CA1 4th Attempt!

So I just wrote CA1 for the 4th time now. And so that's the third time I've paid for it out of pocket. So it's cost me something like 1600 Pounds out of pocket . I've had an FC, and 2 FB fails so far.

I've generally found it easier to write my answers down with time but I don't seem to have gotten too close to passing. If I don't pass I'll die. And if I get an FA I'll die more.

It's going to sound like a contradiction now. But let's say the the pass mark is somewhere between 55 and 60. The FB fails have meant that all I needed to do was get between 7 and 9 more marks - so that's between 14 and 18 more points on each paper. This kinda makes me sad. I mean, those marks have proven to be very costly to me now. And it's not like I don't understand CA1. I dislike this exam and don't think it's particularly useful. Most of us will only ever apply a small portion of what is in that exam because we tend have quite focused careers. And the stuff that is applicable to us every day? Obvious in practice! Or else someone's always there to remind you about things to consider. Or else Google. etc.

I'm tired of forking out for CA1, IFOA! It's too expensive. Most of my uni courses were cheaper and with those we get a semester of lectures, assignments marked and tutors to help push you over the line.

Not cool

 

Why you not interested in a subject that teaches you how to think? Unlike other subjects its not about what to do...

 

- Too much of it is not appropriate to my line of work
- Too much of it will never be appropriate
- A lot of what it has to offer is so generic and obvious in practice
- Even if it weren't obvious in practice, there's almost always going to be someone or something to remind you of the basic things to consider
- It's genuinely not improved my ability at work more - whereas I feel that the CA2 and CA3 (South Africa) courses were way more helpful. Especially CA2 and people at work, unbeknownst to them, love me for it
- It's not adding to my knowledge in the way ST8 might - largely because I do completely think that the stuff in CA1 is, sorry to repeat myself, obvious. I mean, after having read through that huge volume of notes I don't recall having ever thought, "Wow, never thought of that before" or, "Who knew? That's interesting. New stuff."
- After so many attempts at something that's not adding to my life or career but ruthlessly ransacking my shallow pockets I'm completely uninterested
- I feel like it's an unnecessary extension to CT9 which was also a waste of time.

I have no problem with the other subjects (yet). And I should have only ST7 and SA3 left if I manage to pass CA1.

 

As a fellow repeat offender on CA1, I wanted to show some solidarity. Apart from being based in the UK - and with a different path through exams - that list could have been written by me. I'd have also added that it's the only subject I've sat where I have to work out exactly what it is that the question is asking.

I've taken a lot more than four attempts at CA1, so I feel your pain If it's any consolation, though, I've leapfrogged it and finished all the specialist subjects (the same ones you are sitting), so you don't actually need to pass CA1 before those others. And it's much easier to focus on CA1 when you've got nothing else left to study...

Best of luck for 9th July!

 

Wow, thanks for that solidarity! That really helps a lot - I was thinking of skipping it in September as well if I don't get through. Hopefully I can skip it for a better reason, and good luck to you too..

 

I agree with Edwin, this is one of those exams that teaches you how to sound like an actuary. As you progress in your work you will be required to address things with a holistic view e.g. when making a life product you will need to know how its investments work. CA1 just brings forward the grand scheme of things in the actuarial world.

I understand you've struggled with CA1 but I feel it might be something as simple as exam strategy. IFoA's exam critique really helps in that case as does Acted's ASET and mock marking. Try taking an ST instead to get your confidence back up.

I understand the expenditure hurts right now but you'll make up for it very quickly once you qualify

 

I find with these Actuary exams is very easy to forget stuff especially after they are passed.

 

If it can be of any comfort, I passed CA1 on my fifth attempt. I strongly agree with a lot of criticism on the exam structure, but being practical my suggestions would be:
1) you really need to study CA1 by heart. No matter how much business experience you have (and I have a lot) you cannot build a list of points from scratch during the exam. I tried and always got FA/FB. Study your acronyms (I'll post separately on this)
2) Get X-series assignments corrected by ActEd. They are an excellent tool to ensure you do your studying at a pace. The tutors correct quickly and very well. Their feedback is very helpful and totally convinced me of point 1) above
3) I also had an exam reviewed by IFoA but I do not recommend that. It took too many weeks to get their feedback that when it arrives you have little time left to act upon it, and it is quite expensive too. X series marking was much better for me.
3) Do not prepare any other exam with CA1. There is so much stuff to remember
4) You will pass. You have gone through much harder material. It is just a matter of humbly studying the stack. In this sense CA1 is quite a formative exam for a bunch of nerdy know-it-all as we can sometimes be...

Best of luck!

 

I think you're right when saying studying by heart and that there isn't enough time to generate enough points during the exam. I didn't sit for this exam yet. I'm afraid the Institute is fostering us, people unable to problem solving but great in learning chucks of core reading material by hearts. That's completely the opposite of where I come from, Italy. And where I studied. The exam is one question. Always new and never seen before. You have plenty of time (time is never a factor to test). You need to show your problem solving skills. I've learned about exam technics only when I start to sit for actuarial exams and I think it's very very wrong indeed.

 

It is my 5th or 6th attempts now (I lost count!) as well.
The key problem for me after attempting 2 times is that I just lost the passion in the materials covered.
After passing the STs coming back to CA1 is a challenge especially as it requires you to "dumb" down the knowledge and apply broader thinking instead of focusing on specific issues. Answers from examiner reports are not helping as well where some model answers are too broad which can be interpreted valid by some and considered not that relevant by others having more experience in the sector.

The equivalent US exams are much more appropriate in my opinion (more like course work style) given majority of the materials covered are mainly background (for many even wiki could tell you more).
I would argue that the benefits gained from this exam to working actuaries is minimal. Why form a giant written exam (not one but two) simply to test "how to deal with certain situations" based on a shallow depth of knowledge and testing majority of students who have likely chosen a specific sector?

In fact, in real world, it woud be a bad practice to have a false sense of confidence in feeling "know it all" and tackle an area (like investments) where one would likely to have little experience in it.

I understand the profession would like students be prepared for critical thinking and think outside the box or be flexible to switch to other sector, but in reality there is definitely much better way to do this.

 

Hi which STs did you do ?
How do you find the STs easier or harder than CA1 ?
Did you get the STs on first go ?
Thank you very much

 

ST7 and 8. Not on the first time. 2nd time for 7, 3rd for 8. 1st time I did it with CA1, got a painful FA as a result for CA1, not a good idea looking back.

Both I feel more relevant at work, and because of the scope is defined more properly, you could expect questions and answers are more directly linked. These two are the exams I would actually recommend to analysts starting in GI to first study even if they don't pass immediately. Mainly because the profession provides little GI background knowledge to help working GI actuaries during initial stages.

CTs for me are focusing more towards life/investments and basic stats.
CA1 is supposed to be the part providing products & background training, but because it needs to cover broad topics, the level of detail is not sufficient for GI students at work. By the time GI students got through CTs and CA1, likely to be 2~3 years already at work. The result is that many students are left without basic background training startng their career in GI.
I have no idea why the profession would structure exams this way, at least in my opinion pretty ineffective to train up quality GI actuaries.

 

I don't know why I failed. Even after going through all the past exam papers.

I am not sure how memorizing stuffs from the core reading materials would help anyone in real life. What good would it do if I just memorize some nerdy phrases (and obviously maintaining the serial) and vomit it in the exam scripts? Too frustrating, guys!

 

I passed this exam this time, on my third attempt and having passed it.....I have even less respect for the exam than I did before.

I already had the passes I needed to stay on my graduate scheme from my April sitting and I found the notes really, really boring on the third run through so I studied massively less than the first 2 attempts and still somehow passed. The only thing I did differently was to learn the acronyms from the app, as everyone who attended a tutorial said thats what was taught and they are really useful (I never attended a tutorial). Turns out they are really useful and you can pick up a lot of easy marks, but as I said in a separate forum post, it goes aganst everything it tells you in the core reading. "Generate distinct ideas" - nope, regurgitate a set list of mildly reworded points from a set list, as that is what the mark scheme undoubtedly is for those questions.

Shower of sh*t of an exam and I'm glad is out of the way...I had a great sense of enjoyment throwing away the notes last night. I don't think I will miss them, since there is nothng in there that isn't common sense or google-able in 10 seconds.

 

The acronyms alone won't get you a pass because sometimes some of the initials aren't right in the context of the question. So use them to brainstorm then filter and apply as relevant. It's amazing how those that fail do get the harder marks but forget to state the obvious, and this could well have been where you went wrong previously.

 

So I thought I'd come back to this thread and update it because, you know, maybe it will help someone else some day.

I passed this exam finally - on the 5th attempt. I had an FC, followed by three FBs for my first four attempts but here's the somewhat odd thing:

I hardly studied the fifth time round - I'd wanted to study but I just could not bring myself to pick up any books or revision notes and hints I had made (and I'd made a ton of these over the last 3 years). I actually only started reading my main set of acronyms and personal summaries the weekend before (this is an 80-page A4 book which almost basically turns the whole CA1 syllabus into acronyms). But even that is tough going in just a weekend so, as you can imagine, there's only time to read and think about the acronyms rather than actually learn and test yourself. In fact, I didn't even get to the very end of the acronyms before the first exam and I remember flicking through the last 10 pages just before I sat down to write.

So how did I pass? (Given that previously I had prepared WAY more. For instance, on the fourth attempt I did 10 exams under exam conditions, marked them strictly trying to see where I was falling short, actually learned my acronyms, thoroughly revised my extensive set of word associations, and made sure I knew my set of project risk types which I had painstakingly grown over the years with associated examples, issues, mitigation techniques and so on, and read through the ActEd summaries twice. And that was not even the previous attempt for which I put in the most effort! Although, contrastingly, on my third attempt my poor energy levels and disbelief also resulted in a weekend-before-exam study stint! And subsequently I hated myself for it, knowing how expensive the exam was. Nonetheless, I repeated that 'craziness' on the fifth attempt because I was destroyed again and felt like I was on the brink of either just quitting or resorting to perpetually waiting for some luck some day.)

The difference (I think): Bringing a highlighter to the exam (because I had taken note of someone else who'd done that the last time). I didn't even think I'd really use it but, for whatever reason, it just made sense to use it when the exam started.

Why was it the difference? It forced me to consciously acknowledge the important aspects of the question by highlighting those parts. In turn this helped in so many other ways.

- I felt I understood the question more quickly than I might have previously done. When you don't have to highlight it's easy to just read on and actually miss or under-appreciate key parts or words.

- It helped me RE-read through questions WAY more efficiently because I could literally just read the highlighted sections and know exactly what was required. That way I eliminated the waffle, so it was a faster and thus less tiring process.

- I think it reminded me that this subject should be about specifics of the question primarily, and then the acronym that applies. So answer the question, say the obvious and what comes "naturally" and then ask yourself what acronym or bit of core reading is associated with this question and whether it can be modified or utilised for more points.

- Continually seeing those highlights somehow forced me to quote those key words and phrases in my points - when an examiner has many scripts to mark, I think it probably helps to guide them as much as you can. They probably want to find relevance in your points and sometimes, on a point that may otherwise be a bit vague, it may just take some nudging. But also it shows that you're really trying to apply yourself to the question rather than churn out a bunch of generic points from the core reading.

And one last point, this was the first time I told myself that it was okay to not finish! Quality over quantity! For paper 1 I didn't even attempt 20 marks (mainly on the one question I knew I'd really struggle with). I didn't attempt / get to 16 marks on paper 2. But that freed up a lot of time to really produce better quality answers on the other questions.

And if none of the above actually helped me, then it's luck! Whatever the case, I just wanted to say, HANG IN THERE! It's going to happen for you. And you'll be mesmerised one day when you see your name on the list.

 

CA1 is alright but I wouldn't say it taught me how to think. It taught me how to memorise in bulk. It's a hurdle exam and I think it's pretty much designed to be. A toll collecter before you go on. The exam could be made to be more helpful and practical. At the moment, it's a crash course in cramming information over months and participating in a speed-writing sport.

I passed it by the way, so this isn't based on mere frustration.

 

How much pages to write in exam to complete 100-100 marks?
And how much Expected pages to pass it?

 

It's not about quantity it's about the quality of your answer. I was once told be a points Hoover! Basically it means write concisely and hit points quickly. Don't keep going over the same point but move on to new relevant ideas that actually answer the question. It's not about brain dump everything you know and hope it counts. Stop, think, and make it count. That way you feel less time pressure. Good luck