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april 2010

P

phantom

Member
so how was the exam?

i keep forgetting, but did the two questions carry equal marks, 50-50? or was the presentation question worth more?
 
Tough! How does one define IRR and NPV without introducing further technical terms like 'discounting' etc? That was tricky! First question had lots of info. Selecting the relevant info was not easy. How did others find this exam?
 
How did you guys take the first question?

Was the question asking us to determine whether the proposed rating factors could be used to price the annuities?
 
phantom said:
thank you... that was reassuring coz i think i did the memo question better, and i didnt want that one to carry less marks..
Click to expand...

Cool, no worries.

The exam in general

I rushed through the first question as I thought the second question would be quite long. So I ended up with a few minutes to spare after completing the presentation. Unfortunately, this was not enough time to make any big changes to the first question, or re-write it to get closer to the suggested word count (I was about 50 words over).

How I handled the first question

For the first question, it took me about half an hour to just understand what to do and how to evaulate each of the options the marketing manager suggested. My approach was very simple: to comment on each option and whether they would make the annuity more attractive. I also took into account correlations between the options e.g. low survival rate regions generally had low earning individuals. Thus it would be rare to find a high-earning annuitant staying in a region with a low survival rate (or something like that). I also feel I said more than was required for the expense bit.

In conclusion, I should have spent more time on the first question. I am not sure if my approach was too simple. Hoping for the best now. Please give me a shout if you require further details. :)
 
i was better prepared for a Memo question, and i thought the Memo question was tougher, so i spent more time there..

had a plan in mind for the presentation - but was a bit short of time to complete it in good manner..

i followed the same basic approach as you for the memo, and also considered the correlation you mentioned..

hopefully the extra bright marks I gain for the Memo make up for the very stupidly lost marks in presentation..
 
how important is neatness for this exam?


Question 1:
All the info was straightforward and in the question, hardest bit was filtering it down.
A 350 word target is not much, specially once you take out 50 words for an intro and 50 words for a conclusion/sign-off.

When I counted words I was about 100 words over, yikes! Then had to spend time crossings lots of bits out which made the whole thing look messy.


Question 2;
Is drawing charts with a ruler important? I ran out of time and had to quickly produce the presentation in the answer book (it was all done on scrap).

The presentation was for a board of directors, so I assumed they would be familiar with a few basic terms used in the insurance industry, like interest rates. Is this optimistic for CA3?



Otherwise this exam seemed nice compared to the last few sittings.
What did other peeps think?
 
CA3 April 2010

On the second question I notice that the board of directors (i.e. the audience for our presentation) had specifically asked for analysis using different discount rate assumptions. I assumed that meant they knew what discount rates were (although I included a one line definition on the same slide where i defined IRR and NPV), but now i'm thinking they'll deduct marks for this.

I thought the first question was tough - difficult to filter out alot of the material and explain correlations etc in simple language.

By the way, do you think it matters that I did all my preperation - e.g. all my calculations for the NPVs for the second question - on spare paper, and then didn't hand this in? I assume not.

Given this has a historical pass rate of about 35%, I think it will be the 2 day course for me!
 
By the way, do you think it matters that I did all my preperation - e.g. all my calculations for the NPVs for the second question - on spare paper, and then didn't hand this in? I assume not.
Click to expand...

The marks are for communicating, not calculating, so having calculations on scrap should make no difference.
 
CA3 April 2010

yeah, i'm sure you're right.

its a bit silly that you had to spend 10 mins or more of the exam working out all the figure though! Or maybe I could have just made them up and it wouldn't have mattered?
 
CA3 course - how often can you sit/attend it?

I wonder how frequently you can resit the new CA3 course - you have to book these things so far in advance, and wait 1-2 months for results I assume, that I can imagine you'd be pretty lucky to take CA3 every 6 months in the future. Anyone have any ideas on this?

Obviously i'd hope to only take it once, but alot of people seem to get stuck on it.
 
You have to wait for the full 12 weeks for the results. But they are doing one day retaker course so I would think not many people go for the retaker course just yet so shouldn't have to wait long for that.

Not so sure why they need 12 weeks to mark the answers. You'd think they mark the presentation on the spot so should just be 20 answers to mark for the written paper.
 
April 2010 CA3 Pass Rate

Well i'm not suprised I didn't pass, but given the pass rate was only 20%, i'm not sure if I should be annoyed or encouraged by getting an FA (especially given the new FA categorisation).

Surely something is amiss if they're setting an exam that only 20% of us can pass! I think that's the lowest pass rate i've ever seen for an exam, and with the highest turnout too - nearly 1000 people.
 
Same here mate, really sucks especially after doing quite a few past year papers.

I went above the max word count by about 50 words for the first question, so I think that's what brought me down. Also, for the presentation, my definition of IRR was too simplistic. Can't recall it now, but my manager told me what she would've said and it differed quite a bit from mine. Other than that, can't say I battled on anything else.

I haven't looked at the solution as yet, but really don't care at this point in time, it just sucks...
 
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