Suspicious CA3 pass mark/technical difficulties

Good question. They're busily redefining third marking because it wasn't third marked in the same way as it was first and second marked. Reviewing is not the same as third marking. Partially marking is a joke- why remark some questions and not others, that doesn't seem fair?

 

If on certain questions marker 1 and 2 agree not much point in looking. Better concentrating on where the differences arose. That doesn't mean sharing marks necessarily. You have to remember that by the time it's at this stage of extra marking, it's near publication date. How would you feel if full remarking 3 and 4 times delays results even further. There has to be a cut off somewhere. Using the expertise of the most senior and experienced examiners seems fine.

 

We're talking about the CA3 exam, which shouldn't take anywhere near 3 months to produce results. If they're not even fully third marking then must wonder what's taking all that time?

 

If only this were true!

No-one is buying this attempt to move the goalposts on the definition of third marking. It means marking the paper for a third time in a way that is consistent with the other two markers, no ifs, no buts. Hope you get a more reasonable respond at the next complaint stage.

 

If senior examiners 'review' your paper then shouldn't there be documentary evidence of this, notes by the reviewers about your paper and performance, minutes of such meetings etc. all that should fall under the SAR... as otherwise where is the proof it was even reviewed? Surely in a professional setting such activities would be carefully documented...

 

Someone who just joined the company I work for sat the exam in August, had technical difficulties, and guess what, he also got a mark of 65.
If you listen to registrar then we can just put this down to coincidence. And somehow they try and convince us that the increased pass mark is fair!

 

After finding out on Thursday evening that I failed CA3 yet again, I have spat the dummy and raised an official complaint to Putting Things Right about the conduct of the August 2016 sitting. In particular, the lack of 3rd marking (the definition that 99.9% of us would use), and the poor service I received from Education Services on answering the queries I had.

I will keep you guys posted on any updated I receive.

 

Perhaps they'd like to work out the odds of this being a coincidence... it is the actuarial profession after all & something we should be able to calculate.

 

Are you speaking from personal experience of being involved in the marking process, bystander?

 

Nope. Just thinking it through from first principles of trying to get a system that wouldn't take forever.

 

.... so you've never been involved in any aspect of assessment?

 

Has anybody been successful with a SAR? Or is this another fancy form of an "appeal" for which a success rate is less than 0.01%?

 

There appears to be mixed success with this. You have to know what to ask for in the SAR. That is the key to it..

 

Is "the SAR" a new thing? I have never heard of it before coming into this forum topic.....

 

No it's been around for a long time. SAR = Subject Access Request, one of your rights under the Data Protection Act. I'm surprised you haven't had to complete some module at work to show your understanding of data protection issues and so on.

 

Thanks for clarifying. I have never used it for any of my exams and don't know anybody who has.

 

Its been around since 1998.

 

Any examples when it is appropriate to raise a SAR in context of CA3 or other exam?

 

Hi Viki,

You can request a SAR to get a breakdown of the marks awarded for your exam. It is useful as you can see exactly where you lost the marks. Also interesting to see how the marks differed between the two markers.

All you have to do is email Clifford Campbell ('Clifford.Campbell@actuaries.org.uk') and copy in Education Services, specifying your ARN, exam, and when you sat the exam.

They must provide the marking breakdown within 40 days.

I hope this helps.

 

Thank you Kelly. This is really useful.

Have you or anyone else have taken it further? Say you got an FA and your marks were 1 - 2 marks below the pass rate....would you make an appeal quoting the content of SAR?

You see, I have gotten an FA before but never appealed as the success rate with an appeal is so low (based on stats on the IoA website) it is not worth wasting your money on. Would SAR help in such situation at all?

It sounds like SAR would only help you understand the marking scheme better....which may be useful for your next sitting. Also it probably costs a nice sum of £££?

 

I agree that appealing the result is a waste of money. The appeal system is flawed in any case, as you only get 15 days to appeal your result, but they don't have to give you the SAR until 40 days after the request is made. The SAR is the sort of evidence that would justify your appeal.

As you will see from earlier posts in this forum, I queried the marking process because of what was in my SAR. There was a 16 mark difference between the two markers for my written paper, and ultimately the paper was not marked a 3rd time. I have raised an official complaint via the Putting Things Right process, where I have requested the marking process of my papers to be investigated. I should hear from them in around 4 weeks. I will post on this forum the findings of this investigation.