Firstly please feel free to move this to the "exams" thread if someone considers it more appropriate there... ...but I wanted to see if anyone shares my view here (and there is surprisingly little comment to April 08s exam on the exam section!). April 08's exam was HORRENDOUS! Having now done all of Asset (05,06 and 07 papers) except for Sep 07 which I intend to do the day before the exam, both 04 papers and the 08 mock, I was getting fairly confident about this exam (hopefully my last ever!). Mock came back 66% and the past papers I've marked myself (Albeit very difficult to mark your own) were usually coming in between 55% and 65% and I thought this seems like it should be ok provided I dont get a really nasty paper. I've just done April 08s. Having to PROVE the Bayes Credibility stuff!!! Plus all the assumptions. That was 9 marks left out entirely with the intention of coming back to it at the end if time...which it turns out there wasn't. Because both the big maths questions (the rest of the credibility theory model 2 and the BF method) were way too much to do in the alloted time. Meaning that despite doing the first 50 marks of the paper in less than 1 hr 30, I ran out of time for the last 5 marks, plus the 9 I had missed out. So that's 14 down the pan... ...Throw in the earlier (Q3) detailed question about General Insurance Guidance Notes and reserving reports which - apart from name and number - arent in the core reading at all and it specifically says AREN't required reading. This seems unfair at best - but for a non-GI person (I work in pensions) it seemed totally unreasonable. I managed to write lots of "possible ideas". But it was pure guesswork / common sense and may not be at all what is in the GNs. I better read them now! On a tecnhical pedantic note, the first 5 marks about pros and cons of guidance notes didnt even say they were GI guidance - I was tempted to spend 5 marks worth of time writing about pensions GNs! - bad question! Theres 2 ways of looking at this: 1) The examiners were in a foul mood when setting the 2008 exams. In which case we're in big trouble next week. 2) There's no way the examiners can set 2 nightmare papers in a row - espeically after 7 or 8 very "fair" papers in succession. I'm really hoping for the latter! Dont suppose anyone knows the April 08 pass mark do they? Must be really low. and the pass rate I suspect too... Rant over - but just wanted to know if anyone agreed with me! A (somewhat disillusioned) Greg
agree. A08 and A06 look much harder than most others. I think pass rates in these two session were low.
