Was waiting to complete CA3 and starting SA3 preparations today...Know it is a bit late...Hopefully not too late. Any tips for quickening the process?
From personal experience, I would look at past papers before diving in, and look at the answers too. This may sound strange because you want to use these for testing yourself but honestly you'll be doing very well if you remember the answers for long enough to stop the papers being effective revision material. The point is there's a lot of unhelpful advice out there about where you should focus your efforts for SA3. If you look through some papers first you'll get a feel for the sort of things that are expected. Most of the material actually comes from the STs. There are some marks for material in the SA3 notes but some of the more technical material like capital allocation and ruin theory is never examined. You'll also get a feel for the balance that SA3 requires between recollection of certain material and thinking on your feet and thereby get an idea of how much time it's really worth spending hammering facts into your mind. Keep coming back to the papers to make sure you don't wander too far off course. There are often recommendations for reading around the subject at SA3. Don't bother. Even if they do ask a question that relates to a recently published paper, the chances of it being one of the ones you've read are minimal. When tackling any GI question there are a number of recurring themes, e.g. accumulations, expenses, etc. As you work more, these will stick in your head and you'll recall and apply them more easily. It's not a bad idea though to list them at some stage. They won't all apply all the time but it can be especially helpful in generating ideas. I think my list had about 50 things on it.
Thanks very much td290. Now that you mention it, it appears that going back to the material from the question papers is a very logical thing to do as it would help understand where the notes don't provide much information and where it is more relevant to read external resources.
For the avoidance of any doubt, I am counselling against spending much (if any) time reading external sources. I would divide time between various sections of the notes and working out strategies for answering questions and I would inform that division of time by studying past papers. The essence of many SA3 questions is that you are being asked to bring together your understanding of the various aspects of how a GI company works and then consider how they would be affected in a given situation.
td290 has some good ideas here about study methods. I would just be a little wary of doing literally no background reading. Whilst sometimes it may be of no benefit in the exam (the most recent exam being a classic example), there are plenty of examples (particularly in other recent exams) where just a bit of reading could have really paid dividends. I'm thinking particularly here of further reading into Solvency II in particular. Each student must make their own mind up about how much time to spend on background reading, it's a balancing act (how many other exams are you sitting, how much time do you have, etc). Some do loads and find it beneficial, some do loads and find it of little use. Some do none and don't regret it, some do none and most definitely regret it! We spend quite a lot of time in the SA3 tutorial talking about study and exam techniques needed for SA3, so I'd recommend that to anyone who's got concerns. We discuss the latest current issues and look at further research into hot current topics, which may (or of course may not!) be the topic of an exam question.
