

    Trevor Ton up Member

    Hi Mark,

    Thanks for the advice. I haven't though about the examiner actually mark questions in different batch/sessions.

    When you mentioned re-defining them, I assume you meant re-defining only once per question right, not once per sub-question.
    So I would only make a general statement under question 2 (for example), and then 2i, 2ii, 2iii... would be using the acronyms without re-defining it again within each sub question.
    Although it is easy to simply copy-paste what I wrote, but it is rather a distraction. In worse case, there is a risk of scroll and writing answers at the wrong page of the document.
     
    Trevor, Sep 15, 2021
    #3
  4. Mark Willder

    Mark Willder ActEd Tutor Staff Member

    Hi Trevor

    I agree that you shouldn't need to define an abbreviation in part (ii) if you've defined it in part (i).

    Best wishes

    Mark
     
    Mark Willder, Sep 15, 2021
    #4
    Trevor likes this.

Share This Page