SA6 Passing rate

[majestics]

Hi,

I have attempted SA6 in the previous two exam session (April 2012 and Sep 2011) and failed on both occasions.
The passing rate for SA6 in these two session has been 12.99% and 14.93%. which is much lower than any other SA subject. I just don't understand why SA6 has such low passing rate, specially for the previous two session, the five other SAs had an average passing of 46%.

Could anyone guide me regarding what more i could in SA6 for the coming exam session??. I have a good grip on the Acted manual and have done past exams practice from 2001 to 2012.

may be i should just switch to some other track, may be SA5 ( it had a passing rate of 56.52% for the April 2012 session).

Thanks,

 

[Colin McKee]

Pass rate

I am also trying to find out the reason for the sudden and catastrophic reduction in the pass rate for SA6 in the last two sittings. If I find out anything from the staff actuary (which I can share), I will post it. You may also want to ask directly to the staff actuary for the subject.

 

[mantlegen]

Hi all,

Just want to say , do not give up. I failed the paper 3 times before i become one of the lucky 10 this time.

I was so frustrated and did look for email addresses of the successful candidates from the member directory. All replied the same. Ignore the core reading material (this is why I prefer to take SA6 to SA5) , read financial newspaper, references of some conferences for hot topics and most importantly, you know how to structure your essay to expand ideas to demonstrate your knowledge.

Finally good luck to you next time.

PS: I got FC, FD and then FD before I pass it this time.

 

[abadactuary]

Not a single person I know who has passed this exam, all of whom were very able investment consultant prior to passing(!), has managed it on their first attempt. Many of them suggest it's just a case of waiting for "your questions" to come up... but that feels too much like a lottery.

I followed all the advice I was given; focus on exam technique, read around subjects etc, but still got an FB (having got an FC last sitting). I have passed every other 3 hour exam first time and am struggling to know how to approach this sitting and improve my chances of passing.

As an aside, I genuinely believe I would have stood a better chance of passing SA4 this sitting, which is ridiculous given that I have spent my career working in investment consulting!

 

[majestics]

Re:

I have applied for exam counselling for April exam. Same as abadactuary, i have never failed an exam before SA6. i got FC and then FB in my previous attempts. So close to becoming a qualified actuary, yet I just have no idea whether i would be able to pass SA6 in the next sitting, or in my tenth sitting. This time i am thinking of ignoring core reading completely.

There is also an option of taking my fellowship exam from Society of Actuaries (FSA). they seem to a passing rate of around 50% for investment track. but then i would have to study all over again. may be i could get something worthwhile in my exam counselling session.

 

[Colin McKee]

Please let us know what the result of the counselling is. I suspect there are quite a few students out there who are interested in this post.

 

[Cooper]

I had exam counselling last sitting and found it to be a very expensive hour of my time! The staff actuary focused on my exam technique, which was helpful but was unable to give me an explanation as to why so few passed the September 2011 exam.

Though I didn’t pass this sitting, I did improve grades but I am unsure how much of the improvement was due to the exam counselling.

I think those who have sat SA6 deserve an explanation why the pass rate is so low, so they can take the appropriate next steps in their preparation for the next exam sitting instead of just waiting for questions that suit them to come up.

It is frustrating that nothing is being done to assess why the pass rate is so low for this exam compared to the other subjects! I find it hard to believe that the reason most of the candidates haven’t passed SA6 is due to exam technique.

If anyone can shed some light on this, it would be most appreciated.

 

[bystander]

If you're lucky, the examiners report may shed some light where people went wrong. Or then again it may simply say 'this qn was poorly answered'.
Last time I looked they hadn't been loaded to the web.

Not sure counselling wil get anyone general comments on pass rates as the idea is to say where you went wrong. From what I'm led to believe staff actuaries do sometimes sit in on examiners meetings but I'm not sure what freedom they have to divulge what went on and so be able to shed light on low pass rates.

But nothing ventured nothing gained as they say.

 

[majestics]

Re:

This time i am thinking of focusing totally on current investment affairs, rather than wasting my time on past exams or manual. i do think that acted needs to update its manual , the practice questions and mock exams are not even close to what we are facing on the actual exam (at least for the last two exam sessions).
If i do get something good out of the exam counselling session, i'll post here for everyone.

 

[scarlets]

Ha! You think you'll really get to know why you were failed? I sympathise with your situations. Failling people means kerching time for some, don't forget...

I see no reason why they don't reveal how they determine pass marks or why they're so cagey to explain to people why they've failed after all that effort.

And then to have the audacity to charge for 'counselling' which is a second hand opinion... why not get to see what the ACTUAL examiners said?

 

[scarlets]

Not sure counselling wil get anyone general comments on pass rates as the idea is to say where you went wrong.

Everyone will fail to make a few points in an exam. This in itself does not explain why people were failed. Having these listed by an exam counsellor is a waste of time - next exam there will be different questions and different points to be made. It is patronising and pointless being told the same old advise and "practice past papers" which people have done already anyway.

People fail because they haven't achieved enough marks in the assessment. For many this comes down to just a mark or two. With such small margins at play, could this be why they don't want people to see ACTUAL examiners comments, actual marks allocated by examiners because people would be presented with plenty of inconsistencies, harsh marking and grounds for appeal, which they don't seem to want. Why do I say this? They only accept appeals within 10 days of the results day which has an expensive price tag and before you have received any feedback as to why you failed. Therefore I do not see a serious educational process at play given the above.

 

[majestics]

Exam Counselling

I had my exam counselling session for SA6 recently. I asked the staff actuary why the passing rate for SA6 is so low. She replied that it's not appropriate to measure the difficulty of SA6 by comparing passing rates, since a small number of students sit in this exam. She felt that this diet was much easier than previous diets because it featured a real life scenario which the candidates would have read about, as compared to previous exams where hypothetical scenarios were presented. She also said that the answers by students were very 'disappointing' and they should have done much better.

As for the advice for my next sitting:
- Practice past exams
- Read around the subject
- Write more points.

How am i going to get through SA6, i have no idea.

 

[scarlets]

I sympathise very much. Some would say such low pass rates suggest an educational system that's failing, but Acted are very good educators so I wouldn't think low pass rates are their fault, just my view.

 

[Duffman]

I passed SA6 a few years ago. I found that it wasn't just the past paper solutions that were useful but the examiners comments are where the real help lies. Admittedly I've not looked at this exam's questions for a while but some of the SA6 examiners comments I've found quickly are:

“As actuaries move into wider fields, the examiners are likely to focus on the practical application of core skills in what may appear unfamiliar situations.”

“Finally the examiners encourage candidates to recognise there are different types of investor beyond purely pension funds”

“new asset classes and ways of structuring investments will themselves generate new types of risk (such as operations, liquidity, credit and counterparty)”

These comments open up a whole new world of possible questions and solutions which an answer can be framed around.

 

[LangeSohne]

I had my exam counselling session for SA6 recently. I asked the staff actuary why the passing rate for SA6 is so low. She replied that it's not appropriate to measure the difficulty of SA6 by comparing passing rates, since a small number of students sit in this exam. She felt that this diet was much easier than previous diets because it featured a real life scenario which the candidates would have read about, as compared to previous exams where hypothetical scenarios were presented. She also said that the answers by students were very 'disappointing' and they should have done much better.

As for the advice for my next sitting:
- Practice past exams
- Read around the subject
- Write more points.

How am i going to get through SA6, i have no idea.

The advice is interesting.
Read around the subject - Can someone please explain why this is needed? I understand that this is useful for SA6 because the core reading is apparently not very useful for the exam, but why does this appear to apply for eg, SA2 too?
Is it because you get extra marks for demonstrating that you have up-to-date knowledge in your answers by force-fitting current concepts/news into answers that are totally unrelated to the question? I wouldn't have thought so, because we're always told to stick to the question.
So I really can't understand why you'd need to read around the subject because you should be able to answer everything by knowing core reading and how to apply it.

Regarding "write more points" - is it the case that you wrote 2 points for each mark? I've asked about this elsewhere, and tutors/successful candidates have said that 2 points per mark is a good guideline. This is darn confusing for me, because the examiner's reports generally show that there are fewer than 2 points per mark, despite their suggestion that the examiner reports should be considered to be more "thorough" than a typical exam answer etc etc.

 

[euler]

anyone here manage to pass this seating?

 

[Sauny Bean]

Might be worth moving this to Exams Discussion forum where it belongs and separating into October 2012 and April 2012 in order to capture the right audience.

 

[Cityboy516]

Any news?

Hi

Has anyone heard anything new about why the pass rate has been so low on the past few exams? Any tips for this exam?

I am so frustrated, sat this 3 times now, while I have re-sat other exams, never this many times or with such little idea of what I am doing wrong.

I took the exam counceling after my second session and was told I would "definately" pass the next time... So much for that. Very little helpful information and it did not seem to really help much at all. I have pased papers and current information coming out of my ears now but feel so helpless as I don't think I am any better prepared than any previous attempts (maybe even worse as it has now been years since I have really studied the core materials since they never seem to get examined!).

By the way, regarding the theory that you can't judge anything by the pass rate in one (or two, or three...) sittings is a bit suspiceous coming from an actuary. The pass rate should surely be binomial distributed, so if the average is 50% and you have 68 people sitting (like September 2012), the 99% point should be a pass rate of 25 students. With a 95% confidence level we can say the underlying pass rate was under 29%. Using the past three exams together would get you even lower!

Colin - any helpful tips? I took your tutorial session last winter, it was helpful, but I still have not passed.

Rant over.

 

[Colin McKee]

passing rate

I don't really have much light to shed. (I did like the statistical likelihood test though!). Having looked carefully at the last three exams I can understand why the rate for Sept 11 and Apr 12 were low. Each had a very unusual and VERY large question. The first was the Actuaria default and the second was quantitative easing. Although most students would have understood the concepts, it was hard to get the very large number of points in these questions that came from a single idea. But the Sept 12 exam seemed pretty normal. there was one "occupy Wall St" question which was the type of questions where you could easily take the wrong interpretation and go off at a tangent, but it wasnt worth too many marks. So I am puzzled with that one.
The techniques that have worked in the past involve making sure you ae on top of the issues that affect the investment consulting world, and issues that affect the wider financial markets. These include LIBOR scandal, bankers bonuses, central clearing of derivatives, (and still) QE, interest rates, monetary and fiscal policy, and bail-outs. Be sure you are well on top of issues that do seem to repeat: buy-outs, structured products, LDI, swaps, manager selection. Write in a brief susinct manner to get the maximum number of points down in the time. Continually read the instruction words to check you have not moved off the question. If there are a lot of points for a few ideas, explain them in GREAT detail.
Sorry I cant shed more light, but I fully expect that the rate will bounce back in the near future. Best of luck.