Can anyone share his / her experience of preparing for this exam? Im 3 years into the GI market and will hopefully have passed the STs in the last sitting. What would you say the key differences between the approach of prepping for an SA over STs / CP1? Would you recommend this: read through the notes briefly -> attempt assignments -> as many past papers as possible -> get mock exam from ActED?
Recently passed SA3. My approach didn't change much from STs and CP1. Get through notes quickly. There will be chapters which you may get stuck on - for me that was chapter 4 (legislation and solvency II one), but just read it and get through it. Do past papers immediately after. I started with ASET and worked backwords to 2010. As you go through papers common themes will appear and your lack of knowledge in certain areas will begin to show. Keep note of them and every 2/3 papers go back to the notes and tackle the areas you are weak on. After this I done all the mock papers given by acted and had each one of them marked. After this I redone all the papers again, so I ended up doing all papers from 2010-2019 twice. I never done the papers timed, except for the mock papers from acted. I would just jot down what I would say, how I would say it etc. At the end I had a good strategy of how to write my answers which was: Say your point Explain your point Give an example of your point I done this for near enough every point I made, and I think the example would usually score another half mark and showed I understood it. I also spent about 10/20 hours researching key trends - ifrs 17 etc as the notes did not go in enough detail in my opinion (though it never came up!) Just make sure you demonstrate that you understand the topic in your answers - I done this by giving examples, but there are other ways im sure. A bit overkill to some, but it got me to pass exams first time, including SA3. Good luck!
