About month left. I’m going to be done with my second run through the manual next week, then it’s all practice exams.
How’s everyone doing?
1 Like
Doing alright.
Finished second pass through the material and a lot of the flashcards are coming easier. Did a non-rigorous S 2015 practice exam this past weekend. None of the questions were completely out of left field (as in I at least recognized that the question was coming from the syllabus and material). Going to start doing half exams on some work study days today (before quarterly reserving hits tomorrow). Easter weekend I plan to create flash cards/lists/paragraphs of everything else I want to memorize and do a full rigorous sit-down exam. This last month is mainly going to be practice and spot reviewing. If I have time I may watch through certain TIA videos again, albeit at 1.5X-2X speed.
I try not to think about how I feel as opposed to gauging where I am at and what I need to do. 
Finished my 2nd pass of the manual today. Im going to hit the “1pg summaries” for memorization then practice exams baby!
I’m def feeling nervous about this one.
1 Like
For those that took this exam in the past, is it fairly common for candidates leave questions blank because they just have absolutely no idea how to answer 1 or 2 questions?
In Exam 5, this is more on the rare side as the amount of material isn’t large enough and candidates can at least throw in some formulas in an attempt to get some partial credit. I feel with Exam 6, it’s more likely to draw complete blank especially if a question tests you on a fact that you just don’t recall at all.
This exam is definitely trickier since it is more memorization and with disjointed topics. On the last exam there was one part I completely had no idea and another part I had a vague idea. I wrote down something in both instances but I would assume I didn’t get many/any points. Other than that I thought I knew just about everything else that was asked.
This weekend, I read on an examiner report for an exam stating under the common error section of a question, “candidates mostly regurgitated information…and did not demonstrate knowledge…”
I’m like bruh, this exam is massive, most people are going to be just regurgitating what they memorized.
3 Likes
Yeah there were definitely a few examiners reports I came across where I felt like they were especially harsh.
1 Like
Just adding to my frustration with the CAS. In their latest email announcements there is a mention of errata for the Cedar paper which I happened to stumble upon. Can someone kindly provide a link for this or what was updated? I can’t seem to find anything on their new website but it was from the study kit. Perhaps if you purchased the current one the CAS notified you directly. Unfortunately I have a copy from prior sittings.
To add to my complaining… why on earth is the CAS dedicating resources to an International exam?
I have a general question if anyone here knows:
When they ask for a certain number of items, let’s say they ask for 3 items and I list 5, I know only the first 3 are supposed to be considered. Would this still be the case if 2 of those first 3 items are considered too similar to be distinct answers?
I’m wondering if it is worth listing as many as I can / if those additional items could theoretically be graded in this circumstance.
I would say this is a good question, but the examiners reports have listed answers that overlap so often I have no idea what ‘similar’ means on any given question.
Exactly, that’s the spot I’m in. Often I’ll know enough correct answers, but then the examiner’s report will say they would count x y and z all as the same answer. So it seems reasonable for us to be able to build a buffer into our answer, especially since they haven’t been consistent about what is considered too similar.
e.g. Fall 2019 #3.c. when they suddenly changed their minds and decided “Peer Review” “Peer Pressure” and “Duplication” were all the same answer, despite listing them as separate answers in the Fall 2017 #3.a. examiner’s report.
I tried to find that one again yesterday briefly and couldn’t at the moment, but it’s exactly what I was thinking of as well.
It seems strange, but I bet it would be easier to get away with additional answers in paragraph form rather than using bullets. Because then it’s up to interpretation where each item ends and the next item begins.
How are you guys feeling so far?
I did a few open book past exams (older ones) and I feel I’d never be able to memorize everything.
I took a couple weeks off work and really hit the books, I was feeling great. Then I went back to work this week and by Wednesday I was totally burnt out. Took a couple days with only light studying and hope to get back in the groove this weekend, hopefully hammer out my first full practice exam and see how that turns out. How about you?
Did two past exams timed, and kind of hurt my confidence 
This is also tough to self grade but I think I would have gotten 4 or 5 had i taken these in the past.
Welp, back to studying and memorizing 
Did a shorthand exam walkthrough (just jot down bullets instead of all the writing type thing) and would normally feel pretty good about it, had I not just had the two consecutive 5s…
Have been really grilling the examiner’s reports looking for how the heck I lost points on some of these questions. Picky picky. Found 2 spots from Fall '19 that I’m pretty sure I lost points by trying to give too much information in the response.
Does anyone have a list of new additions to the syllabus in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021?
I’ve mainly been studying using past exams and I’m worried that there will be a lot of new material that shows up on the exam this time around.
There were none for those specific sittings. The only really relevant changes are the ones being made to this sitting. I think the TRIA papers were pretty regularly updated prior to that as legislation changed, but it was the only consistent one, and you don’t need to study the old versions of that paper at all.
Got it thank you!
So far from reading this thread it seems like there were some modifications to:
RBC calculations (low income housing credit, working capital finance investments, provision for certified reinsurers, catastrophes, and operational risk)
NFIP
TRIA
IFRS
Solvency II (ORSA)
Taxation (What were these changes? Was it double taxation or maybe BEAT tax?)
I would guess that there’s a good chance some of these topics appear this sitting, so I will be reviewing them.