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Booking Closed??

Dillon said:
You could use your CT passes to gain exemptions from the SOA prelim exams, finish up under the SOA system and then apply for IFoA MR. This is stated in the IFoA-SOA mutual recognition agreement.
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You need to do better research. I am just CA3/CP3 short here but would have to sit several exams over there. Not to mention all the other barriers and costs doing that brings.
 
almost_there said:
Indirect discrimination is when there's a practice, policy or rule which applies to everyone in the same way, but it has a worse effect on some people than others. The Equality Act says it puts you at a particular disadvantage.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/l...es-of-discrimination/indirect-discrimination/
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But why does it put you at any more of a disadvantage compared to somebody starting in 2 years time? You will both have to sit the exams you haven't yet passed.
 
almost_there said:
You need to do better research. I am just CA3/CP3 short here but would have to sit several exams over there. Not to mention all the other barriers and costs doing that brings.
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But you've already told us there is a big conspiracy preventing you from passing CP3. Why not go and sit the exams exams required in the US system that you aren't exempt from? Surely that will be much easier than achieving the impossible and passing CP3?
 
Firstly, I only have 3 CTs left plus CA2 and CA3 or whatever it is called now. I have passed all other exams. There would be no point in doing the later exams of the SOA as I already have SA3, ST7, ST8 etc.

Secondly, without knowing even where I live, how do you know the SOA has exams available? Do you expect I move to America or some other country so I can sit the exams?

Thirdly, your grand exam arbitrage scheme is flawed. You cannot claim exemptions from the SOA because of IFoA passes and then go and ask the IFoA to confer you the FIA due to the MRA. I can't chop and change between organisations, that is not an ethical way to qualify as an Actuary nor is it permitted as you can see from the statement below:

have attained Fellowship of the SoA by completing the qualification requirements of the SoA, which may include education and examinations co-sponsored with other actuarial organisations(including where relevant, obtaining one or more of the SoA’s examination exemptions that are available from time to time), and not solely in recognition of membership of another actuarial association;

I am not going to waste more of my time to investigate routes of exam arbitrage. These should not exist and the fact that you are pointing out one (if it is possible or not) demonstrates that people think they do. They didn't exist before, but due to all this expansion by the IFoA and EU regulations etc, these unfortunately do now exist, but the point is that they are unfair.

I have only made the comment regarding unlimited time as you have done the same. You've suggested that you have time to study, but the the fact of the matter is that I cannot take more than 1 exam per sitting. You do not know my circumstances and I do not wish to impart them on you. You should be able to respect this. Even if I had taken and passed two exams last sitting, I would not be able to take CP3 now as the exam entry has been prematurely closed. And you have also failed to make any comment on the fact that the IFoA changed the exam date on me at the last minute which resulted in the failure of my CT4 exam. The IFoA has even admitted fault and taken on board my suggestions with regards to the suggestions I have made and you will find that your exam entry permit has a the right time and date on it now, even if there are any last minute exam changes.

As I have said to you, the notice provided to me is not adequate. I received a personal email about CT4 and CT5 in January 2017 and I have only just been notified about CT8 about a week ago. I never had 4 sittings notice. Also as per my previous message, the IFoA have confirmed that 4 sittings notice was not enough the last time around. I have received no notice for the additional PPD requirements. This has just been imposed on me.

The IFoA cannot simply "change their mind" with regards to an exam timetable published for the specific reason to provide students with a guide to plan their exams long term. This is unethical and unprofessional.

You have not commented on the point I have made with regards to other unethical and unprofessional behavior in terms of doctoring documentation as the IFoA has done as there is nothing more to say. It is inappropriate.

Yes younger people who have just finished university and do not have other commitments can for sure take 2-3 CTs per sitting, but the fact of the matter is that I am not young.

Each CT exam requires around 125 or 150 hours. So say 450 hours in total with no failures which is quite unrealistic given the paltry pass rates. Your arithmetic doesn't quite add up with regards with regards to the time that I have spent "complaining". I have made 32 posts here, whereas you have made 17. I haven't wasted more than 5 hours here in total which is not even enough time to complete 2 past exam papers so I don't see how this would equate to be being able to passing more exams.

I am doing others a favour by bringing up these points and it is also the only place where students share their thoughts in an open forum.

We should remember the subject is CP3 here and the point is that it is not fair that the IFoA has closed the exam process early.
 
Dillon said:
But why does it put you at any more of a disadvantage compared to somebody starting in 2 years time? You will both have to sit the exams you haven't yet passed.
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Compared to the new students that start in 2 years time, assuming I lose CT6 if I don't pass CT4, and CT1 if I don't pass CT5, then I would have had to had sat CT6 plus the two new exams in CS2 and CT1 and plus two new exams in CM1, where as the new students will only have to sit the CS2 and CM1. Do I need to explain more?

New students will have to sit 4 exams, oldies like me will have to sit 6.

So does this answer your question?
 
I don't know where Dillon got that idea from.
 
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Infinity said:
Did you get a SAR? It is free and I have heard that there are vast distinctions between the marks that examiners give for the same script. They also apparently mark you down for your personal characteristics. I would suggest you get the SAR. Although since the IFOA have wised up to their legal requirements to disclose personal information they've changed their document rentention policy (also very quietly so that no one notices...)
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Yes I did get a SAR, and I have raised this on another forum.
In summary I got:
Marker 1: Written 38, Presentation 80
Marker 2: Written 54, Presentation 79.
The pass mark was 65 and I got 62.

I complained to Education Services about the lack of third marking. They said it had been, and was evidenced by comments in a moderated mark box. This is clearly not 3rd marking. I then complained via Putting Things Right. Person I dealt with agreed that it had not been 3rd marked and ordered it to be 3rd marked. I eventually got a 3rd mark of 50 for the written part. Academic judgement was applied to award me 64 overall, so failing by 1 mark.

I strongly believe that the judgement was clouded by the fact that I was originally awarded a fail grade and it would not be in the best interests of the profession to overturn a result.

If this was marked properly in the first place, I think I would have passed. So through mistakes made by the Profession, I believe I have been cheated out of my qualification.
 
Well as you can see from almost there's emails with regards to his SAR and the comments he has uncovered, I think they may have watched the Godfather part II rather than their own professional skills video.

So the question is what are you doing or what do you plan to do about this?

So do you only have CP3 left? Did you make the prematurely imposed cut and able to sit it one final time before you have to endure 3 years of further PPD?
 
I am particularly concerned as well as disturbed about this. If the person who has made the comment has acted upon his/her statement, this is not a trivial misdemeanour but rather a criminal act.
 
Gavin Kelly said:
Yes I did get a SAR, and I have raised this on another forum.
In summary I got:
Marker 1: Written 38, Presentation 80
Marker 2: Written 54, Presentation 79.
The pass mark was 65 and I got 62.

I complained to Education Services about the lack of third marking. They said it had been, and was evidenced by comments in a moderated mark box. This is clearly not 3rd marking. I then complained via Putting Things Right. Person I dealt with agreed that it had not been 3rd marked and ordered it to be 3rd marked. I eventually got a 3rd mark of 50 for the written part. Academic judgement was applied to award me 64 overall, so failing by 1 mark.

I strongly believe that the judgement was clouded by the fact that I was originally awarded a fail grade and it would not be in the best interests of the profession to overturn a result.

If this was marked properly in the first place, I think I would have passed. So through mistakes made by the Profession, I believe I have been cheated out of my qualification.
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Ok how do you do a SAR?
 
Edwin,

To request a SAR you need to send an email to Clifford Campbell (Clifford.Campbell@actuaries.org.uk), asking for a breakdown of your marks for your exam. You will have to mention the name of the exam, the date(s) you sat the exam on and your ARN.

They must give you a breakdown of the marks within 40 days. Usually they come back a little sooner than that.

I hope this helps.
 
To start I'd like to say I still don't believe any of the conspiracy theory/ deliberately bias marking stuff that's been talked about a lot, but I have been fairly unimpressed with the new CP3 exam so far.

Firstly, not only is the CP3 exam now in the 2 week block, you get the materials for it on the Friday for the exam on the Monday - giving you a 4 day block to dedicate to this exam, which is only a few days before other big later exams which most people will be sitting.

Secondly, the CP3 course notes worried me as they had a section on why they thought the pass rate was so low for CA3 which in my opinion was dangerously ignorant of what the problems were. They seemed to blame people not studying enough because they thought they could communicate already, likening it to somebody sitting a driving test again who had already passed it years ago. Aside from some of the talk on this forum which I think is borderline crazy, I've heard plenty of criticism of the old CA3 exam, from people who study an inhuman amount of time for any exam (I'm pretty sure most actuaries are pre-disposed to study a lot). The criticism was always that they didn't know why they failed, it seemed subjective, they would get feedback, try to use that and end up with a worse result. The driving test analogy seems to ignore the fact that driving into a wall isn't subjective - and from what I gathered subjectivity was the entire problem everybody had with the old exam. I was hoping they were doing something to fix it, that whole introduction made me think they didn't actually have a clue what the problem was. If they genuinely thought it was because didn't study enough, they have made it worse due to the reasons in my first point - now nobody can study for it independently from the other exams and dedicate the same amount of time they could before.

Thirdly, today I looked ahead to the April sitting next year - if I pass SA3 and fail CP3 this time I would be left with an ST7 and CP3 resit next time. Would I be able to qualify in April despite only having 2 resits left? No, because they are both the same afternoon. It feels like no thought has been put in the scheduling - if you're going to make CP3 clash with something, why not an early one like CT1 as they are unlikely to be sat at the same time and even if people did want to sit those 2 together, they are likely to have an alternative option to be able to sit 2 at the same time.
 
Where have you seen the April 18 schedule? Just been on the study section of actuaries.org and didn't see it.
 
They probably deleted it to confuse students like they did with the "plan your route through the exams" document which clearly listed dates and exams till 2020 with no mention of this ridiculous curriculum 2019 mess

The IFoA is just downright unprofessional and I wouldn't expect anything less. You can't trust any of the information out on their website at the moment.

They just told me they've made a U turn on the 3 year ppd requirement for those that were exempt from WBS. I can now supposedly count two years of previous experience whatever that means.

After closing the CP3 deadline early, another mess. Why can't they have the exam on a different day? I really wonder who is making all of these decisions at the IFoA?
 
Tarbuck said:
Secondly, the CP3 course notes worried me as they had a section on why they thought the pass rate was so low for CA3 which in my opinion was dangerously ignorant of what the problems were. They seemed to blame people not studying enough because they thought they could communicate already, likening it to somebody sitting a driving test again who had already passed it years ago.
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They should read student consultative forum notes from 2014 onwards and count how many of the reasonable actions requested by students were actually carried out.

If people can communicate well already in the workplace but fail this exam then I say the problem is with this exam. After all they tell us the CA exams test fitness to practice as an actuary.
 
Tarbuck said:
you get the materials for it on the Friday for the exam on the Monday - giving you a 4 day block to dedicate to this exam, which is only a few days before other big later exams which most people will be sitting.
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You only get the advance info on the Friday, I don't think you're meant to spend the entire weekend on it. Hopefully all the real work for the exam would have been done ages before this time, using course materials, assignments etc, which you can order way before the exam date.
 
Call me crazy, but I would have thought the best practice you could do both in terms of preparation for what could be asked and becoming familiar with the scenario would be to set yourself various different questions from the scenario that might be asked, answer them and then check them against the core reading advice and specimen paper answers. It doesn't specifically say spend all weekend, but I can't see how that doesn't give you the best chance of passing. Especially since there will be a significant number of people for whom this will be their last exam and only exam this sitting and they will definitely be doing this. So it makes sense to do it if you believe any of the story they spun in the CMP saying people hadn't prepared enough, because if you don't you will have done a lot less specific preparation than some others.
 
Well, it wouldn't be my choice on strategy. Given that you won't have all the info you need in advance of the Monday, rather than second-guess, I'd choose to spend time practicing the techniques (in different scenarios) suggested in the course notes, and getting feedback from other people. But each to his own - good luck.
 
well yes, that should be done before the exam weekend. I cant see how after having done that, with the information available and revision needed before the exam, it doesnt make sense to tailor some answers to the info. In the specimen paper with one of the few tables being a male and female split and gender not being an allowed rating factor being a hot topic, it was a guessable question. You will need the data in excel in a workable format anyway. Why when you have the data and have done the prep you suggested before would you not try and use the data given to you when it becomes available?
 
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