Acted

Realise I may be being a tad controversial here but what do we think of Acted and the service they provide? Would it be healthier to be rival actuarial education firms?

 

Good, bad and ugly

Personally, I'd like to see more IT stuff happening - can't be doing with all this paper!

 

All in all I think ACted are great....I think tuts. are a godsend w/o which i reckon I would fail every session. Although I would say that I preferred 100 Series Tuts than 300 series Tuts.

I found with 100 series tuts, my understanding was made better and everything seemed more clarified and I felt then and there that i was ready to take the exam, whereas the 300 series tuts tend to be a regurgitation of the notes and I tend to be still insecure about certain subjects...although the exception to this would have to be the 301 tut I took with Ann Bishop (She was fantastic).

I don't really like the online service provided - I don't know what I was expecting when i first ordered it but the questions asked are for me pointless in learning the course. Although in saying that I know someone else who absolutely loves the online products and orders it everytime.

Q&As and assignments don't really look like anything they ask in the actual exams - this has always been the case for me since 100 series, but I still like to do them because I find that they help me to mould my way of thinking which is very helpful when it comes to the exams and I tend not to understand why alot of people choose not to do the Q&As.

ASETs - a tad too long i.r.o of the solutions they give but I prefer these solutions to the examiner's reports - again could not do w/o these.

Marking - not a big fan...I have to do them because my manager forces me to - but I have never been able to check over my work once marked even when I was in school.... and I know that my knowledge of the subject is never large enough until a few weeks prior to the exam when everything starts to come together, so I never really expect good mark from marking.
- additionally, sometimes can't read the marker's comments and last session, didn't receive my assignment back until after the exam.

But as above, I am fine with ACted....I get what I need from them.

 

Q&As - wow! what a lot of questions. but i recognise many as old (reworked) exam questions, so in fact i think they are representative a lot of the time.

ASET - i agree a lot of stuff, but it's all useful extras. I'd use ASET and examiners' reports together.

 

i don't know if this is actually true or just my impression (if I'm wrong feel free to ignore the rest of the post!) but since the new syllabus came in it's felt like there's been a lot less choice in terms of numbers and types of tutorials on offer for the later subjects.

I'm assuming this is because as there are more choices there are less students wanting to attend each tutorial - so ActEd can't afford to run as many.

Does seem a pity to me - not sure if anything could be done about it? Perhaps charge more for smaller class sizes (but then I guess won't work if prices are capped?).

Don't know what the minimum size of tutorial is for ActEd to run it?

Overall think Acted do really good work

 

I was thinking of variety of tutorials (standard, late, block, revision) rather than location but I guess both are a problem.

This whole issue probably feels more important to me as I've had a tutorial cancelled in both of the two sittings since the change over (although both times a place on a different tutorial was found for me)

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I have a different point to make on tutorials.

One thing I find slightly frustrating is that sometimes the tutors are maybe too nice. I suspect I may have to justify this quite a lot....

The situation I'm thinking of here is when the tutor says "let's list the things you'd need to know in the exam for xxxx" and goes round the class asking everyone to suggest something.

What I really would like from this is a list of say the top ten points in order of importance - which I think the tutor probably will probably have written down in his/her notes. However in all the tutorials I've been on the tutors try very hard to take something from what everyone suggests and to put a point up on the board for it - and I do appreciate this when it's me who has just come up with an unlikely reason because my minds gone blank. But it does mean that the list gets diluted by lots of minor points in no particular order and I end up not sure what the key points are.

I guess what I'm really saying is that it would be useful if the tutor highlighted what the key points were afterwards (perhaps having them up on the overhead projector).

 

I think the minor points are there to add to the more obvious major so that you score more (half/quarter) marks in an exam, and be able to expand a little on them in a more meaty question.

I've seen many exam solutions where the answers are 'outside of the box' (and outside of the subject sometimes). In my experience (and I've been doing these exams for tooo long) if a point isn't relevant then the tutor will tell you.

My moto - Have Acted, will travel!!

 

I don't disagree at all. I wasn't saying I didn't want to also have the minor points - just that I wish they would make clear what the key points are.

 

Have posted on a different thread about recording exam conditions for assignments. Guess it's relevant to this thread...

http://www.actedoffice.com/forums/showthread.php?p=866#post866