Course 8I -- anyone who passed last fall got any good advice

[mayreeh]

I've got 1-7, so I'm starting early on November. I'm interested in study plans that folks might have used last fall.

[Minerva]

I'm bumping up an earlier thread on studying for 8.

It has a number of gems of wisdom from me, as well as a few crumbs of value from others.

[Jack]

1) start now.
2) Take good notes.
3) Actex is worthless as always.
4) Don't ignore the marketing crap.

New 8I&8F Manual for Nov '02:

http://www.beginwork.net

They look like they have good intentions, but obviously a new company.

Says it won't be avail until July - maybe send an e-mail and see what's up with that.

Maybe they will speed up the presses if they know there are customers waiting in the wings.

[oldtimer]

My suggestions:

(1) take notes on each study note/chapter - I used 70 page spiral notebooks - used 2 for valuation, 2 for pricing, and 1 each for prod developmt and marketing

(2) set up a timeline and allow 6 weeks to 2 months before exam for review. -continually review notebooks, looking only at text for clarification

(3) use lots of mnemonics

(4) I didn't use Actex; preferred putting the notes in my own words

(5) Don't leave the case study until the very end!

Good luck!

[golgo13]

I passed the exam in 2000, with a 6.

My method:

(1) Make your own notes.
(2) Make the notes as condensed as possible. A rule of thumb: each paragraph in the required reading has one exam-testable "idea".
(3) Memorise the notes.

In the exam-room try & put yourself in an imaginary work situation. E.g. you are supposed to provide good advice to a business facing the same situation as described in the exam question.

[Minerva]

1 - UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING, from the original texts

The amount of material is significantly larger than the other exams (even Courses 5 and 6), therefore it is even more important on 8 to know as much about everything as possible, because they can only test a small portion of the material in one 6-hour session. (Your risk of choosing the wrong material to skip is far greater. The proof is left to the student as an exercise.)

2 - Take your own notes / outline to condense the material.

3 - Synthesize / condense further as you review. Bring the material from various notes together whenever you can.

4 - Memorize lists / mnemonics (and there are a lot of them - I had about 200 AFTER synthesizing and culling).

Even though the exams are no longer "regurgitation" of lists, there are many questions that require you to remember a number of points. The final answer may not be the list of factors to consider in pricing a VA, but if you have the list memorized and understand the material, you will be able to cover all/most of the salient points. In other words, these lists are a very helpful springboard.

You will also spend less time remembering the factors and can spend more time demonstrating your mastery of the material. Having the lists at your fingertips also reduces panic.


5 - Be constantly aware of the amount of material, and adjust your study patterns accordingly.

IMO (in hindsight)a key is to move up each step of your normal progression schedule by 2 - 5 weeks in order to be sure you have mastered and memorized the material. Depending on your past patterns, you may also find you need to spend more time per day.

Let me explain - in all other past exams, I finished my final iteration of review 3 weeks before the exam and spent 2 weeks simply drilling myself on facts and the last week drilling my lists / mnemonics / formulae and making 1 - 2 passes through the material. For Course 8, the volume is so great that just to write out (my secondary learning style is kinesthetic) all of the lists /formulae once through would have taken somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 hours - assuming that I didn't spend much recall time on any of them, which was a retention level I never actually achieved. (For other fellowship courses, I could do the same process in 2-3 hours by the end of the week.) So, although I left myself 2 weeks (8-10 study hours per day those last few weeks - just like in the past) for drilling, I found I should have spent probably twice that time. Similarly, I decided to move to this last phase according to my schedule, but I wasn't as comfortable as I have been in the past with my mastery level or with the thouroghness of my penultimate review, so I wish I'd spent more time on that phase. (See a theme here?)
There were several questions on the exam that I had a wonderful mnemonic for, but hadn't yet completely memorized it, so I was unable to spit it out immediately - that cost me time and raised my heart rate significantly.


At the same time, IMO study time effectiveness is an inversefunction of the elapsed time until the exam. (Again, the proof is left to the student, as is the derivation of the function. Discuss amongst yourselves.) [E.g., one hour 1 month before the exam may be worth 6 hours six months before the exam.] Therefore, DEPENDING ON YOUR PERSONAL LEARNING STYLES AND STUDY HABITS, starting now may be way too early. Personally, I started for Course 8 in May, 2001, but didn't really start dedicating myself to it until mid-July.

5 - Test yourself - be ruthless. You don't want to find out you don't really know something during the exam.


For your information as you consider whether any of this free advice (worth what you pay for it)will be helpful for you - 2001 was my second time on 8I, but since I spent less than 100 hours on it in 2000 (and finished taking notes on less than half the material), it was fairly close to a first attempt with regard to patterns and material mastery. I passed with an 8.

Enough of my study philosophy. If you want to learn more please send a # 10 SASE.

GOOD LUCK!!!!

[Actuarybert]

I have three pieces of advice--

(1) START EARLY. There's a lot of material on this exam, so getting an early start will help. You probably don't need to get too gung-ho about your studying at this point (after all, it's only January). But if you start reading the texts and familiarizing yourself with the material now, you won't have to cram nearly as much later.

(2) MAKE A GOOD OUTLINE. I wrote my own outline (about 500 pages). I found that writing everything down in my own words helped me to understand the material a lot better. (I also bought the Actex manual, but I found my own notes to be more useful). A few weeks before the exam, I made a condensed outline (about 100 pages, similar to the condensed outlines in the JAM study manuals). This allowed me to pick out the really important points and focus on them for the last couple weeks.

(3) DON'T FORGET THE CASE STUDY. Read the case study early in your studying, and re-read it often. As you're reading the texts, try to think about how the concepts apply to the companies in the case study. The exam had a lot of questions relating to the case study, so it's important to be able to apply the material to real-life situations.

Best of luck. It's a lot of material but there's no need to be intimidated. As you study for the exam, keep reminding yourself that this is the last actuarial exam you'll ever have to take.

[golgo13]

As you study for the exam, keep reminding yourself that this is the last actuarial exam you'll ever have to take.

Unless one is going for the FCIA designation, where the PEC requirement remains.

[Baron Greenback]

I just passed 8F without memorizing a single list. No, really. Don't try this at home. You could fail, or get injured, or possibly deported.

Instead I took notes in painstaking fashion, which took forever. However I understood the material so well and in such detail that memorizing was superfluous. While I would not recommend skipping memorization stuff to others, there is a valuable lesson there. Unfortunately I did not learn it until my last exam!