No Excel file?

Without going into the specifics of this CA2 exam content..

Did anyone think they had an Excel file missing for paper 1? No one else I know sat this exam to confirm if the same thing happened with them.

All available past exams for this subject suggested there would be two files provided for Paper 1: the PDF question file and an Excel spreadsheet with some initial data. Same when I sat this exam last year. But this sitting there was no Excel file provided with the exam pack. I waited 15 minutes (during the reading time) refreshing the exam portal expecting an Excel file to show up, but it never did.

I found it very odd that they'd bring about that change without sending out some sort of a prior notification. Even though it doesn't take long to pull together an Excel file from scratch, I would've liked to know about it in advance rather than worrying I had a file missing, and start the exam panicking.

 

No, after reading the paper I think it was clear that no additional data was required. I was a bit miffed but you just carry on.

I did wonder where the data-checking marks were going to come from instead, and my audit trail was shorter as I didn't need that section, but I assumed that all was correct and they were just mixing it up a bit. No need for prior notification.

Hope you did ok!

 

I made a data tab in my Excel file, dumped whatever numericals we were provided with that felt like data rather than assumptions, and made some comments in the audit trail on reasonableness and completeness for the sake of it. My view was, Excel file or not, we did need to use some numbers as a starting point, so might as well treat it as data and comment on it.

Thanks Micheal, it went alright. Hope yours went okay too.

 

You could send your concerns to the IFoA Education Services education.services@actuaries.org.uk