October 2015 Exam

How did it go for you guys?

What did you think of the paper?

 

Not awful!

thought the GEO was a nice way to apply the "why have a CRO/ do ERM" in a slightly sidewards way

The SPV question was quite interesting since there are clearly major political risks that usually we don't get to talk about, and don't really have any mitigation beyond lobbying.

The biggie on derivatives was a bit unexpected as I it's not really been emphasised in the past, and it struck me ST5 students had a big advantage for the first couple of questions.

The "capital impacts part" was good, it was a good analogue to the SI vs SII treatment of UL liabilities.

All in all, tough but fair. It was a good test of the broader concepts and ideas, and not too much calculation/recall

 

I thought that the reading time required was eating a lot of time up.

I was dissapointed that no topics came up on copulas which is one of the topics unique to ST9 and very risk focused.

On the other hand, the derivatives question looked to me like a lot of the CT8/ST6 type content. Unfortunatelly, not focus on my revision for ST9.

Could not finish the paper in time.

 

So how did everyone do? Was happy I got the exam this time but was also surprised by the pass rate 50% and also the number sitting it - 172. From memory, this seems like a real drop in numbers but I can't seem to find a record of past numbers who sat the papers.

I think the higher pass rate compared to previous years could be explained by the lower number of students doing it and from my own experience (and another friend who passed), the last paper being so tough I just put twice as much into making sure i got this one.

 

Looks like numbers are increasing?

From the related documents section at http://www.actuaries.org.uk/studying/exam-results

September 2015 - 87 out of 172 passed

April 2015 - ? (couldn't find it on the site)​

September 2014 - 65 out of 150 passed

April 2014 - 61 out of 149 passed​

September 2013 - 68 out of 164 passed

April 2013 - 68 out of 148 passed​

September 2012 - 60 out of 127 passed

April 2012 - 59 out of 132​

September 2011 - 42 out of 107 passed

April 2011 - 37 out of 102 passed​