Answer Keys for courses 1-4 [Archive]

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11-05-2002, 04:33 PM

I have set up a website that allows you to input your answers for courses 1-4. It will aggregate the answers from everyone who enters them and display results. No answers will be taken for any course until it is completely finished being administered. I would appreciate it if a moderator could let me know what time of each day this website should be operable for each of the 4 courses. If no one gives me definite times, I will make the site usable for all courses at some point on Friday November 8th. The website is located at http://www.boatingwithtr.com/paul/Exams. You may come back at any time to view results but please do not enter answers more than once. I also need to confirm the number of questions on each exam. Are there 55 on Exam 1, 50 on Exam 2, and 40 on exams 3 and 4? Thanks and good luck to everyone.

pcola77

11-05-2002, 04:44 PM

Wow thanks. I certainly didn't remove my answers from the room in which I took my exam, but I bet lots of people will find that pretty useful.

The Drunken Actuary

11-05-2002, 04:53 PM

Wow thanks. I certainly didn't remove my answers from the room in which I took my exam, but I bet lots of people will find that pretty useful.Yeah, no one does. Or, in rebel forum speak, noone does.

The Drunken Actuary

11-05-2002, 04:55 PM

[post count padding]BTW, they are releasing C3 and C4 so I wouldn't bother with a key for that. But do whatever flips your lid, dude.[/post count padding]

GenkiGirl

11-05-2002, 04:57 PM

well...Considering I start writing Cousre 2 in 3 hours....I guess you could start with that one in 28 hours...

Thanks..

The Drunken Actuary

11-05-2002, 04:58 PM

well...Considering I start writing Cousre 2 in 3 hours....I guess you could start with that one in 28 hours...

Thanks..I would wait 31 hours. (when the exam ends, not one hour into it.) Did I do the math right, its been a long week.

bg23516

11-05-2002, 05:12 PM

Doesn't exam one only have 40 questions also?

As for Course 3 & 4, in the past, they released the exams (1 - 4) about a week after the test, but held answer keys for 3 weeks or so, if I remember correctly. So having a key for 3 and/or 4 would be good. Besides, isn't anyone else curious to see how accurate a key from the exam takers at the RF would compare?

Macroman

11-05-2002, 05:16 PM

The Drunken Actuary

11-05-2002, 05:20 PM

[post count padding]BTW, they are releasing C3 and C4 so I wouldn't bother with a key for that. But do whatever flips your lid, dude.[/post count padding]

they said they'd be publishing 3 and 4 but they didn't say when. Or if they would be publishing a key at the same time. Don't laugh too hard but I've been there before. They might publish the pass list before the exam.
You are right, and in fact, I thought of that scenario so I added the line about lid flipping. I guess I was thinking of the last time they released exams and answers which was about a week after the exam. But who know, it may be next May before they release anything.

11-05-2002, 05:23 PM

Well, the web pages and the database are already all set up for all 4 exams, so I'm not going to change anything. If people submit their results for 3 and 4, great. If not, that's OK too.

casquetboy

11-05-2002, 06:43 PM

The last exam on any day should be administered in Hawaii, which is five hours behind US ET. This means that after 6:00 PM ET, everyone should be through with the exam being administered on that day. It should be fine to get that website operational any time after that hour. This time around, there was a situation with Kuala Lumpur having a holiday on the 4th, so the exam was administered today, the 5th, but it's now 5:30 AM, November 6, in Kuala Lumpur, which means they finished the exam about 18 hours ago. I'd say you can open it up for course 4, and the others, well, use your discretion based on my comments... just an opinion... :tup:

retaker

11-05-2002, 06:52 PM

GenkiGirl - You better not cheat, since you are taking the exam so early, or we will hunt you down and ....... :furious:

Macroman

11-05-2002, 06:57 PM

how could Genki Girl cheat?

RiSK kid

11-05-2002, 07:01 PM

Well, the web pages and the database are already all set up for all 4 exams, so I'm not going to change anything. If people submit their results for 3 and 4, great. If not, that's OK too.

I checked out the site.. you have it set up so that course 2 has 40 questions.

Course 2 has 50 questions....Thanks for the setup, though :D

The Drunken Actuary

11-05-2002, 07:16 PM

how could Genki Girl cheat?That's what I was thinking.

retaker

11-05-2002, 07:21 PM

She could collaborate with any people also taking Course 2 in Japan, to remember the questions, and then give the info to people or persons in the states!

The more I think about this, the more I am convinced that this must happen.

The SOA needs to start having the tests at the same time EVERYWHERE +- 4hrs. I don't care if people in other countries have to take the test at 3:00am their time! Tough crap. :sleep:

The Drunken Actuary

11-05-2002, 07:23 PM

c3 taker

11-05-2002, 08:58 PM

11-05-2002, 09:07 PM

I activated the page for Exam 4. I'll leave 3 deactivated until tomorrow afternoon, and then 2 and 1 later in the week. Post a message here or email exams@BoatingWithTR.com if there are any problems.

josephtse

11-06-2002, 01:49 AM

Well, according to drunken actuary, they are releasing Exams 3 and 4. Thank God! I need some feedback...instead of relying on my semi-photogrpahic memory to try to compile the list of questions through my brain and all our collective brains...I still remember 10 of the questions from course 3 I was stumped on...I have them written down before I forget..but since it is being released, my efforts wont matter.

Now, when SOA releases exams--they will usually give the answer key first(within 1 week)the -and then the solutions/explanations second (like after results are out) so yes, if you have your answers written down coming out of Course 3, you will benefit and will know your results way sooner than normal--which if I woulda known that they gonna be released, i woulda wrote my answers down...but it was a tough exam...I had at least 12 questions I could not either answer, or even set up! Would you like me to list those questions--or is that not a good idea unless i want to lose my acthe tuarialship?

Well, since the exam is already gonna be released--i'll list some of the questions to see if I can get feedback from anyone who remebers the problems and knows how to do them.

COURSE 3: the list here are not the real question numbers, and not in any order, just off the top of my head:

1)Gambler problem-you start with 15000, pay 12.5 at the beginning of each round, you roll a dice, N is number on that dice, you then roll N dice and the sum of the numbers on those dices is your winnings...whats the prob. that you still have 15000 after 1000 rounds?

2)Train station problem: you and your friend each at the same train station every morning..trains come at a Poisson rate of 20/hr. 1/3 of the trains are express, 2/3 are local. It takes 16 minutes for an express train to come by and 8? minutes for local trains. Given that you both are going to the same destination, what time will you arrive versus your friend? 6.5 minutes earlier, later, 4.5 minutes earlier, later, etc

3)Alosour problem: An Alosour has 10000 stored calories at time 0. He uses 5000 calories uniformly throughout the day. He eats 1 dinosour? giving him 10000 calories w/ prob. 45, and no dinosour prob. .55. What's the prob. that he ever has more than 15000 calories stored?

4)Question 40: Lighbulbs--a room has 10,000 lights, the cost to replace each bulb is 1. If the light/s goes out, it is replaced. And if the replacement goes out, it also is replaced. Given, q_x, q_x+1, q_x+2, i=.05? what is the APV of the cost of replacing the bulbs?

5)R = 1 - e^-(integral 0 to 1 (u_x(t))dt)
S = 1 - e^-(inegral 0 to 1 (u_x(t) + k)dt)
Now let R=.75S (or S=.75R? cant remember), find the expression for k that makes this equality true.

6)From the (a,b,0) class, P(0) = P(1) = .25. P(2) = .1875. Find P(3)

7)The brownian motion question--this one was hard-you have 2 different currencys countries M and N. C is the amount that represents the difference in the exchange values between the two currencies: ie 1 pound = 2 US dollors so C=1. Now, currency M is worth 1 right now and will mature to 1.5 of currency N in 5 years. Find the conditional probability using normal approx., that, given M is 1.05 at time one, you will have 1.5 of currency M by the time it matures. Something like that.

8)You are simulating the random variable Y, a mixture of a Exponential distribution mean 4 w/ prob. .3, and a uniform on (-3,3) w/ prob. .7. Given 2 randrom numbers, if the first one is small, then it corresponds to the exponential distribution. The next random number, small values correspond to small values of Y. The random numbers are, .26 and .69, respectively. Calculate your simulated number.

9)Lucky Tom: ( just wanted to make sure I did this right) During his 1 hour walk he finds coins at a Poisson rate of .5/minute. The values of the coins are: 1 prob (?), 5 prob(?) and 10 w/ prob (?) Calculate the probability that in his first 10 minutes he finds at least 2 coins worth 10 and in first 20 minutes he finds at least 3 coins worth 10. --I thought the way to do this was multiply the probabilities?

10)DeMoivre mortality, i = 0, I think (x) is 45the , omega is 105? I could be mixing 2 questions up, but this one is a 20 year deferred discrete life annuity of 1, payments are made at the beginning of each year for the 20 years. What is the prob. that the sum of your payments exceeds the actuarial present value of the annuity?

11)Overworked underwriter--An overworked underwriter chooses to accept only "good" applications. He gets good applications at rate ? and bad ones at rate? If he gets a good application, he flips a coin and chooses to look at it only if you get a heads? His profit for doing a good app is ? and profit for bad apps is ? Calculate the variance of his expected profit. ( I hope i'm not mixing 2 questions up here)

12)Second ruin problem-involving a water dam and deer drinking from it--a dam fills at a rate of 400 per day, a deer can drink once or twice out of the damn, w/ equal probability, each time it drinks it consumes 200? Calculate the prob. that the dam will ever go dry.

There are more questions I remember but I will let you guys post them too...I've put in my effort to recompile the exam. Now I would like to see the rest of you continue to list the other questions, and solutions to them all...I hope this helps for all you people who also wanted to figure out how to do some problems, and cant get it off your mind...

Joseph T

megasoft

11-06-2002, 02:01 AM

#11

application arrives at poisson rate=60 per day
prob of good application =2/3
prob of bad application = 1/3

Question is "what is the expected profit of a working day"

Pi Man

11-06-2002, 02:04 AM

can you guys start a C3 thread? this is kind of tangential and not a little more than confusing....

megasoft

11-06-2002, 02:10 AM

#12

question is not particular the same wording but it goes like

The prob of the water level will be lower right now.

megasoft

11-06-2002, 02:12 AM

#9

prob ($1 found)=60%
Prob ($5)=20%
Prob ($10)=20%

Pi Man

11-06-2002, 02:13 AM

:wall:

megasoft

11-06-2002, 02:17 AM

And one more fairly easy question (course 3) that appeared

A 3x3 matrix denoted the probs of rating a company into 3 classes (prefered, standard, poor)

find the prefered prob in a long run.

megasoft

11-06-2002, 02:21 AM

sorry~~ :oops:

i moved my replies to tread: Course 3

casquetboy

11-06-2002, 02:37 AM

Well, it looks like there's a good turn out for the C4 popular key. Many questions have amazingly consistent answer choices. Do our minds suffer from equal flaws of logical thought? Or is it that those who contribute by sharing their memories, are the most dedicated and obsesed actuarywannabes, who tend to be passers? I sure hope it's the latter, 'cause I like what I'm seeing so far....
:bump:

GenkiGirl

11-06-2002, 02:50 AM

well...Considering I start writing Cousre 2 in 3 hours....I guess you could start with that one in 28 hours...

Thanks..

You must be pretty confident if your on the RF three hours before your exam. I hope I'll be sleeping :D Only 13 more hours!!

I was trying to wake up!!! :sleep: Plus...From my house to the test it takes me about 2.25 hours...soooo....Wasn't that early...

11-06-2002, 12:24 PM

OK, I've activated the page for Exam 3.

Regular Joe

11-06-2002, 01:36 PM

The site looks good, but could you add some credibility weighting?

11-06-2002, 02:12 PM

I'm not an actuary, what the hell is credibility weighting?

11-06-2002, 07:49 PM

The page for Exam 2 is now active.

Pi Man

11-06-2002, 07:53 PM

I'm not an actuary, what the hell is credibility weighting?
you have historical data. pretty good stuff to have if you're an actuary.

now you get new data. neat. new average. interesting.

you can't ignore your old data. the new data must MEAN something... what to do?? think think think....

AVERAGE the data!! but wait!! (get it? weight? wait? nevermind) you can't go 50-50 because the new data isn't that trust-worthy... you decide to weight the average 20% towards the new data, 80% toward the old data. in other words, you give 20% credibility to the new data. (getting to that number is 80% of the fun!!)

this is C4 stuff.

shluffer

11-06-2002, 09:26 PM

How accurate are these things for course 2?

Macroman

11-07-2002, 11:11 PM

The real fun in credibility is deciding how much weight to give the new data.

Historically the popular keys have been about 95% accurate. A lot depends upon the number and quality of the participants of course.