Course 3 Syllabus

[fyeager1]

I think I heard somewhere that 55% of the exam material will be life contingencies. Is it true that this portion of the exam is covered by the Actuarial Mathematics text and the rest of the exam (the other 45%) is in the other 3 texts?

[CAPTAIN_MORGAN]

ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THE EXAM IS COVERED IN THE TEXT BOOKS BUT YES 50 - 55% IS LIFE CONTINGENCIES (ON THE SOA EXAM, AT LEAST). ACTUARIAL MATH IS THE WORST... BOOK... EVER... I USE IT TO HOLD MY MONITOR AT WORK A LITTLE HIGHER SO I DON'T HAVE TO CROUCH, AND THAT'S ABOUT ALL THE VALUE I'VE EVER GOTTEN OUT OF IT! HARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

[Buru Buru]

Originally Posted by CAPTAIN_MORGAN

ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THE EXAM IS COVERED IN THE TEXT BOOKS BUT YES 50 - 55% IS LIFE CONTINGENCIES (ON THE SOA EXAM, AT LEAST). ACTUARIAL MATH IS THE WORST... BOOK... EVER... I USE IT TO HOLD MY MONITOR AT WORK A LITTLE HIGHER SO I DON'T HAVE TO CROUCH, AND THAT'S ABOUT ALL THE VALUE I'VE EVER GOTTEN OUT OF IT! HARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

I agree. Don't read the Actuarial Math book. Just get a good review manual and do lots of practice questions. I never even opened that book.

[fyeager1]

none of the exam is in the text books? that doesn't make sense. i learned c2 by reading the books and did great. do you think c3 is different, or did you think the same thing about c2?

[Sunny]

I think they mean that the book wasn't useful to them for passing the exam. They just did all the problems in the study manuals and that sufficed. There are many manuals that list examples from the exercises in the book, such as ARCH, Ramanathan's, and I think Broverman's seminar notes may also have some (but my memory is fuzzy now). Some exercises in the book are good to drill your understanding. But for the last two months of the exam, don't spend any more time on the book, just practice lots of actual exam problems. Thus their recommendation.

Hope that helps.

[Wuzrdady]

Are any of the books worth reading? Or should you just stick with the study manuals?

[Sunny]

Originally Posted by Wuzrdady

Are any of the books worth reading? Or should you just stick with the study manuals?

What I would do, if I were you, is spend the bulk of my time practicing on the manual's problems, many of them refer to some examples in the books anyways. Just choose a manual, stick to it (or more than one, whatever you decide), and when it refers to the books, or any material in the books with which you are not familiar, you can go to the books at that point.

JMO.

[PatsFan12]

Originally Posted by CAPTAIN_MORGAN

ACTUARIAL MATH IS THE WORST... BOOK... EVER... I USE IT TO HOLD MY MONITOR AT WORK A LITTLE HIGHER SO I DON'T HAVE TO CROUCH, AND THAT'S ABOUT ALL THE VALUE I'VE EVER GOTTEN OUT OF IT! HARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

That's where my copy of Actuarial Math is as well

[BassFreq]

Originally Posted by Wuzrdady

Are any of the books worth reading? Or should you just stick with the study manuals?

The books are most valueable when you go through a section in the study manual a couple times and still don't understand what they're talking about. The books usually go into more detail and its usually not very well written, but at least it presents the material in a different way which may help get the point across.

[Sunny]

Do whatever works. Go to the book if it helps; ditch it if not. The bottom line: be able to do the actual exam questions in actual exam conditions and get hopefully up to the high 30's consistently.