What do you think of the CA3 Course at imperial...
Page 40 & 41 of the attached link
https://workspace.imperial.ac.uk/business-school/Public/programmes/Programme-Handbooks/Programme Handbooks 2012.13/MSc AF Programme Handbook 2012-2014.pdf
Course outline:
Day One: The concepts
Day Two: Various practical applications
Day Three: Assessment 1 - Spoken Presentation
Assessment:
Summary
There are three parts to the assessment. Points will be awarded for each assessment as set
out below. Students are required to achieve a total of 3 points (or more) to pass the
course. A maximum of two re-sits are permitted for each assessment.
Assessment elements
Students will be assessed on their ability to: (1) deliver a spoken presentation; (2) provide a
written response to a technical question; and (3) write an executive summary of a longer
technical piece.
1 Making a spoken presentation: Students will give a presentation to a group of fellow
students. The presentations will be filmed for later assessment by the Course Instructor.
Students may select any topic they wish, so long as it is relevant to an actuarial
audience. Students are encouraged to choose a topic they are confident speaking
about. They may re-use the topic from their Actuarial Practice Presentation if they wish,
but they must give the presentation individually.
The target length for the presentations is 10 minutes. Anything more than 8 minutes and
less than 12 minutes is acceptable. A length outside that range is not an automatic fail,
but it will contribute negatively in the overall assessment.
2 Short explanation of a technical issue: Students will receive a (quasi-)technical
question from the Course Instructor. The question will be sent out in mid-October.
Responses should be received by early-January 2014 (exact date TBC)- earlier is fine.
The responses will be judged on their intelligibility to a lay person (i.e. a non-actuary with
a reasonable level of business knowledge, for example someone who is capable of
reading the Financial Times), but it does need to be technically correct as well!
3 Executive summary: Students are required produce an executive summary of their MSc
Research Project or one of their Applied Projects. This is a separate exercise from the
Research/Applied project. Students may incorporate the Executive Summary into the
project work or produce something separate. The Executive Summary will be separately
assessed by the Communications Course Instructor for its clarity to a lay reader and its
effectiveness as a summary of the longer document. The deadline for this exercise is the
same as for the Research/Applied Projects.
Assessment marking
Each of the three parts of the assessment will be marked separately and independently of
the other two. The marking scheme is as follows:
Clear Pass +2 points (but only +1 point on a re-take- see below)
Marginal Pass +1 point
Marginal Fail +0 points
Clear Fail -2 points
Students are required to achieve an aggregate score of +3 points (or more) to pass the
course. So a single marginal fail will not result in a failure so long as the student achieves a
Clear Pass in one or more of the other assessments.
Re-takes and individual tuition arrangements
Students whose work is assessed as a fail (Marginal Fail or Clear Fail) will be required to re¬
take that part of the assessment. Students may re-take the assessment a maximum of two
times. The maximum score awarded on a re-take is +1 point (so there is no point re-taking a
Marginal Pass in the hope of securing a higher grade).
The Course Instructor will have an one-to-one meeting with each student requiring a re¬
take in order to ensure that they understand what is needed to secure a pass next time
around. These meetings will be scheduled at a mutually convenient time (in the early part of
Spring Term 2014 for Parts 1 and 2).
The (provisional) timing for the first round of re-takes is as follows:
Part 1 In the early part of the Spring Term 2014
Part 2 Deadline for responses will be mid-April 2014
Part 3 October 2014
The timing for the second round of re-takes will be determined, if and when the need arises.
Students whose work in Part 3 is assessed as a Marginal Fail will not be required to re¬
submit that Part of the assessment if they have already achieved an aggregate score of 3 or
more points from Parts 1 and 2.
Students whose work in Parts 1 or 2 is assessed as a Marginal Fail will not be permitted to
wait until the outcome of Part 3 in order to see if they need the extra point from the earlier
part. For timetabling reasons, the re-takes of Parts 1 and 2 will be scheduled before Part 3
has been taken.
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