Passed Marks of the course 1

[seblavoie]

Hi, I would like to know if somebody can explain to me my marks, I am a little bit confused. It is written that my probability percentile is 76 and my calcul percentil is 24, and I had 5 for my mark!!! There is one of my friend that has 26 in probability and 76 in calcul and has 3!!! How do the SOA give the mark???? I am sure of 24 answers!!!! Thank you for some explanation...

[Gandalf]

Hi, I would like to know if somebody can explain to me my marks, I am a little bit confused. It is written that my probability percentile is 76 and my calcul percentil is 24, and I had 5 for my mark!!! There is one of my friend that has 26 in probability and 76 in calcul and has 3!!! How do the SOA give the mark???? I am sure of 24 answers!!!! Thank you for some explanation...

Percentile is how you did on those problems compared to everyone else. On probability, you did well, better than 76% of the people taking the exam. It doesn't say exactly how well you did or how well the average person did, just that you did better than 76% of them. You did poorly compared to the average person on calculus: you scored better on calculus than only 24% of all the people taking the exam.

Percentiles are just comparing you with everyone else. You might have gotten 65% of the calculus problems right, but if the average person got 70% of the calculus problems right, you might be at only the 24th percentile on calculus.

Your friend did poorly on probability but well on calculus.

There's no definite relationship between percentiles on parts of the exam and score on the overall exam. Score on the overall exam is based on total number of problems you got right.

[FIOB]

You got at least 90% of the number needed to pass. Your friend got at least 70%, but less than 80%. Your score doesn't depend on how you did on each part of the exam. It's just your total score that counts.

[seblavoie]

Well thank you very much, but I tought that I could get a 6 with 24 good answers... It seems that the SOA doesn't want to get more Actuary in there association!!!!!

[Toonces]

Sebla... I don't know how many correct you needed, but you probably needed to score in at least the 65th percentile overall to pass. If your calc score was only in the 24th percentile (and is about 45% of the test) I would guess that your overall percentile was in the neighborhood of .76*.55+.24*.45 = 53rd percentile. A 5 means you were 1-2 questions from passing.

[neofan]

Hi, I would like to know if somebody can explain to me my marks, I am a little bit confused. It is written that my probability percentile is 76 and my calcul percentil is 24, and I had 5 for my mark!!! There is one of my friend that has 26 in probability and 76 in calcul and has 3!!! How do the SOA give the mark???? I am sure of 24 answers!!!! Thank you for some explanation...

Seblavoie, you got 5 and your friend got 3 because every course 1 exam has many more probability questions than cal questions, it's generally 25 to 15 but it varies. No one really knows what the passmark is since been sure of 24 answers doesn't mean you'll get all 24 right, on the other hand, some may say they passed even though they were confident with less than 25, the candidate may have guessed a few more right and got a passing score of 6, so luck has to do with the outcome if you're borderline, but overall you'll need to study them and earn the course credit, just be patient, I got a 7 this time after 4th attempts.

[neofan]

Well thank you very much, but I tought that I could get a 6 with 24 good answers... It seems that the SOA doesn't want to get more Actuary in there association!!!!!

This is not true, it's graded on the curve, each exam they'll determine how many of them will pass and draw a passing mark. On the other hand, if everyone fails miserably, they'll set a standard of passing mark, May 2000 for example, most failed miserably so they set the passing score of 21 (only 23% of people passed as most weren't familiar with the exam yet). There're another thread that talks about passing mark, someone said he/she had 26 correct and got a 6 so it's close to the cut off, IMO this exam was a bit easier, naturally the passing mark will go up. SOA does let more people pass this time, over 2000, in the past only 1000 or so passed course 1. This is a competitive field, getting a well-paid job means you'll have to earn it.

I'm so glad we have FIOB here to enlighten us with his never ending intelligence.
Thanks FIOB. You're the best.

And hey, next time start the guys that hit the homers will ya!