CT8 April 2018 results

Discussion in 'CT8' started by Dom B, Jun 29, 2018.

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Is it unfair to keep the pass mark at 60% despite the fact that only 31.6% of students passed?

Poll closed Aug 28, 2018.
  1. Yes

    13 vote(s)
    59.1%
  2. No

    9 vote(s)
    40.9%
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  1. almost_there

    almost_there Member

    I refer you to the Student handbook 2015/16.
    Page 65:
    When each marker has completed their marking they send the results to the lead examiner who will review
    the marks and form an opinion of where the pass mark should be set. This will change each session,
    depending on the complexity of the paper, and the students’ overall performance.


    Page 66:
    8 weeks after the exams the initial exam results for the CT subjects are sent to Oxford for uploading into
    the database and are used to provide a variety of statistics. One week later the Board of Examiners meet
    to discuss the results for the CT subjects. At this meeting the pass mark and the pass rate (the number
    who have passed out of those sitting) are agreed.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 8, 2018
    Dom B likes this.
  2. Dom B

    Dom B Member

    Funnily enough I quoted that passage from p65 in my letter to the IFoA.

    From p66, if a variety of statistics were produced, then results will be roughly normally distributed. Based on student experiences, including my own, the entire distribution of results for April 2018 will almost certainly be shifted to 10-15% to the left (compared with the long-term or 'typical' distribution).

    So, according to the handbook, it seems that the only thing that could have overridden the abnormally low pass rate and left-shift of the distribution of results is the examiners' personal opinion on the complexity of the paper (which is presumably how the complexity of the paper is determined?).

    Any personal opinion is based on judgement and subject to human error. Also the examiners know the answers to the questions they are looking at so do not have the benefit of looking at the questions from the perspective of a student under exam conditions. Any question that you already know the answer to will not appear to be a complex question.

    This is why student overall performance should really override the examiners opinion on the complexity of the paper.
     
  3. Callum

    Callum Member

    First of all, a few people on a forum saying they passed their mocks and failed this exam doesn't prove it's harder than usual. The sample size is way too small, and you expect people who failed to be more vocal here. If someone is getting 70% on their mocks then in an exam with only 11 questions the difference between passing and failing is only a case of misunderstanding one question. It's easily done, and it's perfectly plausible that plenty of other people succeeded with a question you struggled with.

    Students performance will vary (sometimes considerably) from diet to diet. That's a fact. You may have diets where the students are unusually ill-prepared and it would be negligent to assume it must be an issue with the paper and pass 50% of the students.

    Examiners opinion is based on a wealth of information and years of setting and marking scripts. If they've decided a question is fair enough, then it probably is. The examiners' report sets out the reasons why the pass rates were low and they seem fair to me. We're training to be actuaries, after all.
     
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  4. Dom B

    Dom B Member

    Actuaries are by nature introverted people, so most will not be vocal people. However, note that this thread already has ~ 2,500 views, so they clearly have an interest in what is being discussed.

    That is simply not true in this case Callum.
    • The examiners report highlights certain questions that almost all students struggled with (1,2 & 5 - I addressed these elsewhere in the thread)
    • The pass rate shows that most students did in fact stuggle with these questions
    Not to this extent Callum. Remember, these are student members of the IFoA, not people selected at random. Not to mention the fact that 918 of those students sat this exam which is a large sample size. If 60.8% passed in April 2017 and 31.6% passed in April 2018, there is clearly a far greater issue than can be attributed variance in 'student performance'. Myself and others on this forum have simply articulated our personal experience with this paper versus past papers which just so happens to correlate with both the pass rate and the examiners report.

    For example, take any university Maths programme. No university would allow 60% of their students to be awarded with a BSc in Mathematics in 2017 and 30% to be awarded a BSc in 2018 (and if they did they would have some serious explaining to do!). All these students met the same admissions criteria and had the same study material. It would be nothing less than sheer ignorance to suggest that the hundreds of 2018 students were somehow 'a bad crop'. The performance would be attributed to tougher exams and the marks scaled up (or down) accordingly such that a similar % of students were awarded their BSc from one year to the next. The same goes for A-Levels, GCSEs and other professional exams for that matter (and I have taken and passed a number of these).

    This freakishly low CT8 pass rate has happened once before in April 2010. And having worked through the past papers, the April 2010 paper was again clearly far more difficult to pass than almost all others. The fact that the examiners did not make a sufficient adjustment for this shows that there is a flaw in the examination system that breeds inconsistency and this urgently needs to be addressed.

    Out of interest, would you mind me asking how far you have progressed in your exams? Did you sit and pass CT8 in 2016 or 2017?
     
    Lapsed_Student likes this.
  5. Pede

    Pede Member

    Hi Dom B

    I voted 'no' in the poll, and you asked for reasons, so I'll give you mine. Please don't shoot me down - you've asked for an opinion, and here's mine. Caveat - I did not sit CT8 this year or last, so can't comment on that subject in particular.

    I personally believe that pass rates can (and occasionally should be expected to) fluctuate this wildly. It must be really difficult to separate a judgement of 'this paper was abnormally tricky' from 'students were generally ill-prepared'. Guinea-pigs would hopefully feed back that the paper was reasonable or otherwise. Were more people just having a pop to get through before 2019? I don't know.

    Past papers do get a very low pass rate from time to time - in other subjects too - I remember some pass rates in the low two-digits for some later exams! (But maybe these are different.) I would not know where to draw the line in terms of adjusting a pass mark to achieve a consistent pass rate. Would you be saying the same thing if the pass rate had been 40%? Or 50%? Where does natural fluctuation stop/start? Would you still be writing to the IFoA had you passed?

    I've taken other (actuarial and non-actuarial) exams where in some sittings the paper was mindblowingly tricky (at least to me), and others where in my view it was a giveaway. That's life in my opinion. Snakes and ladders - we'll face them throughout our entire career. I hope we become 'better people' as a result.

    2500 views of this thread - yes people are clearly interested. But virtually nobody has voted (the stats clearly have no significance as they stand) - read into this what you will.

    I hope you get a satisfactory answer from the IFoA. Best of luck for the remaining exams - onwards and upwards.
     
  6. Dom B

    Dom B Member

    Hi Pede, thank you for your reply and I have no intention of shooting yourself or anyone else down, I am just going to present what I see as relevant facts in any response. The Guinea-pigs are a very small sample, considerably smaller than 918 actuarial students who sat this exam.

    If you look at the analytics for the past 4 sittings, the numbers of lowest to highest 827-918 (with 902 in Sept 2017) so there certainly doesn't appear to be a surge in students (which is what you would expect if a number of students were having a pop).
    http://www.actuarial-lookup.co.uk/exams/14

    The later exams have consistently lower results so it is not abnormal to have a low two-digits result for these. Also, the STs & SAs generally have a lot fewer students per sitting, typically around 300. However, when you look at the analytics, even some of these pass rates are actually far more consistent than CT8, e.g. over the past 11 years the difference in max/min pass rates have been: ST1 (13%) ST2 (12%) - whereas CT8 varied by 29.2% in just one year.

    Just as they did for CT3 & CT5, if pass mark had been lowered such that the pass rate reflected something close to the long term average, whether that pass rate be 55%, 50% or 45%, I would not have any issue because that would be a consistent and fair reflection of the difficulty of the paper. However in these circumstances I would still be writing to the IFoA had I passed as I think that ~ 250 students have been short-changed.

    I completely agree, and that is what has happened here. Whilst you are absolutely right that this happens throughout life, it is unnecessary for this to happen in actuarial exams. The purpose of the exams is to test whether or not an individual has met a required standard, not to teach the individual that life is unfair sometimes (life experience alone will do that for you!).

    Likewise, I wish you all the best with the upcoming exams. Thinking of taking CT in Sept 2018!?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 9, 2018
  7. Bidza

    Bidza Member

    I am not coming out in defence of IFoA but I just wanted to point something out. The pass mark can also be reduced if there is an error on the paper. It is not always the case that it is reduced because examiners want to align pass rates to long term average. The pass mark for CT5 was reduced by 3 marks because of an error on one of the questions.
     
  8. Dom B

    Dom B Member

    Hi Bidza, thank you for your contribution and for pointing this out.

    I am aware that there can be other reasons for reducing the pass mark and this may be the case for CT5. However, pass marks are lowered more frequently than one would expect examiners to make mistakes when writing questions (e.g. CT3 alone has had the pass mark lowered to 55% in the last two sittings).

    However, I think there is something more important to the good point that you made. And point is that 'examiners are evidently capable of making mistakes', given that they are of course human. Now as we can show that examiners can make a tangible error, i.e. making a factual error in a question on CT5, then they are most certainly capable of making an intangible error, i.e. judgement around the difficulty of an exam from one year to the next.
     
  9. Jamie Brown

    Jamie Brown Member

    Think it's worth pointing out that if the pass rate was fixed, then it would effectively be a competition, with everyone striving to get into the top x%. This can't be right either. I expect they should have ended up somewhere between where they have and last session's pass rate. It's certainly not great PR to have left the pass mark at 60%. If it had been 58% and 40% had passed then I suspect we all would have all carried on.
    2,o00 views: I'm probably responsible for 6 of those.
     
  10. Dom B

    Dom B Member

    I agree with you regarding a fixed pass rate but pass rates should be within a reasonable deviation from the long term average. Over 22% below the long term average is unreasonable, especially when the past 12 sittings have all been within 6%.

    So any pass rate below 48% would be unreasonable in my view - and even 48% would still be the lowest pass rate since Sept 2011 and the 3rd lowest pass rate in history - which is still pretty brutal!
     
  11. almost_there

    almost_there Member

    Things just don't work like that anymore, actuarial work included. The direction of travel is towards more transparency, more objectivity and not trusting individual 'judgement'. It's not good enough for a Chief Actuary to say 'trust me, I'm a very experienced actuary' if say the SCR figure has changed by a lot more than all expectations.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 9, 2018
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  12. almost_there

    almost_there Member

    I would demand that any blame put towards students by IFoA for the much reduced pass rate to be cogently explained in an informed and objective manner, or the accusation withdrawn.
     
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  13. almost_there

    almost_there Member

    This is the core syllabus for actuarial training in Europe:
    https://actuary.eu/documents/CORE_SYLLABUS_Oct2011_final_AAE.pdf

    I wonder how much of the CT8 syllabus is in excess of these requirements... how the pass rates compare.... how the exam questions compare in terms of difficulty... and so on.
     
  14. Dom B

    Dom B Member

    UPDATE: I have received a response from the IFoA, and unfortunately, as many of the experienced posters on this forum predicted, they are refusing to take any responsibility for the fact that this paper was literally twice as difficult to pass as the 2016/17 papers.

    I am a full member of the following institutions:
    • The Chartered Institute if IT (and hold the CEng title)
    • The Institute of Mathematics & its Applications (and hold the CMath title)
    • The Association of Project Management (and am qualified in Project & Risk Management)
    • I was also a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers where I originally gained my CEng title
    The reason I have listed these is to state the following: In my experience, all four of these institutions display a far higher level of consistency in their qualification structure than the IFoA and I have never had any issues with these four institutions.

    The inconsistency of the IFoA exams is a serious issue that the IFoA seem completely unwilling to address. And until this is addressed, I suspect that many students will look to alternative routes to qualify with organisations who are capable of ensuring a consistent standard of exams, myself included.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 10, 2018
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  15. Dom B

    Dom B Member

    You made an interesting point here so I decided to look into this further. I discovered one way to become an FIA that does not involve playing the IFoA exam paper lottery and I am going to consider doing this myself. If anything I have stated in the following steps is incorrect, please do let me know:

    STEP 1 - Enrol on a Masters Degree in Actuarial Science at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland
    https://www.unil.ch/hec/en/home/menuinst/etudes/masters/sciences-actuarielles.html
    • The fees are a mere £440 (580CHF) per semester
    • It is taught in English
    • It is made up of 14 months of taught courses plus exams (Oct 2018 – Dec 2019) followed by a thesis in 2020
    • It meets the educational requirements of the Swiss Association of Actuaries (SAA)
    https://www.unil.ch/hec/en/home/menuinst/etudes/masters/sciences-actuarielles/perspectives.html

    I have amended this post to highlight that this is a taught (not distance learning course) as one student rightly pointed out.

    Once completed, you have no more exams to do!

    STEP 2 - Get 3 years work experience, then you can apply for the title “Actuary SAV”

    You have already met the education requirements in Step 1 so now you can progress with the first 3 years of your career without being weighed down by exams. Once you have three years’ experience, you can apply for the title “Actuary SAV” with the Swiss Association of Actuaries
    https://www.actuaries.ch/de/aus-weiterbildung/ausbildung-sav-pve-cera/aktuar-sav/studium-aktuar-sav


    STEP 3 – undertake a 1-year supervised ‘adaptation period’ and become a Fellow of the IFoA
    https://www.actuaries.org.uk/membership/mutual-recognition/actuarial-association-europe

    The IFoA has a mutual recognition agreement with the Actuarial Association of Europe which in turn has a recognition agreement with the Swiss Association of Actuaries.

    So all you need to do is 1-year of work experience in the UK that is signed off by a supervisor and you’ve completed your training.

    AND FINALLY
    Congratulations, after 14 months of studying & exams, 4 years work experience and 1 thesis you have become an FIA, Fellow of the Swiss Association of Actuaries and hold a Masters in Actuarial Science! Not bad at all.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 10, 2018
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  16. slayedit

    slayedit Member


    I must say, this is a very well thought out plan on your side. It actually made me reconsider my own options! instead of going through all the labor of rigorous papers, this process seems a lot easier and faster.

    One part you missed is, after 14 months of study, 4 years of work exp and 1 thesis, we become an FIA and get a masters in Actuarial Science with Fellowship of Swiss Actuarial Association!

    Very attractive scheme, but one thing remains that this course is not online, and you have to take it in the traditional class room style, going to Switzerland. This is one point that you skipped, on the downside.

    I will also look into this proposal myself!

    All the best to you!

    Regards,
    Shyam
     
    Dom B likes this.
  17. Dom B

    Dom B Member

    Thank you for your positive feedback Shyam, I will edit my post to incorporate the good points that you made.
     
  18. Callum

    Callum Member

    Hi Dom,

    I feel like you might be taking this a bit further than is necessary. If you were getting 70-75% on your past papers perhaps just put in a bit more effort so that when a hard paper comes around you don't miss out by 5%. CT8 is known for curveball questions so maybe look for papers with lower pass rates and attempt them before the exam. I know enough people who have qualified without failing an exam that it can't be down to sheer good luck. The IFoA exams are respected worldwide because they are difficult and if you're sitting them, it will test your resolve. If you are examined on something in the course and you can't answer the questions they won't give you anything for free. Remember, you only have to get 60%.

    I had a look at the paper and your comments about certain questions. Every paper has more or less difficult questions on the different areas of the syllabus. Question 1 is a more difficult question on utility but it's not that difficult. A prepared actuarial student can very reasonably be expected to make a good attempt at that question. The examiners report also suggests that students' performance on that questions was better than you made out.

    What the examiners report also points out is that basic mistakes seemed to be made throughout the paper. It highlights this out as one of the main contributors of the low pass rate. In questions you have not singled out it clearly highlights where students are missing these basic marks.

    My suggestion to you would be to do a Subject Access Request (SAR) and ask for the breakdown of your marks by question. Work out exactly where you went wrong, improve those areas and pass next time! You've pointed out three questions which may have cost the average student 20 marks (in my opinion). So find out where you lost the other 21+ marks on the easier 8 questions.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 10, 2018
  19. Dom B

    Dom B Member


    I'm sure that a number of people can qualify without failing a single exam provided they land the ~ 80% of papers that are fairly consistent in difficulty. Also, the IFoA exams in general are not really that difficult, I have been through far tougher tests. CT8 is supposed to be the hardest CT but most of the past papers are pretty straightforward, it is only a minority of diets that are difficult.

    If you think actuarial exams are tough and will test your resolve, you should try going through the process to become a Chartered Civil Engineer with the Institution of Civil Engineers.

    To quote from the examiners report: "Many students found iii) challenging with only a few able to formulate the expected utility correctly allowing for the possibility of neither horse winning." What part of that statement suggests that student performance was better than I made out? For some reason you seem to be motivated by looking at this paper and examiners comments with quite a biased perspective. Did you by any chance sit and pass this paper in 2016/17? If so, that would explain your motivation for playing down this very tough paper.

    So 70% of the 918 CT8 actuarial students in 2018 just so happened to be 'prone to making basic mistakes' whereas only 40% of the actuarial students in the 2016/17 sittings were? I think that anybody sensible would see the flaw in this proposition.

    Firstly, the 8 'easier' questions were as tough as the 8 toughest questions on the 2016/17 paper. So scoring 75-80% on those questions is pretty successful. Secondly, the 250 students who would have passed this paper in 2016/17 went wrong by making one, maybe two calculation errors (just as most students would in any exam). When a paper is set at such a difficult level such that only 2 of the 184 CT exams since April 2007 have had a lower pass rate, the margins of pass/fail come down to minor calculation errors. Under exam conditions, sometimes you will hit the wrong key on a calculator, sometimes you won't. Therefore your suggestion is not going to be helpful to either myself or the 250 other students who would have passed almost any other CT8 paper.

    The bottom line is that the pass rate of 31.6% when 918 actuarial students sat the paper reflects that this paper was literally twice as difficult to pass as the 2016/17 papers.
     
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  20. I passed this exam in the first sitting in Sep17 though I wasn’t that confident. May be, I got lucky there.

    This continuing discussion led me to check this exam. I’m not an expert on this subject, however I still feel that the exam wasn’t that bad.

    I may be wrong but a well prepared student can pass this exam comfortably.

    I don’t have any right to advise anyone here. However, being positive help a lot in passing any exam and I agree with Callum on this.

    Good luck all!
     
  21. Dom B

    Dom B Member

    Hi Balvinder

    Congratulations on passing last year!

    I sat the Sept 2017 exam under exam conditions two weeks before sitting the 2018 exam and scored 70%. I don't think you got lucky, the Sept 2017 paper was only slightly easier than a normal CT8 paper. Apr 2016 & 2017 were pretty damn easy so you would've been lucky if you landed one of those.

    With respect, unless you passed the Sept 17 with 75% or above, I highly doubt that you would have passed the 2018 paper. It might seem OK at first glance, but sitting it under exam conditions is a completely different matter.

    Best Regards
    Dom
     
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