2022 Exam 7 Progress Thread

Nope, I still have 7-9.

Did you take a break from exams?

Yes - I was pregnant with baby #2 when I sat for 8. Got a 5 and decided the time away to study wasn’t worth it (no real incentives at my current company other than some $) and I got a masters degree in the interim. Now I have more time on my hands to tie up these loose ends.

Ohh wow… Masters with 2 kids… That’s pretty hardcore.

Spread over 3 years it really wasn’t that bad, one course a semester. These exams are way more time consuming IMO, but I am also not the most efficient studier (which is why I am at the library using this forum as a distraction)…

Due to the limitations of the CBT platform, can I safely rule out problems that require me plotting data? ie Clark residual plots?

Did your company pay for the Master’s degree? Also in what if I may ask?

They paid for 67% of tuition and all my books/registration fees/diploma…but I am required to stay on-board for 2-years after my last class (or pay the tuition back). It is a MS in Business Intelligence and Analytics with a focus in Predictive Analytics/Machine Learning.

That is reallly cool. I’d love to consider that. Now Im curious where you work for but of course I won’t ask that, at least not here.

It was a really interesting program. I had permission from my corporate leaders to use real data for the project in each course, and then if something had an outcome worth presenting I would do a brief presentation to evaluate interest in implementing. I had a successful project deployment 2 years ago. My company is still in its analytics infancy so I am hoping to help guide some of their projects and create centers of excellence.

That is excellent. It’s going to pay off!

@Red I believe you said you’re using TIA for this. Is this your first time taking exam 7? Also, I’m kinda annoyed not all sections have exercises in Excel format. :angry:

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Has everyone been studying for this exam a long time? Anyone have a sample schedule? Was planning to start last December but work/life/family got in the way and haven’t had any time til now. Wondering if it’s too late to start. Might go for exam 8 instead and give up on this sitting.

Yes, I believe CAS explicitly said that there will be no question asking you to graph. They might still require you to interpret them though.

That’s pretty awesome. I am also interested at Predictive Analytics after the exams are done… Like it or not I think the profession is heading towards that direction. Also it is pretty interesting to me. Alas gotta finish my exams… which… always seems impossible. I’ve been doing this for way too long… and I don’t remember what life is like without exams and studying. I also don’t remember what my 2 kids look like anymore hahaha jking (but I am a pretty absent dad unfortunately).

Yeah it’s my first time taking this. I am in Reserving so I find some of the material pretty interesting.

Well, I think most of the sections have excel now? I think just the last couple of paper in section 1 that doesn’t have it?

I am kinda taking a mini hiatus from studying, cause year end time is ā€œfunā€ time.

:sob:

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Fellow ā€œreservistā€? The pain and struggle is real, brother.

I’m not in reserving but i find this really interesting. Not sure if this is practical and if it’s even worth doing this type of digging when performing basic reserving methodologies like Chain Ladder. Prob the cost of doing the analysis outweighs the benefit.

Actually no, but a bit of everything else-ist at the moment.

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I’m currently in the process of making flashcards, which to be honest I don’t know how helpful it is to do but figured I may as well finish. I feel so unprepared even though I’ve been studying for a long time. Are you guys doing all the problems as you go through each section or saving that until the end?

I’m also really am worried of how the nature of the questions will change. It’s really getting difficult to prepare for this as the past exams and study guides don’t seem representative of what we’ll be asked on exam day. And the source material is much less helpful than some on this board claim.

MichaelScarn
I’m currently in the process of making flashcards, which to be honest I don’t know how helpful it is to do but figured I may as well finish.

I prefer formula sheets over formula cards, where I repeat writing down the formula over and over again (not the most environmentally friendly method but it worked for me). The benefit was the muscle memory of writing the formula down when it came to actually writing the exam. But that was before CBT and now I am not even clear on how important/beneficial it is to ā€œwriteā€ down a formula considering the time it would take me figure out how to format some of the notation in the spreadsheet.

MichaelScarn
I feel so unprepared even though I’ve been studying for a long time. Are you guys doing all the problems as you go through each section or saving that until the end?

My approach is to read/skim the paper, take some notes, watch the seminar (I’m using CF/RF), go through the cookbook ā€œrecipesā€ as practice for each section, repeat for all papers. Once through all the papers I plan to go through the question bank for each paper - focusing on one paper per day. April I have ā€œsavedā€ for practice exams - 2 per week - then supplementing with examiners reports and revisiting the question bank for papers I am the weakest.

My ā€œstudy planā€ is to put in as close to 400 hours as possible - I do not want to take this twice.