I don’t think there’s anybody that feels good about that question right now. I am impressed with the exam writers, managing to come up with original problems time and again. Not every problem is what I would call original, but enough are.
I feel okay with it. When I did my prelim scoring for myself, I gave myself a 2.5 out of 5 on it. I wrote down a ton of stuff to demonstrate general NPPBC & OPEB knowledge and just struggled to get a final answer. Hoping for 50% partial credit at a minimum and I still feel okay with it.
I don’t know how I should feel about the NPPBC. My answer was reasonable, that should count for something.
At least all the other math problems were (apparently) easy (relative to the preparation of the candidates). No one was even inspired to compare solutions for anything else. The NPPBC everyone is curious about, and we briefly touched upon the alternate EV method, and that’s it. Usually more problems get discussed. Except for FVC in July, and that was on average a well prepared cohort. If this cohort was just as prepared (and for both FVC and FVA it looks like) that’s not great news for about half of us.
Did any of you read all source material? If yes, do you think it helped when taking the exam?
Or did anyone only read the source material for topics that were hard to grasp from TIA/Mate materials alone?
I generally don’t touch the source materials. I don’t have enough time to read that and the study manuals. I learn enough from TIA/MATE and most of the items I missed I wouldn’t have retained having read the source materials IMO,
I do. I read (almost- there’ll always be some exceptions) all of the source material. The really good sources more than once. I make sure to understand all of the quantitative exhibits & examples. It’s hard to assess how much it helps. Usually it does. It helps more on the quantitative problems. I still managed to fail this exam in July after reading (almost) all of the source material so it’s not a guarantee of passing. I do think you learn more/better if you also read the sources.
So now that they’ve posted the exam online…
What did you guys think of question 4 of FVC?
4. (7 points) Describe key effects of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act as they pertain to:
(a)(2 points) Impact on coverage
(b)(3 points) Access to care and related measures
(c ) (2 points) Economic measures
I used the MATE note cards, and all 3 effects were on only 1 flashcard. Suffice to say, I didn’t have enough information memorized to equal 21 minutes worth of work…
I thought they allocated way too many points (7) to this one specific topic.
Did you guys think you had enough material written down equivalent to 21 minutes/7 points?
Did you use the source material or what to answer the question?
Honestly, I really felt tripped up on a lot of the math problems on the exam…
I guess the good news is that I felt that the qualitative questions overwhelmingly dominated the exam, so there weren’t too many quantitative questions for me to get messed up on.
I actually agree that out of the quantitative points on this exam, few of those points were straightforward. I’d still prefer non straightforward math to the qualitative questions. Not happy with the ratio of qualitative.
I don’t know if I had enough for 7 points. It definitely did not take me 21 minutes or anywhere close to that. I think the mate outline for this reading was sufficient. I also read the source, but I didn’t like this reading. How much of it I was able to recall on the exam is the question. I’m less worried about this question (cause at least I remember writing it) than some other question parts that I don’t remember at all.
I’m slightly unhappy upon seeing the exams, hopefully I’m not the only one.
So many question parts are unfamiliar and there is so little math, I can’t grade myself. At this point I’m hoping I didn’t accidentally skip anything.
more on that ACA expansion:
(a)(2 points) Impact on coverage
(b)(3 points) Access to care and related measures
I thought the reading was at times unclear on what is “impact on coverage” and what is “access to care”. It was infuriating.
Agreed - now that I look over the questions again, many of them don’t seem too familiar 
I need to look at the quantitative questions one by one, but I felt while writing the exam that almost each one had a new component that I had not specifically seen in the older practice problems.
What comes to mind:
-That APBO question that was discussed earlier - I definitely didn’t finish my solution since I couldn’t figure out how we could be told that the component stayed the same but to solve for the new solution
-The premium subsidy question - I didn’t finish my solution
-The PDR question - was so unsure with my answer (I didn’t have a good grasp of this going in the exam to begin with so…)
-The prospective/retropective reserving question - having a reserve at time 0 threw me off, even though that from what I recall a part of the DP syllabus which test I just took in July
Just ugh all around for me.
To be fair, I think I could have done way more quantitative practice problems when preparing for the exam, so that’s on me, but meh.
What is the retrospective /prospective reserve question?
I meant the reserve question - FVA 2D)
You will develop claim reserves for an LTC policy consisting of the following benefits: •$103,000 payable after 1 year of benefit eligibility •$103,000 payable after 2 years of benefit eligibility •$103,000 payable after 3 years of benefit eligibility As of 12/31/2019: •100 policyholders first became eligible for benefits. •You held a reserve of $10,043,736 for these policyholders. •The interest rate assumption was 3% per annum. •The probability that a policyholder newly eligible for benefits would still be eligible for benefits after one year was 60%. On 12/31/2020, 50 policyholders were still eligible for benefits. (d)(2 points) Calculate the claim reserve at 12/31/2020 after the first benefit payment. Show your work.
How I solved this problem:
The unknown I need is the lapse rate after the first year. This is my x. I assumed lapse in year 2 and year 3 are the same. You have enough information to get x. Your options:
trial and error
quadratic formula
goal seek
after you get “x”, you can get the claim reserve they’re asking for.
Maybe you were confused cause you were thinking of net level premiums. It’s not that.
What was helpful for me in differentiating was focusing on the words “claim reserve” vs “premium reserve”. Here they’re asking for a claim reserve.
For the FVC cost sharing reduction question, I was pretty grateful to have excel. This would have been so time consuming on paper.
What was the difficulty with it? Not knowing how to implement the cost sharing reduction? Or how to calculate the financial impact? This was 7 math points, out of a measly 25 total for exam FV.