Do we lose marks for having more pages than instructed. eg. if the question asks for 5 pages of summary, will we lose marks for submitting more, and if so, how are the marks deducted? The assessment criteria says that we can submit a few more pages if we believe they enhance clarity - but is there any limit?
If they asks for a 5 page summary then why would you want to risk not doing that? If you *really* can't do it in 5 pages then I imagine the examiners won't bat an eyelid if you use 6 pages, but anymore and you are just showing the examiner that you don't follow instructions and/or you don't understand what the key points are.
When I attended, the presenter was at pains to point out that 5 pages is a guideline not a strict requirement. The profession's website examples give some indication of the amount and kind of content expected. Anyway, as you have a computer at your disposal you could always adjust the font size to fit the number of target pages.
It is definitely a guideline and if you go one page over or under, I don't think you'll be directly penalised for this. (One page is about 20% more/less content.) It also depends on the task at hand. However, CA2 is very much an exam in communication (as well as excel, actuarial techniques, etc). As for CA3, if you are writing much more than the limit, you should stop and ask yourself, "Am I including irrelevant items or repeating myself?". If you write too little, "Am I missing something?" Almost always, these will be the reasons for too many/few pages. You could always adjust fonts, whitespace etc to get things to fit. But if you really think the content is necessary, you're probably better off increasing the pages to keep presentation up rather than using tiny fonts.
