What's Happening With IAI Pass Rates??

ST5 : 34 CANDIDATES APPEARED AND NONE PASSED
CT4 : 248 CANDIDATES APPEARED AND 5 PASSED
CT3 : 740 CANDIDATES APPEARED AND 78 PASSED
CT8 : 195 CANDIDATES APPEARED AND 19 PASSED
CT6 : 305 CANDIDATES APPEARED AND 44 PASSED

CT3 having a 10% pass rate two years after the introduction of ACET (which already filters out 60% of the students) just doesn't seem right.

Is it just me, or does IAI needs to reduce the volatility of difficulity in its papers across exam windows?

 

I agree something's seriously wrong with the way the examination papers are set at IAI. As Mr. John Lee once mentioned, the IAI Mathematics oriented papers seem to be trying to test mathematical abilities rather than testing the application of the concepts.

The IAI did a survey a month back if students felt the papers were very difficult/lengthy compared to exams from other professsions like the IFoA. Got to see if anything improves after the results of the survey are collected and analysed.

We are not writing these exams to find out the best mathematician out there, who can manipulate the most complex derivations, are we?

 

I couldn't pass CT7

I seriuosly doubt the article mentioning 50% as pass marks for IAI exams. Since I had done quite well in CT7 this time and failed. I am yet to see the fail grade. Also, I notice that the number of students taking IAI exams is almost constant or decreasing.

 

I agree. I got an FD in CT2! I really can't believe it considering I wrote for 63 and I would say 52-55 is correct. Even in failure there are boundaries. An FD sounds like whatever you wrote is wrong. I might as well have handed over an empty paper. Wake up and smell the coffee IAI!

 

Oxymoron,

Not to belittle the point you are making, I wonder how did you got access to this information (# appeared and # passed) before it is made public? As of now, such information is only available to IAI or the chief examiners before the Institute publishes the statistics on the web. They are yet to do that !!

Even if you got the access somehow, do you really need to put these numbers in a public forum before they are officially released?

What happened to client data confidentiality ?

Note, you can still make your point around the 'real' issue!

 

Bapan, can you check the PDFs in this link - http://www.actuariesindia.org/subMenu.aspx?id=53&val=Current_Diet

This is available to the general public since 24 hours now. Thanks!

 

I hacked into the iai webpage, bribed 3 iai officials and did exual favours for admins in iai before I got access to that info from exam page of iai.

 

Thanks, didn't realize that...

 

I have to say that even I agree with this point.I think the problem is systemic.
The main problem in my view is that of volatility & transparency.
The difficulty level of papers should be more or less the same.....Also if the Institute can be more "open" to students in general...
All the literature that we study is prepared by IFA London...I think IAI should have a more proactive role in these activities.( the examples used in notes sometimes are not relevant in the Indian context.)
Some time back the mail asking about papers I think is a good step by IAI...Basically what my point is that IAI should "communicate more" with the students...
Now if bring out the pass marks information in public domain I don't think it will result in degradation of actuaries....rather it will instill confidence in students that the institute is there to help in all possible ways....because frankly when you think that u will pass & still u fail this confidence gets dented big time...
This is where the institute should step in..
There are 2 things which i would like to suggest in this regard......
1)..I think we should start by having some IAI officials on this forum..so that a communication line gets established between students & the IAI.This will help in more ways than one.
Also if the examiners of the institute were to guide students, this would have a desirable impact on the pass rates of the institute.
2)...We should have a system for Revaluation of answer sheets which should be credible.(In 12th class some of my friends filled the Reval form and all of them got a letter from CBSE that ur answer sheets have been checked..& no fault is found.This should be avoided.). Not to say that every reval appeal should always be translated in change of marks but no student should feel let down.



Regards

 

Low pass rate

I don't think IAI is too concerned about the low pass rates.It seems they want to keep it as low as possible so that they can brag about the tough standard of IAI exams.It is obvious from the fact that IAI has little support for students.For them,it seems elimination is the best process for selection.Coming to the questions set in the exams, I can say majority of the questions are not original.They are either copied/modified from international books/exams.In May-2011 CT-3 exam no one passed,but you can see questions were lifted/modified from text books.A long question in CT-2 was directly lifted from ICAI material and so on.When you rely heavily on CMP and bump into a question nothing like you have seen it in the material you are bound to get a shock.

I passed CT1 n CT8 though!

 

I don't believe I've been at an exam where I expected to pass but failed, and vice versa. The evaluation pattern seems good to be honest. Sanjay, if you expect to pass easily but get a FD, then it has more to do with your own evaluation process. It's just not possible to pass after attempting 63 marks simply because you've left out a considerable proportion of the objectives out when you don't attempt 40 marks.

The issue I see is the variability of difficulty from one window to another, which is displayed in the significantly varying pass rates in subjects like CT3,4 etc.

 

So, patra, what do you suggest IAI should be doing?

What is the way forward for IAI and the students?