I agree - I couldn't tell which bits of the course were being examined in paper 1. At least in paper 2 there were a few more bookwork questions... I'm just glad it's over!
Also annoyed by the fact that all the studying for paper1 was for nothing as most was not related (directly) to a specific chapter :-( Why's this thread so quiet though? How did everyone get on?
I think we are well aware of the "applications" in this subject, but to be honest out of 48 chapters it is pretty hard to try and guess what route the examiners want you to go down. A little bit more direction in the questions would make it easier for the people who have fully prepared to show off their knowledge instead of making it a lottery as to who hits the points included on the marking schedule (like in paper1)
rolleyes: Well spotted anon2. It is called Core Applications Concepts. I'm sure no one is expecting to have to recite the notes. The least one could ask for is that one is asked to apply their knowledge of the course as opposed to their knowledge of wedding insurance for example.
hmm I agree, but we are always told to work on the core reading. I spent many an hour on reinsurance, underwriting and data. None of these came up
Well given the 23 marker on pensions in Paper 1, another 17 marks for DB schemes in Paper 2, looks a bit biased towards Pensions to me. The GI question was on wedding insurance - sure that's fair, esp when people not in GI had to learn about the 'real' types of GI products and reinsurance for them... And where's Life? Oh yeah, that 8 marker on long term sickness / external environment in Paper 2. And what's with 'discuss the costs' for the private foundation for international competition? Surely that's a describe? Well we're told to pay attention to the instruction word, but that just confused me. Don't mind me, I'm just bitter at the thought of having to resit it...again
paper 1 was pretty odd to say the least (compared to previous papers). I thought paper 2 was quite fair though...
I'm not too sure how I did in the first paper. I wonder if, overall, the 2 papers were equally as difficult as past papers. I'm not to sure what the pass mark will be. Any ideas?
What I Thought The only grievance that I have is that the exam questions were too "open". Most of the time, I couldn't even figure out what they were actually asking for, or thought that their questions could have been referring to many parts of the course. Eg, the questions seemed to be so ambiguous that they could have been referring to any of : ACC, Modelling, Investment etc etc, but only worth a few marks. So what does one do? Should I just make a guess as to what they're trying to ask me (and then in the next examiner report expect to see comments like "Many candidates were confused as to what was being asked" - well, OF COURSE WE'RE CONFUSED, what do you expect when you ask ambiguous questions?) OR, should I just write as much as possible hoping that I'll manage to write something that MIGHT be on the examiner's marking schedule. Well, I think I can guess what most people TRIED to do. There does seem to be a common theme in our comments though, regarding the lack of a connection to the core reading. Now, I think that no matter how the examiners try to justify this by saying that we're supposed to apply our knowledge etc etc, I just feel a little bit hard done by because we've spent a lot of effort learning the course in the even that we'd be examined on the course material. Otherwise, why issue core reading at all - why not just have an exam that's called "General Studies" that doesn't have any course material, but just examines our knowledge of issues in everyday life (that could incidentally be relevant to the financial/actuarial world?) After all, isn't that more or less what we've just gone through in the CA1 exam?
Hi all, I think LangeSohne summed up exactly how I feel about the exam. Hard done by for sure, and really cannot believe how far away from core reading the exam went. I know some people think we are moaning about this but I think we have good reason. Like everyone else here I put a lot of hard work over many months studying the course. I went to an 5 day tutorial and asked many colleagues who had passed for advice. All the advice was about learning the core reading, the lists etc and the intelligently applying them to the situations given. I seriously think I could have done equally as well (or badly!) in this paper had I never studied the CA1 course material. Also, as a GI actuary I was appalled by the lack of GI questions. There were more marks available for knowing about banking than there was for GI! Good luck to everyone - I think we all need it!
Actually after the experience in the morning with paper 1, I was all but muddled up for the afternoon! These two were way out of the expectation on CA1 exams.....you can imagine the pain of reviewing 4 past exam papers for each of 2007, 2006, 2005, and relevant questions from 301, 302, 303, 304, 305. For me there was no difference between paper 1 and paper 2. that's core applications for you!!! I probably should have combined with ST2!
So how does the marking work for this paper? I didn't really know what was being asked for a lot of the questions so I did my best to exercise common sense. I've put down roughly 2 (or more) points for every mark that seemed reasonable at the time, but who knows if they will or will not be in the marking schedule? Where I didn't know the answers I just went all out for quantity. Expletives are required to describe how much my arm hurt by the end!
Yep, I'm also wondering what guidelines the markers have for this exam. I'd be pretty unhappy if I see remarks like "Many candidates listed answers that were unrelated to the course. Marks were not awarded in such cases," in the examiner's reports. I would hope that since they wanted to test us on our common sense in this sitting, that they'd be consistent and give us marks for using OUR common sense! For instance, wedding insurance should probably cover things like loss of wedding rings etc, BUT since they've cast they're net out so wide (I mean, does wedding insurance actually exist?), then they should accept some creative points as well, like cancellation of wedding due to err... loss of credibility of groom after sever drunken and disorderly behaviour on the stag night or something. Maybe specific examples aren't appropriate for highlighting what I'm trying to get across, but I hope that you see what I mean. 6 hours of exams - many, many more hours of studying - I hope that they take this into account. Well, if we see an eg. 90+% pass rate, then we'll know that they've probably used their common sense and awarded us for writing common sense answers! Otherwise, we'll just have to sulk and sulk, but by the time the next sitting comes along, we'd have all forgotten about this exam! You know, I've always liked to look at the last two papers to gauge the recent moods of the examiners (and I'm guessing that this is a common thing) - I wonder how future sitters will react when they see this paper...
Yup, and it's even sold through a well known national chain like in the questions... http://www6.marksandspencer.com/pages/default.asp?PageId=home&Product=WI Here is the summary of cover: http://www6.marksandspencer.com/pages/default.asp?PageId=PolSum&Product=WI
Fair enough... I don't want to look at the link though cos it'll only make me worry about what I wrote in the exam! I impressed that you know about such stuff though! Getting married soon? (You don't have to answer that). Oh well, we'll just have to wait and see now, and hope that the examiners are generous...
