Course 1 Texts and Study Guides

[mphealy]

Hi,

I passed Course 2 in May and I am going backward to go for Course 1 in November.

I was wondering if anyone could give me some hints on what the best (most readable) text for Probability is. I already have a Calc book.

I have also purchased the Averbach and Mehta study guide.

Thanks for the advice!!

[Eeyore]

Probability book by Hassett and Stewart very readable and has simple exercises to master the theory
good luck!

[Bama Gambler]

I cast a second vote for "Probability For Risk Management" by Hassett and Stewart.

[KnightsPG]

My advice? Forget the books and just use the study guide. Spend all your time going through the Averbach and Mehta study guide and then go through problem after problem from old exams and perhaps the Actex manual if you can get your hands on it.

[takin 2]

I agree with KnightsPG.......Averbach and Mehta study manual is very good. I did every problem in the manual w/o much prior probablity knowledge and passed

[mphealy]

Thanks for the info.

How did you study for Calculus? It has been a long time since I had any coursework in Calc. I thought that I could go through the A&M manual and relearn it.

I hope to have a good working knowledge of the Calc and Probability before taking Broverman's review seminar in October. For Interest Theory, his class was helpful as long as you had a good base of knowledge to build from.

[VernSchil]

A lot of the calculus is not very important to master in my opinion. I would just use the study guides. The most important calculus topic is to make sure you know how to calculate derivatives and integrals (both in 1 and 2 dimensions and especially of exponential functions). There seems to be a lot of min/max problems involving calculus and problems dealing with graphs of 1st/2nd derivatives. You shouldn't see more than 1 problem from each of the other topics of calculus. I'd read through a study guide (Actex) and make sure you can do all the problem sets. Don't go overboard going through 100's of pages in a calculus text book, especially if you've had exposure to calculus in the past.

[RiSK kid]

yup,

calculus is not that important compared to the probability. The test focuses more on probability and stats. Just review calc if you have already seen it before and don't spend too much time on the integrals and derivatives because you will get a lot of exposure to this within a probability question. Do lots of practice questions.

I used the actex. it was great for review and had lots of problems.

[GenkiGirl]

I:m going to agree with a lot of other people here... I used the A&M study manual and nothing else. When it came time for the test I found I was VERY well prepared. I did almost every questions and all of the old exams. This guide was awsome and I never even opened up my risk management book. Also there was not even one question on the test that I hadn:t seen before.

GG

[mphealy]

I know it is always a difficult question, but about how long did you study for Course 1?

I have some background in Calc and Probability, but I am really rusty. I am hoping that studying hard 3 mos before the exam will be enough.

[takin 2]

About 120 hours here, all within 2.5 weeks of the exam. Had all the relevant calc classes in college and a very poorly taught statistics class that didn't cover most of what you need to know (had to teach myself most of that)

[GenkiGirl]

I also had a VERY strong calc. background and had even taught quite a bit of it before (I was a tutor). But my probablity and stats was sup par. I studied my but off for 5 weeks...3-5 hours a day but not really on the weekends. After getting my mark I saw I could have studied a bit less..but I much rather too much than too little.

GG