Exam 8 - Fall 2012

[gaddy]

Originally Posted by sticks1839

but that's the risk when you only cover 20-30% of the syllabus...still think it's adequate?

I intended for my tone to imply a certain color font. Maybe it came off too seriously?

[sticks1839]

Originally Posted by gaddy

I intended for my tone to imply a certain color font. Maybe it came off too seriously?

In that case, my bad. Tough to tell tone on this board sometimes because there might be people who actually hold that viewpoint.

[jenn3539]

I'm in - first time taker. I was on the fence on whether I wanted to keep going or take an exam hiatus to focus on family, fresh off my third exam 9 fail, but I'm hoping that some new material that I'm more familiar with will restore some of my confidence.

I have the TIA seminar for 8 that served me well for 5, 6, and 7. The only exam I have not used TIA for was Exam 9 and I'm starting to realize that was a huge mistake.

[FourKicks]

Originally Posted by Mosaic

Am I the only person who counts this as a good sign?

as someone who struggles to answer all the questions on upper levels, i think it's a great sign.

[i++]

I continue to sludge through papers. I just spent nine hours on the Lee paper alone! I tried reading the paper first, then got disinterested once he started proving out things the long way (i.e. by using the density instead of using the survival function). Then I tried the TIA videos... that helped a bit but was still confused. Mahler's manual finally gave me clarity on all of the math behind everything (he always goes into more detail than you need... which is something I enjoy when I'm struggling with something).

It took me a while to get used to the concept of Table L and M. I've never seen these before. TIA recommends reading Lee first, but I had to skip ahead to Brosius to get a better concept of what a Table M is. Mahler's manual goes through the Lee paper's math first... then an NCCI paper on retro rating, Brosius Table M, and Skurnick Table L before getting to the Lee paper's application to retro rating. Mahler's order makes a bit more sense to someone who has never worked with Table L/M before.

[shug0972]

Just started with AAA Risk Classification today. Hope I am not too late.

Got TIA and may get a second manual... maybe Fox or Mahler

[i++]

This exam has a lot of old papers on it. This is advanced ratemaking... so you'd think that the techniques would be more cutting edge. Nope.

[i++]

I feel like there's a lot of interdependencies among the articles, e.g. you must read papers A and B before you can understand paper C.... but you also need to understand paper C to understand part of paper A.

Reminds me of exam 6U where it was difficult to get the big picture on your first pass through because of the many interrelated topics.

Or at least, I hope this is the case. Not all of the papers are clicking for me yet. I'm needing to just move on after spending enough time on a paper... and hoping it clicks on the second pass through.

[TwoStep]

Originally Posted by i++

I feel like there's a lot of interdependencies among the articles, e.g. you must read papers A and B before you can understand paper C.... but you also need to understand paper C to understand part of paper A.

Reminds me of exam 6U where it was difficult to get the big picture on your first pass through because of the many interrelated topics.

Or at least, I hope this is the case. Not all of the papers are clicking for me yet. I'm needing to just move on after spending enough time on a paper... and hoping it clicks on the second pass through.

I kind of agree, but I think its not as bad as 6U, and there is a little more redundancy versus inter-dependency (which means a lot because 6U had a ton of redundancy). You could maybe pick one of the papers on Table M to get what you need for the exam, and then have a two page appendix to explain Table L.

I also find it odd that GLMs are more prominent on Exam 7 than on Exam 8.

[FourKicks]

i read a paper!