A
Alibaba
Member
I sat SP9 last September and received 62.5%, which put me in the 72% of students that the IFoA chose to fail by setting the pass mark at 63%. I have just received my results and have received 63%, which has put me in the 76% of students that the IFoA have chosen to fail by setting the pass mark at 64%. This exam has had the single lowest pass rate in history at 24% and the highest pass mark at 64%, and there is no explanation whatsoever for why they have set the pass mark and rate to these extreme levels in the examiners report (despite the fact that SP9 examiner's report did in the past include comments showing that the pass rates were consistent from sitting to sitting, so obviously transparency on this was important to them in the past).
I have comfortably passed every exam, including the fellowship, except this one. This exam is acknowledged to be difficult given the subjectivity around what is a "correct" answer, and I'm just wondering, where is the hard line beyond which the examiners are allowing themselves excessive subjectivity in choosing how many people to fail? Do students have any meaningful recourse to challenge this decision, through the FRC or through judicial review, when there is so clearly an inconsistent standard in the past two exams versus the long term average standard? I know that the IFoA will not accept a challenge on this given it falls under challenging their academic judgement (they wouldn't address my appeal last September because I was challenging them on these grounds).
I would really love to hear the insight of the ActEd tutors on how this examinations process works. I cannot understand it at all - the IFoA design a paper and marking scheme, and there would presumably be a standard proportion of people passing based on more usual pass marks, but they have made the decision at some point to set the pass mark to so high a level as to fail more students than they ever had before. What could possibly be feeding into this decision except a desire to fail more students? I would like to believe that this isn't how they operate but they haven't even tried to offer any other plausible explanation. Is it likely that the standard is going to move again in September?
I have comfortably passed every exam, including the fellowship, except this one. This exam is acknowledged to be difficult given the subjectivity around what is a "correct" answer, and I'm just wondering, where is the hard line beyond which the examiners are allowing themselves excessive subjectivity in choosing how many people to fail? Do students have any meaningful recourse to challenge this decision, through the FRC or through judicial review, when there is so clearly an inconsistent standard in the past two exams versus the long term average standard? I know that the IFoA will not accept a challenge on this given it falls under challenging their academic judgement (they wouldn't address my appeal last September because I was challenging them on these grounds).
I would really love to hear the insight of the ActEd tutors on how this examinations process works. I cannot understand it at all - the IFoA design a paper and marking scheme, and there would presumably be a standard proportion of people passing based on more usual pass marks, but they have made the decision at some point to set the pass mark to so high a level as to fail more students than they ever had before. What could possibly be feeding into this decision except a desire to fail more students? I would like to believe that this isn't how they operate but they haven't even tried to offer any other plausible explanation. Is it likely that the standard is going to move again in September?