hi all just seen on institute website that on 31 st january there is a talk in staple inn about actuarial exams from examiners point of view however paper isnt donwloadable on website has anyone seen the paper or does anyone know details of the discussion..is it the usual blurb...."must answer the question set and not regujitate bookwork" or is there some new material and techniques that make it worth attending..
Not sure if there will be a 'paper' in advance for this one. Have put my name down to attend as have a number of others in my office.
Without meaning to be cynical, I expect it will just be them saying: "...state your assumptions and we'll mark it appropriately." Like that makes everything alright! I hope the paper does go on the website as london is too far away for me to attend. Man, I need to de-stress! Going to listen to: Metamorphosis One by Philip Glass Very soothing for my troubled mind.
Do you need to put your name down? This link: http://www.sias.org.uk/prog.html#exams06 seems to imply not?
You're right - it doesn't seem to imply that you've got to put your name down. I think the original notice put up asked you to notify Ross Leach if you wanted to attend...but this doesn't seem to be the case any more!
yesterdays sias discussion hi all i presume many of you went to yesterdays exam discussion event at Staple Inn. What did you all think? I thought there wasnt too much new information we were told, but what was helpful was the marking exercise. it was interesting to see common errors though 5/20 is very low indeed. I think it was quite notable how many questions were asked about why marks arent published. I think Trevor said that it was an unusual practioce not to publsih marks as many other examining bodies do. i know the panel tried to defend the decision as to why marks arent published... but it is clear given teh controversey somone raised about the width of the FB grades some of the subjectivity involved in this process taht publishing marks is only going to help rather than hinder... for other exams marks are publsihed so why not here given the overwhelming feeling that students want marks published, do you think some kind of petition or studentwide protest etc could make this happen..after all as one person remarked in the audience we "the students are the institutes customers". what do you all think?
Think this thread will run for some time! Mutiny isn't the best means to influence the profession so I'd caution against petitions. Why not contact your Student Representative to raise it at the next Consultative committee if you feel that strongly. I think the list is on the Institutes website. I may be in the minority, but knowing you got 52% rather than a pass mark of 59% isn't that helpful for a couple of reasons: 1) it'll be a different paper next time so history won't exactly repeat itself 2) the pass mark will (probably) change next time Far better is to know where/how you lost the marks so you can really home in on the weakness and work to improve it. The only way to know for sure currently is to go the counselling route. But many years ago, your result told you how you did on each qn ie which were your relatively weak ones. What I don't know is whether by weak it was a fixed x% of the available mark or was x% of the average mark attained by those who passed. You still got the good old FA etc grading. Maybe this is something to suggest is restored. I think the clammer last night seemed more about total mark. At the end of the day, if you pass do you really care about your mark? You are deemed 'fit to progress' and thats good enough for me. I wouldn't want to see competition amongst students because Z got n% higher than K when, at the end of the day, both passed exams albeit at different diets. The other thing to bear in mind, is what if the extra detail in issuing results delays them! That is already another contentious issue. Hmm.... Try everything to avoid missing the pass list seems to be the message. Good luck, everybody!
Exam hints I would really like to know what else was said about exams in general. Could not be there(from south africa) so missed it. Any useful comments that would help me pass.
Helen said there will be a write-up in The Actuary but the messages were: 1. Practise writing for 3 hours ie don't just think about 'I'd write this for this past qn' actually do it so your wrist builds up stamina (even worse for the 6hr CA1 onslaught) 2. Answer the qn set (not the one you wanted) 3. Don't just throw down bookwork - filter and apply it to the circumstances presented. But you do need to know the bookwork as your basic building block. 4. If you think the qn is wrong, you're probably wrong. Stick down your assumptions and get on with it. Even if there was an error the qn won't be disregarded. 5. If you fail, think about counselling (though distance is clearly an issue for you, you can get a written one). It shows what you did right as well as wrong so can help rebuild confidence. 6. Speaking of confidence, everyone has weaknesses. But feel confident on the day. 7. Be prepared. Whatever it takes..... assignments/revision/past paper etc. There is a chance some subjects where there are few candidates will move to being once a year -ST1 was mentioned. But they assure there would be 'adequate notice'. Hope that's a reasonably summary for you but the memory cells aren't at their peak.
A couple of things I hadn't heard before: -not to worry too much about the distinctions between the different fail grades - particularly FBs and below (this was in response to a question asking why the FB grade was so wide). The examiners concentrate their time looking at the borderline pass/fail cases and don't spend much time looking at those below - so the allocation is fairly arbitrary. -you can ask to see your paper (without exam counselling) by just going to the institutes office in Oxford. Can't believe this is true but there you go. I'll see if I can scan a copy of the handouts (no promises though - I'm useless ).
But I would find having the previous years' pass marks really helpful when I was doing past papers - i.e. you could tell how close you were to passing. I'm guessing the main reasons they don't want to give out the pass marks are: *for the borderline cases it sounds like they don't really separate on how many marks you got but whether they felt you understood the topic sufficiently. And I quote: "pass criteria: fitness to proceed and assume professional responsibilities". So basically if one person had got say 40% by just putting down loads of bookwork to all the question whereas someone else had got 38% by giving insightful answers to several questions but had clearly misread one big question they might pass the 38% and fail the 40%??? *it would open them up to lots of people complaining that they deserved to pass. i.e. if they looked at the examiners solution and felt they'd definitely done enough to get the pass mark? So they'll probably never do it.
As promised.... First two are Trevor Watkins presentation (there's a max limit of 100kb per file) Next one is Helen Gregsons presentation Then we were given a question from CT2 8 April 05 along with a made-up students answer (SampleAnswer.zip) and the marking schedule. After we had an attempt at marking it we were given a marked copy of the sample answer. Marking schedule and marked sample answer to follow....
