Unappealing Appeals Process

[Ke$ha]

Originally Posted by Irish Blues

Won't this be interesting. It's quite possible that a candidate who currently hasn't passed will pass on appeal, but won't know that until after this year's sitting - which means he/she will have almost certainly sat for the exam again on the presumption that he/she didn't pass in '11. This means (A) the CAS has to decide whether or not to grant a full exam refund, seeing as how the candidate should have never sat in the first place [will they? No one thought they'd let a sitting with a 20% pass ratio fly; they could easily say they're keeping $100 for the expense of administering the exam anyway], and (B) it's quite possible said candidate sits in '11 and fails, sits in '12 and fails again, and then is notified he/she passed in '11 on appeal ... which calls into question whether the student really knew [and currently knows] the material sufficiently or just happened to get lucky in '11.

At least we know the SOA couldn't possibly improve on this.

Hey Irish Blues,

When did you start taking exams? 2005? 2003?

Just want to know how much credibility you have and if you struggled on these exams for a longer time period.

[UltiActuary]

Anyone hear anything on appeals? Just read that CAS 6 had a few people get calls from fails to passes.

[Expunge]

No noise here.

[jets fan]

Originally Posted by phoebe

Speaking as someone who once graded, appeals are a huge pita. (i never saw one that had any merit. I certainly don't begrudge someone with a valid appeal, but "i said this thing that you already carefully considered, I should get more credit" is a nuisance.)

I'll second this. I also never saw one that deserved a revised score. There were a good amount of them that were well written with quotes, text references, etc and I had no issue looking at them - it was absolutely the candidate's right to send them in. But the other kind where they were just lecturing you...

If tons of appeals become the new normal, it will be harder to keep volunteers.

I was a volunteer who left partially for this reason. Other reasons were that I did it for a bunch of years so I thought it had run its course with me and there's also the fact that it is, in large part, a thankless job. I do think it's the right long-term move to send candidates their papers back. One of the most common appeals was where a candidate would say "I wrote XYZ" when they really wrote "ABC" and when they have their papers this shouldn't be the case anymore (in theory - I don't speak from practice in this system). But the downside to sending the papers back is that, as phoebe said, if it's going to be hundreds of appeals every year, less people (like me for example) will want to volunteer their time to deal with that (who needs that hassle?).

[pitter]

I haven't heard anything, but I still cling to an unfounded hope. I noticed that exam 6 pass marks are "not yet available", but exam 8 still has the pass marks from old exam 8. I assume this means that 6 is ahead of 8 in the appeals process.

[TheWalrus]

Originally Posted by jets fan

I do think it's the right long-term move to send candidates their papers back. One of the most common appeals was where a candidate would say "I wrote XYZ" when they really wrote "ABC" and when they have their papers this shouldn't be the case anymore (in theory - I don't speak from practice in this system).

It appears that there were significantly more candidate appeals this sitting than in the past and it is almost certainly attributable to the release of actual candidate papers.

I too would have thought that many candidates would have had to face up to the grim truth that, upon seeing the evidence of their poorly written exams placed before their very own eyes, they would have to accept their failure (“memories” of answers and successes can easily be conjured up after the fact). I was personally hoping that this would be the case for myself.

However, there were several questions, at least on Exam 8, where responses and scoring appeared to be very disjointed and the fact that the actual papers were available convinced a lot of appealing candidates that this was the case. In fact, I think that for some candidates it raised more questions than it answered.

Go figure.

[PNW]

Originally Posted by jets fan

I'll second this. I also never saw one that deserved a revised score. There were a good amount of them that were well written with quotes, text references, etc and I had no issue looking at them - it was absolutely the candidate's right to send them in. But the other kind where they were just lecturing you...



I was a volunteer who left partially for this reason. Other reasons were that I did it for a bunch of years so I thought it had run its course with me and there's also the fact that it is, in large part, a thankless job. I do think it's the right long-term move to send candidates their papers back. One of the most common appeals was where a candidate would say "I wrote XYZ" when they really wrote "ABC" and when they have their papers this shouldn't be the case anymore (in theory - I don't speak from practice in this system). But the downside to sending the papers back is that, as phoebe said, if it's going to be hundreds of appeals every year, less people (like me for example) will want to volunteer their time to deal with that (who needs that hassle?).

Let me start by saying that I appreciate your work as a volunteer, and applaud you for it.

That said, volunteering is by most definitions a job without reward. If you were rewarded handsomely for it, it wouldn't be volunteer work. However, you do have to consider the most-expenses-paid trips to Las Vegas and the chance to network with your colleagues as some thanks, as well as the resume-enhancing grader status.

Also, graders should love the appeals that start with "I wrote this, but lost points". All you have to do is see that and respond with "This is not a valid reason for appeal". Next!

The more difficult appeals are the ones with merit, and I would hope that as volunteers in the grading process, actuaries would expect to have to do the due diligence to research other potential answers. I would go even further to say that accredited actuaries who write or grade questions should be fully aware of the potential for alternate answers, as the same is expected in their places of work. Even this process is not without reward, as we can earn CE credit for such endeavors.

For the tl;dr crowd:
- Volunteers should not consider grading a "thankless" job.
- I would hope that appeals in great numbers would not dissuade volunteers, as this is a known part of the examination process.

[MightySchoop]

Originally Posted by pitter

I haven't heard anything, but I still cling to an unfounded hope. I noticed that exam 6 pass marks are "not yet available", but exam 8 still has the pass marks from old exam 8. I assume this means that 6 is ahead of 8 in the appeals process.

There was an old exam 8. There was not an old exam "6-US" or "6-C."

[jets fan]

Originally Posted by PNW

Let me start by saying that I appreciate your work as a volunteer, and applaud you for it.

For the tl;dr crowd:
- Volunteers should not consider grading a "thankless" job.
- I would hope that appeals in great numbers would not dissuade volunteers, as this is a known part of the examination process.

I'm not sure what the "tl;dr" crowd is or if I'm part of it. But I'll expand on the "thankless job" comment a little. It has nothing to do with being rewarded - I never expected anything like that. [tan]Vegas has nothing to do with it - the graders have to meet somewhere and if it wasn't there, it would just be somewhere else. Many graders don't even really like Vegas[/tan]. But the people whose tests you're grading have very negative emotions about it. For instance if you read the posts on this forum that have to do with grading or question writing, they are mostly negative. And when a person spends a lot of detail-oriented time in a volunteer capacity doing something for someone and then that someone criticizes the way the volunteer does it, that is where the "thankless" part of it comes in.

On your second point, I'm not sure what to say - it definitely dissuaded this volunteer. If you currently are doing X amount of volunteer work and now the amount of work is 10X to do the same job, I would assume the volunteers might choose to do something else. This becomes an even bigger issue with offering the exams twice a year. I'm all for it for travel time issues but it becomes difficult to find that many volunteers, especially when the workload is significantly increasing.

[UltiActuary]

Agree with all your points Jets Fan, also thanks for all your work volunteering since nobody really does ever appreciate it.

As for why the candidates have so much angst for the process isn't your fault its just such an obscure system where a few people get the power to decide how many people should pass based on methods that we have all seen come out poorly and unexplainable. We all feel we are at the whim of the CAS and at the end of the day we don't have much faith in the system.

Maybe thats just my opinion but thats how i see it.