Course 3 Practice Exams???

[ActuarialStudent]

Does anyone know of practice exams out there for Course 3? Obviously I know about the May / Nov. 2001 / 2000 exams, as well as the Sample Exam on the CAS web site, but I was hoping for some more exams for practice.

I know in the past, Actex put up a website (www.actexsoft.com) which had pdf format practice exams (around 10 per course). That website no longer seems to exist. I really liked those, because I think the best practice for these exams after you have covered the material is to sit yourself down and put yourself through a 4 hour practice exam. But with only the 4 previous exams, I am feeling a little less than confident for Course 3.

So if anyone has / knows about practice exams, please let me know.

Thanks.

[glenn]

The three or four official exams plus the sample exam are the only exams released by the society.

I believe the actexsoft site was discontinued.

I'd suggest that rather than looking for 'exams' specifically, that you should be looking for a good source of sample problems - and that is something you should be able to find. Try doing some searches on this site, or scrolling through the topics. We've got threads since last year so this should have been discussed two or three times previously. I know there are some good guides out there for course 3, I just don't have any specific recommendations.

I think C3 has some loss models stuff as well. Do the questions out of that book, the authors are actuarial folk, and many of the questions are former exam problems.

[bg23516]

I think BPP Training has a practice exam available for purchase for 25$. I got something in the mail about it. Besides that:
Actex 3 has a few sample exams in their books (5?)
Arch 3 has one
Mahler has 6 (?) attached to his notes, covering everything except Life Cons.

The problem is that all of these are available only if you purchase manuals, as far as I know. You may be able to convince Howard Mahler or the guys at Arch to sell you just a practice exam, but that is mere speculation.

[LFC]

Does anyone know of practice exams out there for Course 3? Obviously I know about the May / Nov. 2001 / 2000 exams, as well as the Sample Exam on the CAS web site, but I was hoping for some more exams for practice.

I know in the past, Actex put up a website (www.actexsoft.com) which had pdf format practice exams (around 10 per course). That website no longer seems to exist. I really liked those, because I think the best practice for these exams after you have covered the material is to sit yourself down and put yourself through a 4 hour practice exam. But with only the 4 previous exams, I am feeling a little less than confident for Course 3.

So if anyone has / knows about practice exams, please let me know.

Thanks.

Regarding the Actex exams....so u think they fairly reflect the actual exams? I've done all past exams available to me, and plan to spend the remainding weeks doing these Actex exams....so was just wondering how accurate they were compared to say mahler's exams.

[drctypea]

i have done the actex practice exams. basically what they do is take the 4 exams that were given by soa and change each problem around slightly. from what i observed not many of the questions were really new, instead they offered some twist on the soas questions. all in all i felt they were worthwhile and i plan on looking at them again. imo they were in some sense harder than soa questions, because they took some already hard soa problem and then put some change into the problem which through me off more. again jmo. i would try them

[Girl]

okay now I am confused! There was a post earlier about the actex practice exams but I was thinking of the OLD actex. The version I have is from back in 2000 when they just made course 3.

The practice exams I have from this are too easy!

Is there any where to get the newer practice exams?

THANKS!

[Michael]

I'm using the most recent Actex study guide, and, echoing the opinions of others, the Actex questions often seem tougher than the SOAs. In fact, my best trial run, full-exam performance was on an SOA exam; my worst, on an Actex exam. I suppose that should be reassuring.....I found the same thing with Actex for Exam One, with Actex being slightly harder. Might just be me, searching for hope as the deadline races forward, but....

You may be able to order JUST the sample exams/questions from actexmadriver.com (i think i have that right......)

[drctypea]

im glad to hear someone else is stuggling with the actex practice exams. i have also had my best trial run on the actual soa exams. whatever..im goign to keep plugging along...2 weeks from now well be 2 hour and 19 minutes into the exam...more than half over..i cant wait!!!

[Michael]

Regarding the ACTEX exams, I think the hardest one I encountered so far was the one that began with the question about using constant force of mortality assumption for fractional ages, as applied to a last-survivor status. That question wasn't terrible, but the rest of the exam, it seemed to me, hammered me down in the most painful manner. On the other hand, I scored what I would think was a clear pass on the May 2000 SOA exam. So, glad to hear my experience with ACTEX isn't alien. Plus, we may find ourselves feeling better on exam day, if this is true. Its like training for a marathon uphill then traveling a flat course. Who knows.....

[LFC]

just wrote an actex exam..also found it to be harder than the actual SOA exams.

[Michael]

which one, buddy?

[LFC]

which one, buddy?

well actext doesnt comprise a major part of my study resources...so i've just got an old edition of actext..yr 2000....and from the first 2 exams that i've written, i found a fair bit of ruin theory problems which were quite different from the ruin questions in the actual SOA exams.

apart from strange ruin questions..i havent come across any simulation on these exams. generally speaking, they're a touch difficult but i think benefical.