Advice on retakes

Discussion in 'General study / exams' started by deepakraomore, Jul 25, 2016.

  1. deepakraomore

    deepakraomore Member

    Am working in life insurance ( non actuarial).
    I spent almost 10 hours including 2 hours of driving a day for my job. Also have family responsibility.
    Am living in a vicinity ( small village ) where people are not even aware about actuary. I don't have any colleague who is studying actuarial. For exam I am traveling 300 KM from my place. That is nearest center for me.
    Any how I am managing times to study consistently. What I am having with me is CMP, past exam papers and acted forums. Whatever I am studying is independently and even if am not able to understand the concept, I have to understand.
    I am making my notes and ensuring nothing left behind from CMP.
    Recently I answered CT4 exam.I wrote about 82/100, and scored 54/100. These are my own marks ( since I have not availed any tuitions or extra material)
    I was confident to pass but something went wrong.
    What? ..I don't know. May be handwriting, notations or some silly mistakes. Till the result date I completed
    11/14 chapters of CT5.
    Please advice me on the tips and techniques for the answering exam and what to do?how to do? What extra required? How to avoid mistakes?
    And do I go for only CT4? Or 4 and 5?
    Thanks in advance
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 25, 2016
  2. bystander

    bystander Member

    What result did you get in the exam? If you sat with the IFoA at the last sitting, you should have got a grade and also exactly what you scored and the pass mark is quoted too. That will help you assess how close you really were. What do you mean by wrote 82/100 - did you not finish the paper? If not then one trick is that if you get stuck on one question move on and start another because the first few marks of each question should be easy and quick to get. Plus if you are borderline, it gives confidence you know the whole course.

    It sounds as though you are also funding your tuition itself. If you cannot afford full marking, then my suggestion is that you buy and get marked the CT4 mock and do that under strict exam conditions. This will be a good test firstly of what you remember of the subject and second feedback on technique, legibility etc. I think this will be a great investment. If you can quickly get through the rest of the material, you could equally use a CT5 to help in the same way and judge how prepared you are. BUt if the worst happens you don't want to rack up a string of subjects started but not passed.

    When you know how you feel on CT4, let that be an input into whether to double up. Usually I say a resit and a new subject can be combined but I'm not sure in your case. HOw would you feel if you narrowly missed both rather than sit and pass 1.

    You are doing well in CT5 in terms of getting through the material but how are you finding it? You often cant tell that until you entirely finish the course and look at past papers.

    Finally its not qualntity of study time that matters, its QUALITY. Make sure when you can study you do so actively and by that I mean writing and trying questions rather than reading solutions and thinking yes I know that. Prove it to yourself. If there are weak areas or questions where you don't understand the solution or why your idea is wrong, you can ask for support on the forum as you are doing here

    Good luck with the decision making. Once you have decided, commit fully and don't look back.
     
  3. Bharti Singla

    Bharti Singla Senior Member

    I am in almost same situation..no tution, no guidance, no colleague, from small village , nearest exam centre is 280-300 KM and only CMP to study. What should I do if I don't understand the concepts of course material ..don't you think the course material is not sufficient to understand the concepts? Any person from whom I ask for coaching always says,' the syllabus is huge but the material is not enough!' How the material is designed to study self?
     
  4. Hemant Rupani

    Hemant Rupani Senior Member

    Hi Deepak, looks like you've at most 2 Hrs a day to study on weekdays and some more in weekends... I am not in your situation to guide for exams- I agree with bystander's post.
    I would say you should try to take transfer in Actuarial department - I met a guy in exam centre, he was working in LIC, he said he can easily get the transfer in the actuarial department after passing predetermined numbers of paper. then you shall be in a better place.
    and you can also try to rent a noiseless room nearby your job location, at least for 2 months- depends on your family responsibility.

    Hi Bharti, I believe CMP cover all topics you need to pass exams - I haven't seen any Qs from past papers whose reference is not given in CMP... if I am right more than half students in India study self- so worry about your learning process, find any Actuarial study group in social networking, study hard.

    All the Best!
     
  5. bystander

    bystander Member

    Yes Cmp does cover everything you need. The early subjects are mainly maths or economics based. As well as this forum, if you get stuck, seek out other mathematical/ economics books that cover the topics to aid understanding. And yes, if your company has actuarial students albeit in a different department, contact them. They tend to be closer to the exams and hence more able to help than those already qualified who have either forgotten the stuff or syllabus has changed. Make sure however you always use the most up to date Cmp package. If you are retaking, check for updates on the web
     
  6. Bharti Singla

    Bharti Singla Senior Member

    thankyou so much for advice.
     

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