April 2008

[LangeSohne]

Thanks Genesiss

I had a look and faced my fear - much like Luke in the forest in ESB.
Well, I guess that I covered some of the factors!!

YEAH!!!
At least 2 points!!

 

[M1ke]

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!

I think I know how they will mark this paper. They will take the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th best performing candidates from the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th worst performing exam centres.

 

[Little Miss Actuary]

I impressed that you know about such stuff though!

I didn't have a clue in the exam! I googled it when I got home to find out what it was.

 

[Procrastinator]

M1ke

I think I know how they will mark this paper. They will take the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th best performing candidates from the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th worst performing exam centres.

LOL!

Little Miss Actuary , thanks for the earlier welcome post!

 

[anon2]

I think I know how they will mark this paper. They will take the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th best performing candidates from the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th worst performing exam centres.

What was the rationale behind that??

 

[CA2 student]

What was the rationale behind that??

It was the investment strategy in one of the questions on the paper

Edit: Or did you mean the rationale behind the exam question? If so, wasn't it to hold a diverse portfolio and avoid the most volatile stock?

 

[samuel_von_gudmange]

Its called "Applications", not "Recite the Chapter".

I often feel that with CA1, we're not going into enough detail to really be applying anything. It's more like Core Mentioning Things.

Even in the examiners reports it often seems like they're just mentioning loads of things from the course and occasionally throwing in a word from the question - doesn't count as application in my book.

That said, it looks like it's usually a very tough exam. I think that the April 2008 exam might have been a bit easier than past ones that I've seen. It's just a matter of whether the my common sense ideas were broad enough (and overlapped with those of the examiners enough).

 

[peter]

I think that the April 2008 exam might have been a bit easier than past ones that I've seen. It's just a matter of whether the my common sense ideas were broad enough (and overlapped with those of the examiners enough).

Well said - I feel exactly the same

 

[vix]

I often feel that with CA1, we're not going into enough detail to really be applying anything. It's more like Core Mentioning Things.

I have to say, that made me chuckle. I think you should suggest that name change to the Institute!

 

[saber]

Hindsight Bias

I wasn't too surprised by the exam's focus on applications. After all, I got an FA in the same exam in April 2007. Due to hindsight bias, past papers look easier to some people than the paper they actually go through. My opinions:

1. It doesn't pay off to write a lot in a question where you are not sure. Rather spend time thinking about a few solid concepts related to it than to waffle blindly.

2. The wedding insurance was clearly a GI question. So, thinking of the usual GI risks and factors was a good starting point.

3. Paper 1 was probably harder because the last 3 questions were all tricky. First, the 4th,5th,6th,...etc. in the 4th,5th,6th,...etc was testing higher skills. It's supposed to be a passive strategy and I can see the point made by CA2 student that it's supposed to avoid the most volatile stock...but then why not just hold the 1st,2nd,3rd,4th. Also, this is only covering 4 sectors so the portfolio could be made more diverse...so the rationale isn't clear at all. As always, we needed to think WIDE here and think of lots of possible things.

Secondly, the question on pricing actuary was 16 marks! You needed to think really broad here. Thirdly, the last question in paper 1 on Pensions was also not very straightforward as there were a lot of marks available for not a lot of much straightforward points we could make.

"Common sense is nothing but a collection of misconceptions acquired by the age of 18." --- Albert Einstein

Bon Chance!

 

[Monkey_Mike]

saber, did you pass the exam in September 07 then?

otherwise what's the point in your post?... afterall, you did get an FA...

It doesn't discuss the CA1 exam in April, just gives your opinion on how to answer the questions...

16 marks on the pricing actuary, I had it split 10 technical, 6 "professional", its hard to say what would have scored, I just listed as much as I could on each, there were way more technical points than professional that you could have raised

 

[samuel_von_gudmange]

Aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh!

Results in just over a week.

Anyone else planning for resits in September? I came out of the exam thinking that maybe it could go either way, but now the possibilty of an FD is haunting me!

 

[LangeSohne]

Follow up to previous comments

Hi All

I haven't been posting for quite a while, but I thought I'd say something about this exam.
The result that I got for the April sitting was FA - arrrrrrggggghhhhhhh - I'd never received an FA before and to receive it for this course was really painful.
I mean, 6 hours worth of exams, countless hours reading and memorising the lists amounted to nothing! I felt so broken that I didn't really know what to do. I remember that the results came out quite late as well - something like late June or something like that - which effectively meant that I had to redo all that I did for the April sitting in something like 2 and a bit months.

Anyway, after spending ages feeling sorry for myself, I decided to start again.

I remember how I felt after the April exam, AND, since I had left a few comments on this board, I had notes on what I thought were bad about my performance in the April exam.

Due to time pressure, I quickly skimmed the course notes, and got cracking on past papers, lists, and revision books. I then realised that I was actually quite lucky to get my FA for the April sitting, since I didn't really know what the questions were asking for. I realised after spending much more time actually analysing the past papers that - although the questions were always vague, it was possible to figure out what parts of the course the questions were examining based on how they were worded in the past.

Anyway, I passed this time round, and I'm much happier for it. The moral of the story is that you should spend lots and lots of time just looking at past papers to see how the examiners "word their questions".
This might sound like the most obvious thing to do, since we should all be used to doing this for other exams, but I reckon that it's more applicable for these "wordy" exams. For your interest, I'd only done the CTs before attempting CA1, and it had always been pretty easy to figure out how to answer questions where you're asked to calculate something.

However, for the higher-level questions, the examiners phrase questions in a more "open-ended" fashion, thus causing some confusion for those who aren't so familiar with it.

What a rambling post! Anyway, I hope that this helps those who are attempting CA1 for the first time - deciphering the CA1 questions really is an art form - but you should find that your efforts are rewarded eventually!

 

[Edwin]

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 cancelation of wedding due to err... loss of credibility of groom after sever drunken and disorderly behaviour on the stag night or something....

Hahaha, actually last night when i did the paper i thought of things like, the groom or bride suddenly changing their mind about the wedding or other girls disrupting the wedding because they were also promised marriage by the groom leading to court cases. I also thought of the groom being too drunk on the night before (I KNOW ONE WHO WAS)!

After seeing the shallowness of answers in the ER reports, i wondered if we have to be creative or be creative the examiner's way.

But i guess wailing and wallowing does not pay! Only more practise and study can help.