Problem solving

Im taking a course on problem solving right now. It seems to be mostly basic techniques and general principles then lots of practice problems and hoping for the best.

I.e. Some problems work well with diagrams. Others trying test cases then looking for a pattern. Problems where the solution required isnt in the same units as whats given, but relationships exist, use algebra.

Heres an introduction on the topic: CEMC's Open Courseware - Problem Solving and Mathematical Discovery

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When I took the Putnam, most were problems I didn’t even know how to start. Fortunately that was almost never the case on actuarial exams.

what was the solution last year?

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Something something state math problem something something

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Oh! We should totally put that into chatgpt & see what it spits out. I don’t remember what the given states were, though.

Do you need a map to help you remember the states??

https://community.goactuary.com/t/damn-that-s-interesting/7161

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are you “solving problems” or “working exercises”? There’s a big difference.

Solving Problems is a bunch of let’s try something and see if it works, maybe it doesn’t get us there so we need to iterate and get a little bit closer a thousand times. Working Exercises is “you multiply the ones by the ones, then the tens by the tens, then the hundreds by the hundreds…”.

Most of what is taught in school is Working Exercises, rather than Solving Problems, so if you’re trying to Solve Problems, the algorithm would be:

  1. Write down the problem
  2. Gather a bunch of ideas
  3. Figure out why each one wouldn’t work
  4. Gather a bunch more ideas
  5. Break for lunch
  6. Randomly assign 3 groups to work on each of 3 separate ideas
  7. Come back 2 weeks later to see if any of the 3 groups have any progress
  8. Get margaritas, because Solving Problems is thirsty work
  9. give up
  10. read Wikipedia
  11. Realize Wikipedia was close, but not quite there, so you just need a hackday to figure it out
  12. organize a hack day, inviting a hundred of your “closest” friends
  13. pay $15,000 to rent the hotel conference rooms for the hackday
  14. split them into several groups, one focused on marketing, one on admin, and one on where to get lunch
  15. wrap up the hack day having not solved your problem
  16. edit Wikipedia for hours delineating how your problem is different than what everyone else says
  17. wake up in the middle of the night with two lines of code that will solve the problem; scribble them in your dream journal, hoping to decipher them in the morning
  18. wake up, look at the dream journal, and remember that after you chicken-scratched those, you dreamed that the code spawned itself out of your dream and swallowed you whole
  19. end up in an asylum, rocking, holding your knees, mindlessly repeating Can’t sleep, code’ll eat me, can’t sleep, code’ll eat me, can’t sleep, code’ll eat me

Or, in other words, I got nothin.

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From final jeopardy recently, category Geography Mnemonics “MIMAL, sometimes said to be the silhouette of a chef or elf, stands for Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, these 2 states”

Spoiler, in case someone saves them on tape (as we do) and hasn’t watched that one yet:

spoilertext

Two contestants said “Alabama and Louisiana” OK, but not very good since map would not be contiguous".

The person who won, not the defending champ, didn’t even include an A state. Louisiana and Kentucky, or maybe Louisiana and Tennessee. I tried to google but couldn’t easily determine which he used.

Why when I read that did my mind go directly to the wall outside the castle gate in The Princess Bride?

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Hi all,

I am new to actuary world and I need to calculate the claim reserves for a project I have been assigned to. Can anyone here help me? how should I calculate reserves? Any methods? frameworks?

I’d look at the following; generally in the order presented here (the Monographs can be done in a different order):

  1. Estimating Unpaid Claims Using Basic Techniques

  2. Statement of Principles Regarding P&C Loss and LAE Reserves

  3. CAS Monograph #1: Loss Reserves Using Baysian Analysis

  4. CAS Monograph #3: Loss Reserves Using GLMs

  5. CAS Monograph #4: Using ODP Bootstrap Model

One might note that in the first reference, there is material addressing the concept of “problem solving” that has been mentioned in this thread IMO

Or, bot.
Poster doesn’t have a boss to ask these questions? Haven’t the reserves been estimated before today? Please bots, work harder. Turing Test fail.

this bot seems informed though, must be a chatgpt bot

Probably. A more efficient way to find info on how to reserve than Google, I suppose. And V_A fell for it.

I still miss the motivation (and am not completely in the bot camp). If someone wanted info on how to reserve, what does he gain by using a chatgpt bot?

Google apparently didn’t work well enough, so ask here.
Now, why not ask in one’s own voice? Probably because they are NOT new to “actuary world,” and they want (for some reason which escapes me) to know how to calculate reserves. Or, perhaps how others calculate reserves so they can check their work.

Or, just to fuck with us, to see if they can fool us into answering a bot. Like a Turing Test.

No . . . but I believe in giving a poster enough rope to hang themselves before I actually hang them.

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nowhere did it say it’s reserving for P&C tho

As I said, give 'em some rope to hang themselves.

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or, and this is giving the generous benefit of the doubt, the poster is a new college student who’s been assigned a project to understand how insurance works, has no intention of picking up actuarial science, and has been told “determine a reserve for this insurance policy”, so they Googled and followed the most appropriate link.