SP8: Direction for preparation

Discussion in 'SP8' started by Shweta Jain, Jul 11, 2021.

  1. Shweta Jain

    Shweta Jain Made first post

    I couldn't clear SP8 this time and it was already my third attempt. I've been trying my best but looks like I'm not going in the right direction. Would appreciate if anyone could suggest few tips/provide me with guidance.
     
    Naga Sai Shivanee likes this.
  2. padasala

    padasala Ton up Member

    I have given the paper 7 times. I have kept failing by 2 marks in 5 of those times. I would +1 this thread.
     
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  3. randomWalker

    randomWalker Keen member

    Guess you need to assess where you think you are doing poorly, if you're failing by only a couple of marks then it's almost just luck or not getting enough points down.

    Do all the exams you can do even the really old ones. While they might not be 100% applicable they should help to inform your thinking and give you some practice. I'd be worried that just doing the same exams over and over isn't really giving you much extra "lift" in terms of attempting to pass. In fact if anything possibly makes you more comfortable than you should be because you can probably remember those questions and by memory work through the questions.

    I found SA3 much harder than SP8 too, and it is far less structured than SP8.
     
  4. Darren Michaels

    Darren Michaels ActEd Tutor Staff Member

    Its hard to give definitive advice without knowing what you have tried already but some suggestions might include the following:
    • past paper practice under exam conditions
    • assignments under exam conditions and having them marked (to gain feedback on how to improve)
    • mock exams under exam conditions and having them marked
    • additional mock exams under exam conditions and having them marked
    • tutorials or online classroom
    • ASET
    • etc.
     
  5. padasala

    padasala Ton up Member

    @Darren

    Past exam papers - 2014 - 2020 attempted under exam conditions mutliple times. Cross referenced with ASET.
    Mock exams - Attempted under exam condition. Received a "likely pass"
    tutorials - Purchased
    ASET - Purchased.

    At this point, I am not really sure what to do anymore.

    Edit: I've read the material so many times, I have basically memorized every chapter and every equation there is to memorize.
     
  6. RedCoat

    RedCoat Member

    @padasala (though may be applicable to Shweta Jain). I think you're not doing enough past papers. If you've done the exam 7 times but haven't done any pre-2014 past papers then I can somewhat understand why you're not improving too much from sitting to sitting - the past 4 or 5 times must have just been repeating things you already knew! I sat and passed the exam in April and did all the SP8/ST8 papers and ST3 going back to April 2008. There's definitely huge benefit to doing this. I sat/passed SP7 at the same time and did a similar amount on that - I'm sure the SP7 papers would have helped with SP8 also given the considerable overlap, so this is something else you could consider. It was certainly a lot of work (though with lockdown there wasn't a lot else to do!) but I wanted to make sure I didn't have to resit. That's where I'd focus if I was you.

    Also might be a little bit easier to be motivated for a resit if you're looking at new things (i.e. older papers) rather than just repeating questions you've done again and again.
     
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  7. padasala

    padasala Ton up Member

    I think what gets me is that I keep failing by 2-3 mark every time. I never seem to be getting full marks in any of the application/higher order questions.... and more often than not, it's because two markers give me widely differnet marks. So marker 1 would have given me 4/6 and marker 2 would have given me 1/6 and I'd end up getting 2.5/6.

    How do i correct that? Clearly marker 1 has felt that i've given a good attempt and marker 2 has felt that I've not answered the question... so how do I determine if my answer is indeed right/wrong?
     
  8. RedCoat

    RedCoat Member

    What marks are you giving yourself when you go through your script with the mark scheme? Are these aligning with the SAR? I understand your frustrations about discrepancies between markers, but if you're failing by 2-3 marks 7 times then I suspect there are bigger underlying issues. Are you impacted by nerves one exam day - do you perform much worse than on your ASET paper attempts?
     
  9. Darren Michaels

    Darren Michaels ActEd Tutor Staff Member

    RedCoat has made some good suggestions here - you definitely want to attempt the past ST8 exams all the way back to 2010 as the course has not changed an awful lot since then. You could even look at some of the applicable past ST3 exam questions. Looking at the same past exam questions over and over again, probably isn't going to make much difference. You will benefit a lot more from looking at different questions.

    Also there are two other mock exams you could consider purchasing, attempting under exam conditions and having marked.
     
  10. padasala

    padasala Ton up Member

    Generally 0.5 per point that matches with the answer script/ASET. 0.25 if I feel the answer I gave was fairly innovative but not in the script.

    I generally score around 60-65 in a mock exam.

    For the CT series, this would always translate to a pass (i.e. whenever I hit 65 in my marking scheme for the CT series, I would basically be guaranteed a pass).

    Yes. I've had nerves the past 2 attempts because my confidence has basically been shattered.
     
  11. padasala

    padasala Ton up Member

    I'll surely attempt the exams from 2010 onwards as well.
     
    Darren Michaels likes this.
  12. Shweta Jain

    Shweta Jain Made first post

    Thank you everyone for all the suggestions. I agree I've been practicing same papers over and over again and so might not be able to figure out areas that need more efforts. I'll practice relevant questions from ST3 and SA3 and will take mock exam, and will let you know how it goes. Thanks again!
     
    ChrisP36 likes this.
  13. randomWalker

    randomWalker Keen member

  14. Shweta Jain

    Shweta Jain Made first post

    Thanks to you and everyone who replied to this thread. All your suggestions were helpful and I'm glad I could turn it into a pass from IAI.
     
    Naga Sai Shivanee likes this.
  15. randomWalker

    randomWalker Keen member

    Great to hear, what do you think made the difference?
     
  16. Shweta Jain

    Shweta Jain Made first post

    I can not pinpoint what worked for me but I guess it was a combination of the below things:
    • Solved older papers dating back to 1999 as well. This way I came across a lot of new questions to practice. Even though not all were relevant but I still found them of use.
    • Took a counselling session from the Actuarial coach (Anika) and she reviewed my past attempt to help me identify areas where I could have easily gained marks and areas I need to focus on.
    • Appeared for a Mock exam from IFoA (but to be honest that was not of much help as it was not up to exam standard. Also, I got a "sure pass" in that mock, however, I couldn't make it from IFoA.)
     
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  17. padasala

    padasala Ton up Member

    hey, I cleared SP7 and SP8 from the UK and IAI.

    I'd like to thank all the help I received from this thread...

    what worked for me:
    For IAI:
    1. Practice - I practiced close to 10 years of papers for SP7. By the time I come to 2018/2019, I was very well aware of the accounts question which helped enormously because this year the IAI accounts question was a monster question

    For UK (Sp7 and SP8):
    1. The comments here on older papers definitely helped... I started with 2010 (instead of my usual 2014 that I used to begin with)
    2. I did an analysis of my previous years papers to actually do a credibility weighted exercsise (lol) on my answers - for instance, I did a trend analysis on how my marks for describe answers have changed over the past 5 attempts, etc. This helped for some cases (for instance, I noticed that the marks I recieved for suggest type questions had gone down over the years. I realized that during the earlier years I used to write more concise answers scoring more for suggest and less for describe - which resulted in a sort of inversion)
    So this kind of helped me plan how to approach certain types of questions... though not all types of questions.
    3. Checklist - This i would say helped enormously - Though you need to ensure you dont spent too much time on this during the exam. Just quick points on items that you may have missed (for instance, i had policy terms and conditions for "policy related" items... just somethign that helps you
    4. A single sheet of paper with the word "TAX" written on it plastered to my front wall (i think the credit to this goes to @Ian Senator ) - This i would say helped me with at least 1.5 to 2 marks (which is very crucial in SP level papers). You often forget tax as one of the points to the describe/discuss/sugges/comment/list questions... tax and tax regime related points is an easy 0,5 marks... and it adds up across the paper. I literally did a check before submitting my paper on all questions to see if tax was applicable and if I had answered them adequately well enough.... not saying this led to my passing... but i'd say this is up there.

    Last but not the least, lack of fluster (i think this is the single biggest contributor). I just stopped bothering about the exam results and went with a positive mindset. I stopped studying the day before the exam... i didn't bother doing any revisions on the day of and I just watched a couple of funny movie clippings and went with the most comfortable mindset possible.

    I have to say that for SP8 at least, I had a little bit of luck riding my side (i was borderline).
     
    Last edited: Dec 13, 2021
  18. randomWalker

    randomWalker Keen member

    Yeah the mindset is huge, I recently heard of a study where they compared memory recall of stressed vs unstressed participants. Stressed participants performed upto 30% worse, so having the right mindset makes a huge difference!

    If you're doing SA3 next good luck!
     
    Ethan likes this.
  19. padasala

    padasala Ton up Member

    yes it does and I saw it first hand.

    going into an exam with fear and going in with confidence are two very different things.

    the closest parallel i can find is (from a very bad movie) the ghosting concept from after earth lol.
     
    Ethan likes this.
  20. Ethan

    Ethan Keen member

    I can imagine that is frustrating!!!
     
    padasala likes this.
  21. padasala

    padasala Ton up Member

    Hi Ethan,

    yes it was incredibly incredibly frustrating. My heart sank a little every time the results were announced and it would break my heart every time knowing that I was good but perhaps not good enough.

    I seriously considered giving up and getting out with just a AIA... but i suppose i had quite a bit of support from family and friends who basically reminded me that i'd come this far to get the fellowship. But i think almost every actuary has this kind of an exam... where they fail at least once and try to figure out what went wrong.... fortunately/unfortunately for me it became a saga...
     
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