8M or 8V - which to take?

[bambi]

Could anyone give me a suggestion as to what to take? :shake: I am in healthcare, but royally failed 8M. I enjoy calculation problems and like investment material, but I am not sure if I should suddenly switch tracks to an exam that is not related to my work. Should I give up on 8M just because I got a low score?

One thing that I hated about 8M was that there is little available as far as study guides (only actex). Would you think the chances at passing 8V to be higher? Are the study guides good for 8V?

Any input is greatly appreciated!

[getoffmynz]

I royally failed 8I and gave it another try and passed. You can do the same. I think your best chance is with something you are more familiar with. Since you already studied for it, you will know it that much better next time.

I hear 8V is wicked hard. Especially if it's not your background. Maybe even try 8F. There's some idiot going around saying how easy it is to pass (doubtful). If I was you I would stick with 8M. Two of my friends failed 8V last year. I haven't heard if they passed this time. I will wait for the pass list to come out.

Good luck. Cool name.

[bri1600bv]

Take 8F, my coworkers agree that it's easy. And 4 out of 4 passed here. For three of us it was our first time.

Don't listen to that Gen prick. He failed 8I miserably on his first time? ha ha fool.

My co-workers said that from their level of knowledge they thought they failed, but didn't. It was much easier than 5 or 6. That's what they said.

[bri1600bv]

Oh, one more thing. One of my co-workers (first time) spent 100 hours or so reading a study manual, that's it. She can't speak English that well either (not that there's anything WRONG with that, but it does hinder the test taking process, or so she says).

I think they bumped the pass rate this time to 80% or so.

[BC]

I loved the material on 6 and that was what made me decide to take 8V. I am horrible at memorizing; while I didn't feel that the exam had much less memorization than the others, I would say that since I already had a lot of the underlying knowledge from exam 6, that made it easier to memorize.

My breakdown of the past three exams:

1/3 memorization
1/3 case study
1/3 problems

The problems are probably harder than on the other "8"s, but if you're good at problems then it's worth it, I think. I have no insurance experience with investments, either.

[Abducens]

Don't listen to that Gen prick. He failed 8I miserably on his first time? ha ha fool.

How foolish could s/he be? According to you, 15 years from now, the market will be flooded with actuaries with 8F. Employers will say "8F? Whatever. Next..."

Even if the job requires 8F, it can't possibly pay as well. Meanwhile, people with getoffmynz's 8I will be scarcer. It seems to me that you are the who made a foolish choice.

Either that, or you are contradicting yourself, something I would not put past you.

[almostdone]

You can attack any specialty track exam. It is a matter of how much time you can put into whatever subject you choose. If you are switching from 8M to 8V, it is definitely doable. But I would like to advise you to put enough time for your preparation. I have no doubt that you have a will to pass, but the hard thing is that do you have a will to prepare? If you have a will to prepare things, nothing would be impossible. A good thing about taking the same exam twice would be you will definetely have a better understanding of the subjects. However, the drawback would be that you seem to have a tendency of reading materials less seriosly second time around because you have an illusion that you seem to know the material already and consequently you may overlook the points you should have grasped with a first time serious reading. After all, intensive preparation is the key. Prolonged preparation will drag you to get burned out. My point is that if you start your plan and study too early, you will get burned out earlier on. And you would not want to study at all toward end when the exam approaches. I think the last 2 weeks is the most crucial time for the exam. So pace yourself so that you can spur your effort during the last two weeks. [/list]

[Me]

One thing that I hated about 8M was that there is little available as far as study guides (only actex). Would you think the chances at passing 8V to be higher? Are the study guides good for 8V?

No! There are no decent study guides for 8V. When I found that out I almost switched to 8F except that I had already ordered the SOA study notes and had been studying for more than a month already. I'd say stick with 8M or switch to 8F.

In the end, no interviewer is really going to care which track you took for 8, they're only going to care about the FSA after your name.

[bambi]

Thanks guys for all your input! I think I'll sit again for 8M based on the feedback! But the material is so horrid to go through again. I would rather have someone prick my entire body with pins or even do farm animals then have to go through this again...