Who sets pass marks? How? When?

Many people wonder how the pass mark for an exam is set, who sets it, when is it set, and why the Profession are refusing to engage seriously on this topic and be more transparent.

Given how much work and expense is required for making a serious attempt at an exam, such curiosity is entirely justified by people who are taking part in a process portrayed as educational.

A standard line given to some people who inquire is :

"The Profession is not privy to examiners discussions nor do we have any input to the pass mark set by the examiners."

This is a bewildering statement on so may levels.

It's odd how they, as the recipients of exam fees, are trying to distance themselves from the examiners they hire. They would surely own and retain any minutes of meetings.

Are there minutes taken? It wouldn't be very professional behaviour for examiners to have discussions and not record minutes of such important meetings. The idea of undocumented chats around a water cooler or down the pub about what the pass mark should be doesn't seem appropriate.

It's just not credible.

One thing's for sure, is it a closely guarded secret how it all works. They are very cagey about revealing to any candidate the marking of their papers. We must wonder why there is such a need for a secret process at all.

They might claim to give exam counselling but this is a second hand opinion on why you might have failed, rather than a matter of fact assessment of exactly how you failed and where exactly the marks were lost.

The general private beliefs of many candidates is that there applies some kind of quota system, designed perhaps to maximise revenue for the Profession and/or meet the demands of industry for qualified actuaries. This is even more interesting to know given that the Profession has described qualified actuaries in shortage in the UK...

Of course a quota could be constructed in a variety of ways and may even include demographic factors or by a considering of number of previous attempts, say. I have even heard people speculate whether the Profession unofficially vets people with their employers before allowing people to become Fellows.

The point is WE DO NOT KNOW and this leads to much speculation, and generates lack of trust.

I think many candidates operate on the assumption that there is a quota system and leave examination rooms proud of themselves if they think they have answered well questions that they feel many others will have struggled with, to get themselves into the top 35% to secure a pass.

 

There is a lot of published material on the methodology, not least in the pages of the Actuary in the last twelve months. If you can't be bothered to go and find it, that's your problem.

As for the rest of your post, speculating without evidence is a pretty unpleasant thing to do. It smacks of sour grapes.

 

You get credit in exams for such skills.

 

Calum- then please go ahead and educate me how it all works.

 

Generating hypotheses to test is not the same thing as spreading unfounded speculation about the motives of your profession.

 

Sounds alot like sour grapes and conspiracy theories. Made me laugh though

I suspect those that fail, are those that didn't score enough marks on tough exams to reach the very high standard set by the profession, rather than being victims of an elaborate evil conspiracy at the core of the profesion. It's a shame for scarlets that there aren't marks for imagination

But if the profession are secretly vetting candidates by some mysterious process, I wonder what they make of scarlets? It kind of makes me want it to be true

The process is not a secret, but I don't think its on the website, so I would agree it probably should be.

 

I’ve noticed that people who study the most and complain the least usually don't fail (many) exams and qualify the fastest and make the best career progress. (E.g qualify at age 25)

 

So educate us about it.

 

From memory I believe it involves the relevant people getting together at an appropriate time, and deciding what they think a fair exam pass mark is, based on their judgement and all the relevant information. Nothing very suprising.

I think scarlets theory is alot more fun though (and maybe convenient if you failed). I expect they're putting a big black mark next to your name right now

 

I think there's good points on both sides.

I would agree that the process should be more transparent. It makes it difficult to achieve the standards required of the profession if students are unsure of what those standards are (do you need to get 40% of the marks? 50%? 60%? More?). Obviously everyone should be trying to get as high a mark as they possibly can, so this information is only so useful. But it does mean that if you fail, it can be difficult to work out why, which particular parts of exam style you need to work on, how you can improve, etc.

However, I also trust the profession. All papers are marked independently at least twice, the whole process is massively thorough (which is why it takes 3 months to get results out) and if the profession comes back and tells you you weren't good enough on that occasion then you clearly weren't. Also, telling someone the exact reason that they failed ("you clearly didn't understand how reinsurance works") can lead them to concentrate their revision in the wrong place ("I'm just going to become an expert in reinsurance and then I should be fine next time"), whereas when you have no information about your failure you are forced to try harder in all aspects, which should make for better candidates.

 

which is what, sounds quite vague

 

Not my theories, just sharing some of the things I've heard being said over the years.

 

Oh, so you don't believe those theories yourself? I guess once you've read the material in the Actuary your query will be resolved then. (It doesn't involve qotas or vetting.)

 

I'm an open-minded person. I consider many different ideas. I don't make the logical fallacy of thinking a criticism is a negative, destructive, unfair, evil activity. Sycophancy doesn't impress me.

So do continue your explanation, educate us.

 

So you take the conspiracy theory seriously after all scarlets?

Did the article not help you?

 

Got a link?

 

The % of people passing changes session to session so be reassurd that only those who have proven their ability relative to their peers and done well enough on the specific paper will pass.

Self assessment isn't always right as it has already been remarked that some come out less than pleased with their effort. Typically in those cases, it was a relatively hard paper and so others if honest would say they found it more challenging too.

The counselling by the marking nature cannot be exact. No marks are written onto the scripts because otherwise it would not be genuine blind marking and examiner two could be swayed by examiner 1 etc. Harder to have a difference on mathematical qns yes, but even then if you don't get the right answer, your ability to lay out what you wanted can be given different rewards.

So I think, yes try the Consultative committees to get a change but otherwise invest the run to the next exam in studying and revising not worrying about the past. They aren't going to say anything on past papers

 

Another explanation I've heard speculation on over the years is that when they plot a graph of the marks, that most people get in the region of 55-65%. Then they pull a pass mark line between those marks somewhere such that say 60% of entrants are failed. Then maybe they make some adjustment to that.

If this is the case, then many people fail by a mark or two.

Some smug candidates will say quite right too, they didn't meet the very high standards of the profession. But that is a short-sighted argument. Follow that logic and a way for the profession to increase its standards would be to fail 80% or 90% rather than 60% in a given paper.

Yes you have to pull a line somewhere, but this profession seems to fail and frustrate an awful lot more people than elsewhere.

This, coupled with the reluctance to discuss their methods, breeds a lot of speculation and suspicions.

Arguably doing an MSc is much harder. But you don't hear them failing two thirds of people on those courses.

Perhaps for the CT exams the marking has less discretion compared to the later papers. But you don't qualify as an actuary by the CT series.

I think the more discretion there is, as in the later exams, then the less safe a pass/fail result is if a line is pulled through the 55-65% range.

 

Obviously the more difficult it is to pass, the higher the standard of those passing will be. If standards are high, and maintaned, then plenty of people will fail. Such is life. Very few candidates get through without some fails. I guess those that do best will learn from it, and move on.

The MSc comparison is separate point discussed on some other threads. Higher pass rates don't necessarily indicate a lower standards, but I would agree it creates more opportunity for inconsistency.

 

Don't forget also that the Profession increases its expected income by failling people, no such incentive by an University- if anything rather the opposite.