sept08

any comments?

 

I thought great simple questions (I think it's unfair when the technical part is confusing), but I messed up with time. The first question could be adequately answered in 400 words not 500 so they will have encouraged waffle there for padding out the letter.

I was still writing up the memo into my answer booklet when time ran out. I hope it's clear that I had time issues and question 1 gives me a chance....

 

I found q1 confusing because I was finding the answer too simple for 500 words... Was there any impact by the 65year rules?

For q2, I wasn't sure what to do with the data...

 

Yep, I also thought Q1 seemed too straightforward.

2 messed me up as well, as I defined something incorrectly.

I wonder whether they give you marks for defining something incorrectly but explaining the rest ok.

 

Yes they don't penalise you too much if you say something wrong but then you communicate consistantly with that, as ultimately it's not about technical knowledge.

I think the extra info about the NRA 65 was supposed to be irrelevant, cos it doesn't apply to him.

 

according to acted technical content is worth 30% of the question.

In q2 I didn't understand why we were given the annuity function for 5 years guaranteed payments....I used it in order to subtract it from the other functions...

Also I didn't understand why we were given the info for both sexes and for different ages since the question didn't ask for the impact of these factors....

 

I also ignored the NRA of 65.

As for all the data in Q2 - no clue why all of it was there. I defined the guaranteed annuity function wrong - looked like a temporary annuity to me. Which I of course realised couldn't be true because it was too close to the whole life annuity. But then the exam panic set in and I didn't do anything about it.

I think the guaranteed annuity function was there to enable us to say which annuity options the company sells. But then that's just my take on it.

30% for technical content ... hhhmmm, I wonder what the average pass mark is.

 

I also thought it was pretty reasonable but no idea if I passed or not.

I agree Q1 did seem too short. I had it answered in about 250 words and thought I must be missing something, so I added in an extra bit about why as an early retiree he gets 5% lower payments to make it fair with those who retire at 65. I know it sounds like waffle but what you going do when they ask for 500 words and you've done it in 250?

As for the second question I think the annuites (which I had to use the yellow book to translate the symbols) were there to give you a steer on the different options. Plus you would have needed them to talk about the effect on the annuity payment level. As I finished Q1 in 1 hour I finished this with 2 mins to spare. That's a first for me, normally I rush the last part. Will it be 4th time lucky? I hope so!!!!

 

I completely messed up on time, I drafted both questions first and then spent an hour writing up, but it wasn't long enough and didn't get it all in the booklet, damn!

The annuities provided in question 2 related to the options that the annuitant could choose, i.e a guanrantee period, a spouse annuity, escalation. Ages and sex just highlight that female is more expensive than male and younger is more expensive than older. They probably gave loads of info to see if people could select the relevant info out of it....not that I even finished writing up the memo! If I only had an extra half hour...

The technical part in total may be worth up to 30%, but I read an examiners report said that people who defined something wrongly or misinterpreted something wrong, but explained on that basis were not penalised too much.

 

I know what you're saying about time ... same thing happened to me in April - so irritating because you have a "super" draft on scrap paper, that the examiners won't even see.

This time I just stuck to writing headings and bullet points in the draft and actually formulated sentences as I wrote in the answer book. That worked for me re time.

Hope I explained the wrong bit correctly then.

 

yes, that's how the annuity data could be used, but did we have to use it that way?
e.g. I don't think we should write about the option for a guaranteed term, as it was not one of the options offered by the company.
Also I don't think we were asked to write about the difference in prices betwen males and females and for different ages....

What do you think? Did i mess it up?

 

Hi

If I recall correctly, then the notes to the question also referred to something along the lines that the premium is non-refundable, but that guarantees can be built in ... that's probably where the guaranteed term data was relevant.

I think a general statement that the rates are affected by age and gender would have been enough.

 

sat it for the second time...took it last september...and it was a repeat!

Question 1 - technical content ok, but waffled a bit about the PPF (or whatever the name was!) as I assumed that the person did not really know what it was about and so some background (and not education!) was ok.

and then explained some issues.

Question 2 - Nightmarish, hate these memo type of things. Given the amount of information, would have been really nice to have got a presentation! But messed up, i think. time was an issue.

Pretty sure that the pass rate will be in the low 25% (similar to last Sept), and will most probably (or surely???) fail it again.

Hoping that the course is not jsut anothe money making machine for the IoA (@ £600 rather that the £250 they currently charge)...if they still fail people as currently is the case, then I think that this will become an issue for students...because the IoA cannot keep on putting their hands in student's pocket liek this...before it used to be 250, and now it will be 600!

ahh..thats one of the advantages of being a monopoly isnt it?

anyway that was my moan of the day...

 

X times

I messed up on Q2.

Q1: - My answer covered the following:
-a bit of the back ground of PSF
-explained the members benefits - i.e. his pension, spouses pension and the increases.
-I explained the PSF scheme benefits - the cap that affected him only (i.e. no need to mention cap at NRA or 100%) Just the fact that benefits were capped and slightly lower due to fact he retired before his scheme NRA. I mentioned that the lower pension would impact his spouses overall benefit i.e. based on 50% of a lower figure. -I explained a bit about increases now being linked to cost of living – and the fact that this could be nil when inflation was low, but his old benefits were guaranteed to be 3% - however, inflation is capped.

Q2: Difficult to pick out the right bits of info. Even worse was my procrastination of whether to include graphs in a memo.
-I omitted the most obvious points, such as sex, age comparison (so stupid). These should have been covered as part 1 of what we needed to supply in our draft.
-The pension benefits can have a guarantee period whereby if member dies within this gtee period, then the sum of remaining payments upto end of guarantee period would be paid to the estate. I did include this, but I think that my damage was omitting a comment on age and sex.

Failure for sure.

 

CA3 September 2009

I thought 3 hours was not quite enough for this paper. I finished question 1 in 90 minutes, but run into time pressure with question 2. I was still padding my answer booklet when time was up.

Has anyone ever passed this exam without finishing the paper? I am really concerened about this exam.

 

Depends on your def'n of finish. If you mean you handm't signed a letter then you'd probably get away with it.

If you mean wrote 2 sentences on q2 probably not.

The criteria they always churn out is evidence of proof to proceed to qualified status and it seems to be measured on all qns. So unless you have a fair attempt at both I reckon you're looking at failing. The more qns there are, the more scope to get away with not finishing but if your last qn carries significant weight then I reckon it won't wash.

Not sure what you mean by padding your answer booklet so hard to gauge.

And no, when I got it I didn't feel the time pressure and when I failed it wasn't down to not completing the whole paper