Waste of money Or so I heard. They mark scripts up to three times and to go back on a decision would contradict three people. I've considered this but one has to get through the denial and move on. Sorry...
I think the above link is the most honest appraisal of appeals the Profession has ever given. But before doing anything, look at the exam solutions and try to see your shortcomings. My own view is that exam counselling is the better way, IF you can go into it with the attitude that you are there to find out where the marks went and get help on what to do better. If you go in simply to gripe, it won't be good value. The benefit of counselling is being faced with your script. As far as I know, an appeal won't do that. My other reservation is whilst appealing you aren't really committing to the next session/resit and you may find yourself on a slippery slope. But if you are absolutely convinced you may be the one exception that does win an appeal. The final decision has to be yours.
I agree with bystander. In addition to a better attitude (because you are in all likelihood to resit the paper) and a better outcome (an idea of what you could have done better), I believe that counselling includes an appeal of sorts. I think it was quoted on the forum that if the staff actuary/counsellor thinks you should have passed on reviewing your paper, the result could be changed.
Appeal I had exam counselling and an appeal on the same exam (exam counselling first - following the exam counselling, I still couldn't believe I'd not got enough marks to pass, so I paid for the appeal myself - it was my first attempt at the final exam). The same person marked my appeal as who did the exam counselling - this actually wasn't made that very clear initially and obviously once this was made clear there wasn't much point with proceeding with the appeal, but I'm stubborn!. I don't think it is always the same person who does both, but there are only so many experts on each particular exam at the institute. My grade stayed unchanged at FA. As part of the exam counselling the exam counsellor will re-mark your script so they can find out where in their opinion you missed out on marks. If they found as a result of this re-mark that an obvious mistake had been made then they would challenge this grade As was stressed to me in the exam counselling, the marking is based on a spreadsheet/grid system and either you have the marks or not.there's really not much judgement involved. When the papers are double blind marked if there is massive variation between the two markers scores the paper will be re-marked, and if there is a borderline mark it will probably be re-marked again. It was stressed to me that they actually want people to pass, not fail. I actually came away with a lot of faith in the marking system - it goes through so much review (four people sometimes) that it's very rare that a mistake is made, as the statistics on the number of successful appeals show. I still think I should have passed, but obviously 40% of the students scored more marks than I did, and I passed the exam this sitting. I think 5 extra marks or so were the result of the exam counselling and learning of some Acted provided Lists/Mnemonics. Not really a test of your actuarial skills, but it's all about getting enough marks to pass the exam, not proving you're an innovative actuary unfortunately. I have sympathy with the profession as the spreadsheet/grid style marking removes judgement from the marking process, so improves the consistency of marking, but I do feel sometimes not enough credit is given for alternative interpretations of badly-worded questions. Some credit is given, but not much, and blind adherence to the core reading will usually score most marks. Anyway, all's well that end's well, and my advice is that there's no point in appealing if you have already had the counselling.
I couldn't agree more with or put it in better words than TimDJ. I have used counselling for 3 exams and have always come out getting something to improve on no matter how small. I have usually passed the exam the following sitting. The only exception was exam CA3 where I took counselling twice and passed the exam after the 2nd counselling session.
