Did anyone else find that exam hideous. I swear CT6 is getting harder everytime even though I seem to remember the pass rate being in its 30%'s last september and I think this exam was even harder! What did everyone else think?
Nasty paper! I feel that the examiners are trying to catch us out rather than test us on knowledge of the subject.
nasty paper Yes thats the second time I have sat it now. I sat it last September and thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, until I saw that today! The first question has never been tested before. I managed to at least know what the model was used for although I could not remember the exact definition. There were some oddly worded questions in there, I suppose we will just have to wait for results. The only one I didn't attempt was the 7 mark question on Large and Small claims and the conditional distribution in N-r|r - what was that going in about. I got about as far as metioning that a large claims was Bin(1, p) and then didnt know where to go from there. I agree that it feels like the examiners are trying to catch us out and not actually test our understanding. I don't think that CT subjects should be having pass rates as low as CT6 has had for the last couple of sitting. Actually, I am curious as to if these rates are decreasing. Any ideas?
Pass rates for CT6, Institute and Faculty combined, have been April05 47% Sep05 62% April06 39% Sep06 51% April07 57% So no clear pattern here, though unlucky if you got caught by Sep06. The average CT pass rate over this period has been 55%, though there is quite a bit of variability - CT4 is down at 41% whereas CT3 and CT7 are over 70%. Something to look forward to is the below 50% average pass rate for CA1, below 40% for the STs and SAs and the mind-boggling average rate of 33% for CA3 (communications). At least CA2 (modelling) has a near 80% since inception, though this has dropped from the 90%+ in 2005 to 70% so far this year. As you can see, I have nothing better to do than to depress myself with pass rates!
Poisson Did any body else feel this exam was trying to test whether you knew what to do with the Poisson in different situations? It came up - what - 4 times in the paper? I agree - Q1&3 contributed greatly to making S06 & A07 look like friendly papers.
Understanding I felt that I lacked alot of understanding and thats why I couldn't get started with the exam. But reading what you guys are saying, it was just a nasty paper. I'm beginning to get really pi**ed off with these exams, idiotic exam setting and pompus invigilators. To be honest, the amount of input required to study and work, by now I could have been higher paid and further in my career in a different job. If I don't pass all my exams next sitting then i'm looking for a new career!!!!!! Anyway, rant over, so I thought i'd be productive for next sitting and try and figure out what i need to do to firther my understanding. Please take a look, especially those students who felt they did well yesterday and will most likely pass. http://www.acted.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1122
I'd be interested to hear what some of the tutors thought of this paper? Is it just us, or was really a tough paper? I don't understand why they set papers like this. After putting a lot of work in to get to a decent standard, it's very disheartening to be faced with a paper like that.
I thought it was an OK paper. I was quite unprepared but I found it manageable. I am not just saying this but isn't it kinda fun trying to solve the problems they put down in the exam? I hope I did enough to pass but who knows!
Fair enough, but after reading your entry in Motivational Stories ("I did CT7, CT8 and CT2 in an april sitting and started revision for it in February. I also never actually opened or used the notes, just the flashcards and revision booklets. No asets either") I'd suggest you're a bit above most of us.
I don't think anyone is above anyone else... it all depends what you've done in the past whether you can pick up an exam that fast... or maybe he is just trying to make others feel bad by assuming its easy.. it was a hard paper, fact!
I don't recall calling it an easy paper? I just said it was an OK paper! It was definitely harder than the paper from the last sitting but it wasn't impossible to do. I am not even sure I passed it either because my preperation was very poor. I just think it was manageable.
I agree with fiend on that one... it was manageable, but there were some questions which were tricky.. namely ARCH N - r | r the exponential one the final Cov( Xt, Xt ) one..
Please note that this is only my personal opinion. I agree that the ARCH question, the Poisson question and the ACF at lag k part of Q10 were quite nasty. However, there were some easy marks available as well (decision theory, Bornhuetter-Ferguson, compound Poisson). I know that a lot of students have found the CT6 papers from recent sittings hard, so I think that's what we should all expect from now on.
