Hello, I find that when I am doing past papers, I often can’t figure out exactly which piece of core reading is necessary for me to use and apply Q2 on the Sept 2010 Paper 2 is a great example of how I get it spectacularly wrong. The question asks "Explain why an insurance company would monitor its experience" I focused on Chapter 28 - Monitoring, but the solutions focus on Chapter 38) Surplus and Surplus management. How would I have known to write about this? How should I best practice to prepare for questions like this? And advice would be greatly appreciated!
Do you actually mean Paper 1? The first part of the solution to this question is actually based on Monitoring, as in Chapter 48 (I wonder how for you its Chapter 28) so you were right to think that way. But I see the second (and longer!) part of the solution is based on Surplus and Surplus Management. Well, the aspects of Analysis of Surplus do sound a lot like a monitoring exercise, so we can see how the solution fits the question. Though it's hard to tell how one was supposed to think in those lines, the mention of an insurance company might have been a clue Also, the fact that the little material on monitoring itself may not have been sufficient to earn the 9marks available should lead one to think more widely about the answers to the question I must say though that I also don't really know how the answers to some of these questions are to be deciphered. I have been stuck in some situations myself in these CA1 past papers where the answer has nothing to do with the question
Thank you for your reply. I did actually mean paper 1! I wil keep in mind the points about the monitoring chapter not containing enough material for 9marks, and that an insurance co question is likely to relate to surplus. I agree that it does seem like the answer has nothing to do with the question on occassion.
Questions with too many marks This is a tricky one. Examiners and tutors seem to alternate freely and randomly between exhorting us to think broadly about possible answers to questions and encouraging us to identify the specific part of the Core Reading being tested and focus on that. From personal experience, I would say if in doubt go for thinking broadly. It may generate some points that the examiners hadn’t intended but as long as they are valid they should be awarded marks. On a more general note, I found some of the later exams a lot easier once I stopped mentally discarding certain ideas as being of dubious relevance. You don’t lose any marks for writing them down and it’s often surprising how high a hit rate you get this way. Now let’s suppose you’re in the exam answering this question. You’ve allocated yourself 9 × 180 ÷ 100 = 16 minutes for this question. (Again, from personal experience, I would recommend counting time more than marks, although an awareness of both can help.) You’ve written down everything you can remember from the Monitoring chapter and you’ve got some time left over. So you cast your mind through the material you’ve memorised to see if any of it seems useful. To me, surplus management now stands out as the topic most likely to generate some helpful points, especially since much is made in this chapter of the reasons for analysing experience. So rather than discarding this idea on the basis that it’s not obviously the topic being tested, write down as much as you can remember in the time available in the hope of scooping some of the remaining marks. This won’t necessarily work brilliantly for every question individually but across the whole exam it’s not a bad strategy.
I think I have had the same problem. As you go through the papers you feel that either your answer is so out of context or the examiners generated way too many points, most of them not related to the core reading.
