Anyone know if new study note GHS-131-22: ERM – Health Risk Controls is available on the internet anywhere? Haven’t been able to track it down.
Scored a 7. I’d say that’s fair for how I felt walking out of the exam.
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7 here too. I was not as confident as you, I still don’t quite believe it. The 7 is a surprise.
Really I expected a 4 or a 5. Hoped for a 6 like everyone. Unclear how much of that was due to tempering my expectations which is definitely the right thing to do on these exams if you can manage it! If you fail- you’re not as heartbroken and then if you do well it’s even more joyous.
But you have to commit! (At least I had to) To convince myself I truly did not expect to pass I did some studying for Specialty in the past 2 months… I refined my outline for chapters 5 and 6 (features of grouper models; development) and really I may have gotten all the different models down this time lol. Not a ton of studying but >0.
Made a study schedule for spring sitting too. I’ll never know but I’d like to believe that if I had failed I would have handled it better/easier than how it was when I failed FV after being super confident.
Maybe nobody else really needs to do this- my point is the reason I did is because of how incredibly bad I felt upon failing when I expected a pass. It’s very hard to explain that shock and despair considering that it’s just a test. Sounds a bit dramatic I know… But I hope everyone is ok, mentally.
Got 5’s for both spring and fall 2021 sittings. Feel so frustrated and disappointed at myself. I have been using mate study manual and memorize as much information as I can. I need to change my studying strategy for the spring 2022 sitting. Any advices would be greatly appreciated!
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I spent all weekend on the question of how can I study better. At first I was just going to send stuff to @luckyhat in a DM because we’re in a similar situation (work, kids, house, etc.), but then I saw your post and figured I could just post it here. Then I realized that my questions aren’t really specific to this exam, so I started a new thread. I put in there some of the resources I’ve started reviewing that I’m hoping will help.
Since I just finished my last exam I’m not going to watch the lengthy video. I can only speak to what worked for me. I will post here because my response is really more tailored to specialty. These are the things I did for specialty and specialty only. I did these things because I think specialty is a totally different animal and I personally believe it’s the worst/hardest/most unfair exam in the entire process, and that includes the old GHC with its mountains of material.
The math on this exam isn’t that crazy, but the way they ask things can be confusing at times, which I feel makes looking at recent exams much more helpful than the 5 hour exams. I tore apart past exams while prepping for my second sitting. I found how wording on problems could be confusing and downright controversial. I found problems where the solution would be at odds with past solutions despite wording being the exact same (and grader notes saying shit like “a lot of candidates did it the wrong way and they were wrong”, that made me want to call the SOA and point them to the code of professional conduct). I found problems that would be impossible for someone to figure out on the fly. I got pissed off at these, sometimes for hours, usually just about how unethical it all is. Eventually I got good enough at the math problems to have enough extra time to write hurtful notes to the grader about the assumptions and how past exams have considered certain wording in different ways. This made me feel better than the SOA while answering and that’s what really matters here (kinda joking, kinda not).
I was ruthless with myself on the MATE flashcards the second sitting. I didn’t give myself credit for “oh man I knew that” or “I’ll get more if really pressed”. Additionally, I mixed them all up once I thought I had them down. I found out that the order of cards was a mental cue for recalling the information. I found that having them out of order meant I didn’t actually understand WHAT was being asked of me unless it was surrounded by other cards from the same topic. Some cards I would get to and I’d feel like it was a topic I’d never seen before. After a few rounds of random cards, I felt much better about recalling lists from less of a prompting. This came in helpful on the last sitting a few times when their question seemed to straddle multiple topics; I knew both lists well enough to regurgitate them both within the allotted time for the question.
The mate manual. My manual is SUPER highlighted now. I highlighted everything that isn’t on a flashcard. I was able to get a diligent reading of all non-flashcard material and how it relates to flashcard material in about 6 hours. I’m a slow reader, YMMV. I was able to really get my mind around the entire manual this way. While I didn’t have great recall of that info, it did give me some much needed additional bullshitting ability on most topics.
I still wish I had finished this all about 3 weeks prior to the exam so I’d have time to have read the source material. If I failed (and I only got a 6, so it was close) I was going to read the source material twice before going back to anything MATE related. I didn’t feel like there was anything more the study materials could have taught me, and I felt there was 2-4 points that would have been layups for me if I had a cursory understanding of the non-study manual material.
Hopefully some of that is helpful to you or others.
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Thanks for those thoughts! I think we can all agree this exam sucks!
Did DMAC yesterday since my kids were in school and I had the day off. Just need to read through it and fix typos and it should be good to go which is a relief to have it done. I’m feeling pretty motivated to study for Sepcialty.
I got a 5 which I was expecting but I feel pretty good about that because I put in less than 100 study hours last time (had a very colicky baby that would not sleep well). Going to read the source material once while taking notes. Going to watch the TIA videos twice, once early on while studying and once in the week before the exam while cramming. Then going to memorize the MATE notcards completely. I like the idea of mixing them up to make sure I have the recall down. If I had the ASOP lists down better I probably would have passed. May look at past exam as time allows.
My company gives 4 study days plus the exam day for a second attempt so I’ll probably take another week of PTO and have the full two weeks before the exam off to cram. Just want to be done. Let’s do it!
40.5% Pass Rate. The lowest its ever been I think.
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Detail is out for those who failed. Looks like I bombed Q4 (<20 percentile), did great on Q2 and Q5 (>80 percentile), and did ok (~50 percentile) on the others.
Where did you find that? I’m not finding it on the SOA’s website.
Although according to this website a 40.5% pass rate would be the lowest ever. SOA Exam GH SPC - Pass Rates | Actuarial Lookup
I think it is lowest ever! The previous lowest was around 45% too so it’s a significant drop.
I’m very surprised by this pass rate especially when you recall how pretty much everyone thought this exam was on the fair and easy side.
it’s under exam PA results section. Between PA and CFEFD
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Thanks!
Oof, by my scores looks like I was pretty close. Bummer that pass rate is so low.
Man, that’s just brutally harsh. What ever happened to the good old days when this exam regularly had 50%+ passing rate?
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Evidently my bombing of Q2 was enough to fail me, despite relatively decent scores on the rest. Scored a 5 overall.
Q01 9x
Q02 2x
Q03 8x
Q04 8x
Q05 8x
Q06 6x
Wow, that’s insane. That was that unfair waiver question too. I’m wondering if the pass rate is so low because if they raised the pass mark just a little “too many” people would have passed. Looks like from reddit lots of people got overall high percentiles and still got 5s (myself included). It would be interesting to know what percent of people that failed got 5s.