What did you rebels think about 8R?

[win diesel]

I thought it was difficult for two main reasons:
1) Not enough time
2) Some of the questions were too vaque. For example do they want the effects
as of 1/1/2002 or 1/1/2003? etc

Any thoughts, specific or non-specific?

The Piper

[win diesel]

..still think it was tough

[sb_jim]

My main complaint is that the required study materials do not provide enough examples or instructions on doing the accounting for settlements and curtailments that the exam weighed in so heavily on. If you have a lot of FAS 88 experience I think you can get through it but the knowledge seems to be more assumed than taught in the materials.

A retirement FSA should know how to do these problems but the study materials should provide enough training to get one through the exam under the assumption of no prior knowledge of the material.

Overall it was an enjoyable exam because it did focus more on solving problems based on the readings rather than regurgitating lists. I would have answered many of the questions differently given more time to think about them so I don't think I tested as well as I could have. My chances are about 50-50 at this point of passing. Good luck to everyone.

[homersimpson]

I would agree that the questiuons were a little vague, e.g. the constant reference of how would this effect funding and expense

I would also agree abou the time. i left the IAS19 to the last but found that
when talking to people who knew how to answer the questions exactly that they consumed a lot of time.

I would disagree and say that I though most of the test really were list answers, they were just pieces of many lists usually viz one long single list. alot of EE and ER type issues.

I found that in my exam it appeared that most people said that they did not do alot of writing and had thin answers to most of the essay questions.

Best of luck to all.

[slam]

There was much more IAS than I expected. At lunch, 4 of us figured that the morning's IAS questions had used up their quota for the year. But then there was some more in the afternoon on the SRP problem. I was pleasantly surprised that they had more thinking rather than regurgitating (though there was still plenty of that) than I had expected. Nonetheless, I think I'm in sb_jim's shoes, about 50/50. At my site, we had some people who wrote novels, but my answers felt a little thin, also. So, I'm glad to hear that there were others in my situation. Remember, they're going to pass approximately half on this exam. Good luck to everyone!

[PensionAggie]

I was probably more on the "novel" side of question answering, but I have no idea if the stuff I rambled about was even close to what they were looking for in the answers. The questions were so open-ended, you could go off in many different directions.

I do have a specific question. On the SRP problem, I answered that there was a curtailment on 12/31/2001 but the effect of it was zero, since future service was curtailed, but the effect on the PBO was zero since they received future pay increases. Given this, I said there was no effect on 2001 expense. Any thoughts?

Put me in the 50/50 crowd...good luck all!

[psych]

You guys keep talking about curtailment/settlement questions.

What about that question about what we thought of the data table given by the employer?

Anybody with a basic common sense could say something about that table. Was my answer better than anybody else after so many months of studying? I really hope so. How could I be better prepared next year to answer such questions coming out of the blue?

[slam]

On the SRP question, 3 of my colleagues and I agreed that there was no effect on 2001 expense for the reasons mentioned above.

On the scatter question, there was a specific list about grouping on cells. In my answer, I also babbled something about the sum of the AFWL (which I estimated from the data for past years in the case study) and the average age being in the low 70's, suggested an approximate standard deviation on this number and concluded that not many people would get to 90 points anyway, so this plan amendment would not make much of a difference. Who knows if that will get me any credit at all, but I felt I had to write something.

[ajphilly]

I did settlement accounting at 12/31 and assumed they took an immediate hit in 2001 which affected expense.

good luck to everyone.

[win diesel]

For the SRP question I agree that the curtailment had no effect on 2001 expense. During the exam Part d helped confirm this for me, there was still 18,874 worth of PBO before taking into account the lump sum settlement.

Good luck to everyone. Hopefully 50% pass this time around.

The Piper