New Exam Regulations

[Roy672]

Hello,

The Assessment Regulations were recently updated to say that "Images incorporated into the examination script will not be marked." We have always been told to paste graphs into our summary report for CP2 as images. Does anyone know if this still applies?

Recent communications from the IFoA have also advised that candidates should use double spacing in their answers - does this apply to the CP2 audit trail and summary report?

Would be grateful if any ActEd tutor could advise.

Thanks.

 

[Lucy England]

It might be best to ask the IFoA about this as they should be able to give you a definitive answer. The Education Services Team's contact details are here: https://www.actuaries.org.uk/studying/prepare-your-exams

Having said that, I would think that having graphs shown as images in your summary etc should be fine, since in the CP2 exam you'll be submitting the spreadsheet you used to create those graphs. It seems to me that the examiners want to avoid students submitting things like screenshots of workings from Excel when completing papers in Word, eg in CM1 they want to leave the Excel testing part to Paper B, so having Excel screenshots in Paper A scripts isn't what they want.

I think the communication about using double spacing between lines is from the February Student Newsletter. I can't find mention of this anywhere else (but please let me know if I've missed something somewhere!). The wording in the newsletter is "we strongly recommend using a spacing between lines of 2.0". This suggests that using this type of spacing is a recommendation rather than a requirement (it looks like it relates to ease of marking for the Examiners). It seems impractical to use this sort of spacing for CP2, because you wouldn't write a report like that! I'd therefore say that you should follow the CP2-specific guidance in the IFoA's Guide to CP2, where it just says to make use of white space. See third bullet up from the bottom of page 15, for example. So, I reckon you'll be OK if you just make sure your paragraphs aren't too bunched together.

 

[Simon James]

The troublesome paragraph is 33 (my emphasis)...
33. Candidates are allowed to use any standard function available in Excel, Word and R but this excludes the use of Macros.. Candidates must complete their assessment using keyboard entry only, unless the IFoA have agreed the use of dictation or handwriting conversion software as part of an access arrangement. Images incorporated into the examination script will not be marked

IMO the reference to images here is to stop handwritten answers being scanned and submitted as images. If pasting a graph as an image was NOT allowed, then a graph would have to be inserted as an object (problematic!) or as a link (also problematic and banned under rule 26). Pasting an image seems like the lesser of many evils!

 

[Logarithm n Blues]

If pasting a graph as an image was NOT allowed, then a graph would have to be inserted as an object (problematic!) or as a link (also problematic and banned under rule 26). Pasting an image seems like the lesser of many evils!

Could you elaborate on this please?
Previously I was copying straight from excel with ctrl+c, ctrl+v. I'm assuming this is what you mean by inserting as an object?
Is the problem here that it might mess with the formatting slightly?
I wouldn't do this at work for this reason but since the charts in CP2 tend to be fairly simple I thought it was probably more conventional to do it this way?

When discussing results I haven't been mentioning numbers that can be read from the charts in most cases. In the object method this seems to make more sense as the report user can hover over to read the exact values. If I paste as images would you recommend including the numbers in the commentary more? Or should I be doing this anyway.

 

[Simon James]

I expect loads of students have simply pasted objects (ctrl+c/ctrl+v) in the past with no issues. But...personal experience is that pasting an object may cause formatting issues, particularly across different versions of word/excel. Can you be sure that your graph is being viewed by the examiner exactly as you meant it to be? A static image feels safer to me.

I would also assume any report ultimately going to a client etc would be published as a pdf - so I would not rely on the reader being able to hover over bars/dots to read off values. If something is important enough to be drawn to the reader's attention, I would mention it in the text, not expect a reader to have to hover over the exact spot on a chart.

 

[Harashima Senju]

Hi all,

Can we safely paste charts as images in the summary reports?

 

[ntickner]

A couple of points: the examiners don't see your actual word doc - it's essentially converted to a PDF and viewed inside the web based marking platform. So comments about relying on hovering won't apply. If you want to draw the examiners' notice to something, it needs to be there when the document is printed or converted to PDF. (They do see your actual Excel workbook, though, fwiw.)

I would think, though, that the copying of images doesn't apply to graphs - there's much more concern about copying screenshots of complicated formulas in the exam question paper. Students often copy these in as images to save time writing them out themselves (which often leads to more issues, as they don't explain the notation properly, or don't implement the formula correctly in the model, and then lose both the mark for the wrong calculation in the model, and the wrong description of it).

 

[Sundance1986]

Can I just check if we are allowed to copy formula from the exam script into our audit trail/summary document? The examination handbook appears to imply that you can: "Candidates should be aware of the following if they wish to use Excel or similar software: • Data within Excel (or similar) should be copied and pasted directly into MS Word. • Screen shots or image capture will be accepted for marking but you will need to make sure the full working outs are visible to be marked. • Data copied from Excel (or similar) is not ‘linked’ to the source file. • Do not copy/insert an Excel (or similar) ‘sheet’ into word. Any formulae and /or numerical workings should be copied and pasted directly from Excel into your answer sheet." Obviously you would need to properly explain how the formula fits into your audit trail/summary document and that it matches what is in your model spreadsheet.

 

[ntickner]

Yes - you can, but see the bit in brackets at the end of my previous answer. In my opinion, you're better off re-writing the formula(s) in simple-to-type notation that is easier to edit & work with.