Bio and picture

I don't understand why they require a picture and bio. I thought this was a written exam. Are we not anonymous to the markers?

 

is that from the e-mail to download the app? I got an e-mail a while ago saying we would be contacted today but I haven't had anything yet in my work or personal e-mails, including the junk folders

 

Yes. They're telling me essentially this is a hangover from CA3 due to using the same app but I fail to see why for this now written exam why we must have a photo and bio when for other IFoA exams we don't.

 

Are you using a hotmail? I had the same issue. I called them up and ask them to send another email to my gmail and work email. Problem solved.

 

Right at the minute, I'm regretting ever defending the institute. Copy below of the e-mail I just sent them. Not even including the point I have to **** about trying to get a photo and write a biography all of a sudden in the final days before sitting 2 of the final exams. Going to have to call them soon but I'm trying to wait for the point I don't think I'll swear at them.


"I’m both worried about my exams and seething with the institute right now. Having the CP3 exam 4 days before SA3 was never ideal when you give us the data on the Friday before and want us to prepare the whole weekend, meaning, 4 of the 7 days before my SA3 exam gone to CP3. That’s annoying but an understandable problem – nothing will be perfect and I have plenty of advance warning so that I can plan around it to do the best I can – largely by dedicating a lot of time before that CP3 weekend to SA3 study.


So I plan to take CP3 at my office desk as I have no Microsoft Office at home, same as I did with no problem for CA2 before, and having had an e-mail saying I would get an invite to the environment on Monday 18th I made sure I am in the office that day to test it. No invite comes until after 9pm in the evening, long after I’ve left. Now I am in the office Tuesday, when I was supposed to be at home studying for SA3, to test the CP3 environment. For some reason, unlike CA2 which also involved uploading a word document, I need to download an application to the computer which I had no prior warning about before. I don’t have administrator rights on a work computer so I can’t install it. I contact IT and they say any new application needs to be downloaded by them and security tested before it can be installed and there is no way it can be done by Friday. So here I am, 3 days before the exam materials become available with no computer to sit the CP3 exam on, SA3 study increasingly sabotaged and no idea what to do. I’m livid at paying good money for these exams and I use up my study time off work and spend hours for exams that are getting screwed up because the organisation being paid hundreds to run it can’t sort out a decent system that works for everyone. "

 

Their advice is to try and borrow a computer for the exam period and presumably sit the exam on the kitchen table in my shared house or sat on my bed. Excellent. Unsurprisingly no solution to the mess up of SA3 preparation.

 

Tarbuck - why don't you do something about this? Just reading a small selection of posts, there seems to be a large proportion of students who are extremely annoyed at the IFoA. There seems to be one too many complaints against the IFoA on here. I think something needs to be changed at the IFoA. I am taking some action against them in a single capacity. I think more people should do the same to improve things.

 

Well I did complain and will do it as a formal letter this weekend. I think that's all that's needed. While they definitely messed up this exam it was the first ever sitting of it - I don't think it warrants much more. I definitely won't be joining the movement of retrospective complaints based on SARs after failing by a mark or 2, that's for sure.

I do actually think the new exam is still far too open to subjectivity so I'm not a huge fan of it even when they fix it. Again though, a matter of feedback rather than righting the wrong of gross injustice and misconduct isn't it.