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Does anybody notice that Actex still does not send us any "Practice Problems" or "Summary Lists"? If you have Actex Study Guide in the other track, you will know what I am saying.
In addition, where are our FLASH CARDS??? Are we supposed not to receive it??? But I paid for it long time ago. WTF!! :swear: :swear:
_BullDog_
04-04-2007, 11:21 AM
I'm sure we will get our flash cards before the 2008 sitting. Is any else tired of Actex blaming the SOA for not getting there flash cards out. The bulk of the material has been available for at least 3 months now... :swear:
Exactly!!! Most of them are from the old syllabus. They should have it already! What is the point that we have to wait for so long?
Does anybody notice that Actex still does not send us any "Practice Problems" or "Summary Lists"? If you have Actex Study Guide in the other track, you will know what I am saying.
I'm pretty sure they don't plan on providing these for this exam. They expect us to use old exams for practice and I hadn't heard anything about summaries.
Sandi Lynn Scherer
04-04-2007, 03:54 PM
Once again, we apologize for the lateness of the study materials for the SOA CSP Advanced Finance/ERM Exam. As you now know, after studying the required materials for this exam yourselves, the scope of this project was much bigger and the difficulty of the material was much more than we had anticipated. In addition to this, although it has been pointed out that this doesn’t help students get their materials any faster, the syllabus for this exam is considerably different from its predecessors and we all received the syllabus material much later than has been standard practice.
In retrospect, it would have been better, given the large scope of this project, to assign a different author to the flashcards for this course. As they say, hindsight is 20/20 and we realize that this does not get you the flashcards any faster for this exam sitting.
We are shooting for a flashcard date of April 13th at this point. Because of the extremely late date, we will be offering the flashcards at a 50% discount. Any students who have already ordered and paid for their flashcards will receive a refund.
We do understand your unhappiness about this, we are equally as unhappy. We will do our best to get you all of your materials as soon as we possibly can. If anyone has questions pertaining to his or her order, it is best to contact customer service at ACTEX directly, rather than posting specific questions on the forum.
Actex seems to be on track regarding mailing out the flashcards tomorrow. Too bad we lose the weekend since UPS doesn't deliver on Sat.
Just got the 790/2 flashcards.
They are numbered (one number per side), but have no reference to the manual (that I've been able to find). The only source reference is to the original textbooks, and while it does give page references, that seems pretty useless to me. I haven't looked at them yet, but I'm getting th feeling they were put together independently of the manual, which doesn't seem like a good idea. I'm also shocked that all the important material might be compressed into under 400 flashcards, which makes me think there's a lot of stuff missing. It's hard to tell though, since the material isn't even in any sort of reasonable order (not by manual order, not by reading order, not even in order within the readings themselves), so trying to sort out what's there and what's not will likely take forever. Given the circumstances, it probably would've been better had they NOT numbered them...
_BullDog_
04-16-2007, 11:35 AM
Just got the 790/2 flashcards.
They are numbered (one number per side), but have no reference to the manual (that I've been able to find). The only source reference is to the original textbooks, and while it does give page references, that seems pretty useless to me. I haven't looked at them yet, but I'm getting th feeling they were put together independently of the manual, which doesn't seem like a good idea. I'm also shocked that all the important material might be compressed into under 400 flashcards, which makes me think there's a lot of stuff missing. It's hard to tell though, since the material isn't even in any sort of reasonable order (not by manual order, not by reading order, not even in order within the readings themselves), so trying to sort out what's there and what's not will likely take forever. Given the circumstances, it probably would've been better had they NOT numbered them...
to the bolded part --> they even had the same author.
to the bolded part --> they even had the same author.
That doesn't mean anything. Ever read a research paper by someone famous and nor wondered whether he actually wrote the whole thing (or had his lab rats/phd students do it)?
Anyway, there were at least 2 authors on the flashcards, since I've noticed at least 2 different styles (font/reference style/etc).
Btw, I've spent the last 2 hrs trying to sort the cards, and am still not done. It doesn't help that some of the cards reference SN's by name and not number, some (at least 1) refer to the SNs by their old numbers, that some (at least 1) don't reference any readings at all, and that some readings have multiple sets of cards somewhere in the pile.
The quality of the cards (physically) is pretty poor; as far as the card material, lots of readings have only one card allocated to them, while other readings have a dozen or more...
Done!
Here's what's missing:
Investment Guarantees Ch. 6
Risk Management Ch. 12
"Risk Aggregation...Copula Technique" web note
SN 117 - Ch. 1,7,8
SN 120, 121, 125, 141, 144
There is also a cryptic card summarizing various reinsurance types with no reference.
I haven't actually read any of the cards yet, so I can't give more details beyond this...
Anyone else receive the cards yet?
no. They are not there............Will we get them before the exam??? I don't think so..........
no. They are not there............Will we get them before the exam??? I don't think so..........
If you're referring to the flashcards in general, you should get them today/tomorrow.
If you're referring to the missing ones, we'll never get those...
If you're referring to the missing ones, we'll never get those...
I meant this one. :swear:
They probably assumed there was nothing important there...just like with all the readings that they only made 1 card for.
Anyway, I guess I should probably start studying for the day, since I'm supposed to have been studying all day, and it's already almost 3...
ETA: I just noticed that all the readings with missing flashcards were on the old syllabus, which makes me wonder why they didn't just copy those...
To those who has flash cards, do these cards give any hint answering the learning objectives?
To those who has flash cards, do these cards give any hint answering the learning objectives?
I'm not sure I understand your Q, but I think the answer is no. They are not written specifically to answer LO's. Some of the cards aren't even phrased as questions, with the front being the heading of a section, and the back being a word for word copy of that section of the manual. But, as I mentioned earlier, I'm pretty sure there were multiple authors, since the quality of the cards varies tremendously...
_BullDog_
04-17-2007, 03:16 PM
Done!
Here's what's missing:
Investment Guarantees Ch. 6
Risk Management Ch. 12
"Risk Aggregation...Copula Technique" web note
SN 117 - Ch. 1,7,8
SN 120, 121, 125, 141, 144
There is also a cryptic card summarizing various reinsurance types with no reference.
I haven't actually read any of the cards yet, so I can't give more details beyond this...
Anyone else receive the cards yet?
I recieved mine. If you have it written down wich cards go to which parts of the syllabus it would be greatly appreciated if you shared that. If you don't have it written down I wouldn't expect you to go back and do that.
I've got section D in front of me right now, and the numbers on the front (in the order in which the material appears in the manual) are:
639*-653*
223*-229*
97*-109*
731*-741*
*card # may be off by one, as I threw one or two out at the start/end of some readings, but that should be easy to tell by looking at the article name on the back of the card.
I'll be home in a few mins, and I can post the list of cards in the other section I'm working on.
Section C:
247
249
445-473
675-691
When I take a study break in a couple hours, I'll post one of the longer sections.
_BullDog_
04-17-2007, 03:52 PM
thanks!!!!!
Section B:
251-255
699
257-295
611-621
411-417
49-53
443
509-515
3-7
161
243
245
13-19
305
307
497-507
419-429
671
673
I'm annoyed all over again just looking at it...
ETA: I'll try to post more later.
Coltrane_Insane
04-18-2007, 10:45 AM
A lot of the cards were copied from prior sittings. The first 200 were from 2006 sitting and all they did was changed the source name on the bottom of the cards. I hate to pick on ACTEX but it seems like they were a bit careless this time. They used old outlines that reference readings that are no longer in the syllabus. And they didn't try to make the cards so that they would be in line with the learning objectives. Lucky for ACTEX, they are the only study aid available for this exam. I hope they don't get so cocky and think they can do whatever they want because there will be another Mike Carmody to take their market share. I am also disturbed with the authors, who are FSAs, who should know that the actuarial standards apply even when writing a study manual.
I am sorry ACTEX for being so critical, but please understand our frustration and how much of our lives are dependent on passing this exam.
_BullDog_
04-18-2007, 10:50 AM
A lot of the cards were copied from prior sittings. The first 200 were from 2006 sitting and all they did was changed the source name on the bottom of the cards. I hate to pick on ACTEX but it seems like they were a bit careless this time. They used old outlines that reference readings that are no longer in the syllabus. And they didn't try to make the cards so that they would be in line with the learning objectives. Lucky for ACTEX, they are the only study aid available for this exam. I hope they don't get so cocky and think they can do whatever they want because there will be another Mike Carmody to take their market share. I am also disturbed with the authors, who are FSAs, who should know that the actuarial standards apply even when writing a study manual.
I am sorry ACTEX for being so critical, but please understand our frustration and how much of our lives are dependent on passing this exam.
I'm just glad that we will have other options for the fall exam.
A lot of the cards were copied from prior sittings. The first 200 were from 2006 sitting and all they did was changed the source name on the bottom of the cards.
Actually, they did a simple "find/replace," without any revision to see if the notes made sense.
My favorite: bulletpoint in middle of notecard: "FE-132-07 are generally not tradable" - translation: "real options are generally not tradable." There were a few of those...
ETA: my question as to why the missing readings are, well, missing, still remains unanswered, since they were all readings covered on the old syllabus.
Once again, we apologize for the lateness of the study materials for the SOA CSP Advanced Finance/ERM Exam. As you now know, after studying the required materials for this exam yourselves, the scope of this project was much bigger and the difficulty of the material was much more than we had anticipated. In addition to this, although it has been pointed out that this doesn’t help students get their materials any faster, the syllabus for this exam is considerably different from its predecessors and we all received the syllabus material much later than has been standard practice.
In retrospect, it would have been better, given the large scope of this project, to assign a different author to the flashcards for this course. As they say, hindsight is 20/20 and we realize that this does not get you the flashcards any faster for this exam sitting.
We are shooting for a flashcard date of April 13th at this point. Because of the extremely late date, we will be offering the flashcards at a 50% discount. Any students who have already ordered and paid for their flashcards will receive a refund.
We do understand your unhappiness about this, we are equally as unhappy. We will do our best to get you all of your materials as soon as we possibly can. If anyone has questions pertaining to his or her order, it is best to contact customer service at ACTEX directly, rather than posting specific questions on the forum.
Are we supposed to get 50% refund?? How come the check I received is $27.5 instead of $37.5?
In addition, what happens if I find some flash cards missing?
by "missing flashcards" you mean sections that they didn't provide cards for. They probably thought those sections didn't contain important info (though I disagree), so I doubt they'd do anything about it.
by "missing flashcards" you mean sections that they didn't provide cards for. They probably thought those sections didn't contain important info (though I disagree), so I doubt they'd do anything about it.
The "missing" flash cards I meant are those missing. When I read page 505, I find that pages 507-519 are gone. WTF! :swear:
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