September 2007

[Little Miss Actuary]

So, what did people think?

I thought it was an OK paper, but I'm not sure how I did I really struggled keeping within the word count on the second question.

On the first question, were we meant to be writting an email back to our manager that included a memo, or just a memo to the customer service guy? I went for just a memo.

 

[Erik]

The question said, draft a memo to the customer service manager. So I wrote directly to him.

Here are my thoughts:

1. So, no presentation! Aagh.

2. I struggled a long time with question 1, trying to figure out what they wanted and what approach would be best. I thought it was a difficult question.

3. I thought Qn 2 was easier.

4. Had too few words in Qn1 and too many in Qn2.

5. I'm glad it's over, but I don't expect a good pass rate.

Hope I pass this time.

 

[Kail]

I agree with both comments above. When I counted my words for the Q2, I already had 500 and that was before touching on the last issue - had to do some serious scrapping of paragraphs.

I found myself to have really scattered thoughts on Q1 - there were so much to say and I thought it was quite hard staying focussed and not going down a tangent.

Oh well the lotto balls are spinning - let's see who had the right numbers in December ;-)

 

[JenP]

Definitely agree with Erik, struggled to get enough words on Q1 and had to try not to have too many on Q2. Found Q1 very difficult to figure out what they actually wanted us to include.
Well it's just fingers crossed for December then!

 

[Grizzly]

Q1. i must have really got this wrong. I wrote maybe 300 words and could not think of anymore to write without making it waffle.
General gist:
- trustee is right
- fund manager is right.
- fund manger better than benchmark. . . blah blah blah.
- reason is way calcs were made . . . blah blah blah.
- thank you and gooood night!

so what have i missed?

Q2. I know very little of these products so it was easy to write something simple.
I had a crazy idea of setting the training document as lots of headings (what is product? why give bonus? how? when? etc) and short paragraphs, almost like bullet points! I thought it looked good and was easy to follow.

Now i think that may have been a silly idea and i will fail!


oh well, just have to wait and see.

 

[obri600]

I agree that Q1 was difficult, especially as they didn't give you formulae for MWRR & TWRR or any of the relevant technical details.

I just calculated returns for 1H & 2H of year using figures given and compared with benchmark, commenting on under- and over-performance and contrasting differences between MWRR & TWRR . I then went on to discuss how transfer values paid into scheme in Q3 whilst market conditions were poor affected 2H performance relative to benchmark.

I wish I'd answered Q2 first as I found it very straightforward. I just split the information in to two sections; first on benefits and second on bonuses taking into account manager's comments.

So overall completely hit or miss as usual. Roll on 2009...

 

[eternal student]

the pain is over... for now

Q1 was tough. took me a while convince myself what it was i wanted to say. took even longer persuade that busybody trustee who couldn't just take our investment manager's word for it but had to meddle in stuff he knew nothing about (that was the gist of my letter).

Q2 - just tried to plagiarise those notes that were written years ago (they seemed fine to me) while remembering to change 'reversionary' to 'yearly' and 'terminal' to 'final'.

Q3 - how come ireland are out of the world cup? gutted.

 

[El Gringo]

Same feeling over here...wished i had looked at q2 first!

Ahhh no powerpoint, they did the same thing last Sept i think, would have been so nice.

I will fail because of Q1. I think that i got the first part about right - explain MWRR, TWRR, and why we should use TWRR, etc.

but the second bit, i messed up...

the sad thing is that a similar question came up in the past, specimen paper 05 i think, and i looked at it in the morning, but still messed up.

What should have been said is very simple, they invested lots when mtks were down, so would not fully benefit!

Also struggld with the word count strangely.

Q2, really enjoyed it. I addressed it to the person who sent me the email. because i thought that he would want to check my work before sending the memo to the cust serv mgr. anyway, i dont think that this will be a major factor here.

My word count was 486, which is within the acceptable limits.

If one of you could shed some light on this issue which i cannot get my head round:

if you did well in one question (here q2) but did not get the technical content rite for part of q1 (second half), does this mean that you fail overall???

If you do, then why do we have 2 questions?

How do they determine whether someone passed or fail?

thanks

 

[pig]

I think it seems to me everyone(including myself) is in the same boat - struggling for enough points in Q1 and wrote too much in Q2.

It was difficult to decide how much in the 'training material' they want to retain and how much 'general background' they want... e.g. intro - it is a regular premium product blah blah blah.

 

[fiend]

I couldn't get many words down for the first question either.

I also purposely didn't go into the merits of TWRoR over MWRoR for benchmarking purposes because I thought this was too technical and unnecessary. Kinda sucked because I just did a project on this at work

 

[obri600]

if you did well in one question (here q2) but did not get the technical content rite for part of q1 (second half), does this mean that you fail overall???

I think the problem is that if you don't get the technical content right you are inevitably going to lose marks because the recipient (trustee) won't be satisfied with your answer etc.

If you did well on Q2 I think its feasible you could pass. It seems like everbody messed up Q1 so you could well be in the 30% or so who do end up passing!

 

[Erik]

I was told by an Acted tutor that if you miss out on the technical content - you will fail! In April I missed one of the four issues I had to discuss in the first question and I felt that the rest was good - FA!

 

[justarrived]

I was told by an Acted tutor that if you miss out on the technical content - you will fail! In April I missed one of the four issues I had to discuss in the first question and I felt that the rest was good - FA!

I agree.

 

[El Gringo]

I think that it also depends on how other people have done.

I mean, if everybody, hypothetically didnt get the 4 tehcy points right for the first one, they would not fail everyone, ie element of curve fitting to be taken into account.

Having said that, i think that i'll be the luckiest person on earth on the 20th night if i do pass!!!

I was also told that if you miss out one techy point, it's simple, you fail!

In the exam, having "messed up the 1st question", i was thinking what was the point of doing the second one as I knew that i would fail.

The only hope left is that they do actually say that you can pass the exam even if you wrote less than 500 words. We'll see whether that can happen in reality.

 

[wannabeactuary]

Heavy load

Not having a slide presentation / e-mail meant two questions with a heavy writing load. The result was me trying to finish the last page of my draft with 5 mins left on the clock. The furious scribbling means that while my first page was as neat as you could like the last one had me barely recognising my own handwriting.. I think it was still legible though, just.

Just because one question is a fair workload for 1.5 hrs doesn't mean two such questions fit into 3. I wonder if the markers are sympathetic enough not to mark us down for lack of tidiness due to writing fatigue

Will let you know come December..
<disgruntled>

 

[examstudent]

So overall completely hit or miss as usual. Roll on 2009...

hi

2009 - is there any news on this new exam then??? what make you think 2009 version will be easier to pass (from what ive read now CA1 is assumed knwoledge in the new CA3)???

 

[obri600]

Check out the 'All change' thread in subject discussions for CA3.

To be honest I think CA3 already requires knowledge of CA1 and beyond. I think if you've read these courses you have got a significant advantage over somebody who has only read CT's since you will have developed a much deeper understanding of technical issues covered. This can only help when explaining them to layperson etc

 

[obri600]

I was told by an Acted tutor that if you miss out on the technical content - you will fail!

Do you think that its an instant fail then even if you have scored enough marks across the whole paper to achieve a pass? I always believed this was an indirect effect due to not earning enough marks.

I've also heard people say that examiners will fail you if you write something they don't like. I'm not sure how much truth there is in all this although could explain why I keep getting FA's!!!

Incidently, is there anybody out there who actually thinks they nailed Q1?

 

[examstudent]

Check out the 'All change' thread in subject discussions for CA3.

To be honest I think CA3 already requires knowledge of CA1 and beyond. I think if you've read these courses you have got a significant advantage over somebody who has only read CT's since you will have developed a much deeper understanding of technical issues covered. This can only help when explaining them to layperson etc

hi obri600

fully agree with your statement. just looking at some of the past papers, i wouldnt have a clue where to start unless i had done some of the STs etc

but returning to my original question - what makes you think it will be easier in 2009?????

 

[Schnorbitz]

My first time taking CA3, so I'm not sure whether or not I've put down what they wanted.

I counted 509 words in my first draft of q1 - introduction, "allow me to explain", "as you know... funds go up and down"... talk about TWRR and MWRR... experience of your scheme, "I trust that answers..". I think I put in at least a sentence or two about how the benchmark has done relative to the fund itself. Did a quick estimated calculation as to where the fund would have been had it invested in the benchmark fund (just gave answer, not calculation in the letter).

q2 was a bit more hurried. I suppose, like Churchill, I wrote a long answer because I didn't have time to write a short one. I felt as if there were an awful lot of specific points to answer in the email from the line manager. Once you'd combined that with a "welcome to the company/line manager asked me to write a memo" bit (plus an "ask me if you have any further questions" bit at the end, as was hinted at in all the marking schemes in the question bank answers) then that really pushes up your word count. Didn't have time to count the words, but I felt it was at least as long as the first answer.

I didn't feel depressed about the exam afterwards (I still don't: I at least attempted to get the technical content they were asking for, plus my English ain't too bad). But I'll let you know when the results are announced. December seems very late!

 

[obri600]

what makes you think it will be easier in 2009?????

Wishful thinking?!