Study Advice

[ActuarialBAMF]

Hi Everyone,

I'm sure that this thread has been made before; but I'm just beginning to study for exam DP and its my first FSA exam. Since I have plenty of time(6 months) I am looking for any advice on the best way to make use of it. I plan on putting in roughly 3 or so hours a day from now until November. Does anyone have any recommendations on material: study guides, seminars, etc. that were really helpful. My general gameplan now is to start reading the source material and follow along behind that with a study guide outline and then go through the entire TIA seminar...does that sound reasonable?

[ACEManual]

See the front of the ACE study guide for my thoughts.

In general your plan sounds fine. The 3 hours a day for 6 months sounds like a good amount of time. Just doing some rough math - 3 * 30 days * 6 months = 540 hours.

You didn't mention the flash cards. Usually students start memorization around 6-8 weeks prior to the exam. I have also heard about people starting on the flash cards on day 1.

How will you incorporate practice problems into your studies? I recommend doing practice problems from day 1. It helps keep you focused and allows you to do something else besides read.

TIA seminar? Come on now...go to www.acemanuals.com to see ads and sample video for the ACE seminar.

Good luck!

Jacob

[ACEManual]

One more note - on the product information page of the website there is a sample study schedule. Many students use this to track progress.

[samiam1985]

You're going to get a wide array of answers on this one depending on who responds. Personally, I used almost no source material other than Investment Guarantees and some of the SOA's study notes. I didn't use the source material much because A) I'm lazy and don't want to read more "long form" material than I need to and B) I already had a good feel for some of the material due to job experience (emphasis on point A, though).

My route started about 4.5-5 months out with this strategy: Read through the ACE manual, noting the topics I had the most trouble with. Occasionally I would glance at 7702 and Investment Guarantees source material for a little clarification. Then I watched the ACE online seminar videos (unfortunately the videos don't exactly match up with the manual so it's not simple to read the manual then watch all corresponding videos for a section). Then I wrapped back around and read through the ACE manual again and did book problems along the way for some of the subjects (probably should have done more to make the end-game a little easier). I then probably watched half the seminar again, but only on topics that I wanted a little more clarification on.

At that point it was about 8 weeks out from the test and I went on vacation. Given that vacation obviously equals study time I took a couple hundred notecards with me and probably memorized (temporarily) 120 of them. Once I got back I basically did notecards and practice problems every day with hours ramping up each week to the point of about 12-14 hours a day the last week before the exam.

Really, it would have been better for me to do problems from the very beginning and look at notecards as well so I could adjust cards as I felt necessary and condense/eliminate cards that I felt unneeded. Also, beware of errors in the manual/cards. Most of them are "obvious" if you understand the material (like in 7702 or SNL one of the alternative DB cards says you can only increase DB to stop an increasing NAR, which wouldn't make sense and doesn't match the manual [should be "decreasing NAR"]), but if you don't it could be a problem. I'm not sure where a list of errata is, though, which would have been helpful.

I don't know how much weight to put into my opinions since I just took the test for the first time and don't know whether I passed or failed, but the end result was me feeling like I had the knowledge to get an 8+ on the test before taking it and afterwards I felt like a 6 or 7 was most likely.

[Broner]

I did (in order):

Full read of the source material
Read-through of Ace
Read through of Ace making my own notes on what was important
Flashcards/my notes/questions/practice exams
Exam
???
Profit

If I pass (popped my cherry last week) I won't change that strategy for CSP. If I don't, I'd probably spend more time with the source material. I felt ACE did a very poor job explaining things and providing context for the source material. The manual pretty much amounted to 500 pages of random bullet points.

[Bballry1234]

Just do flashcards, flashcards, flashcards. Memorize, memorize, memorize.

This isn't a prelim. Prelims require you to think. FSA exams are designed to have you regurgitate useless bullcrap AS fast as possible like a dancing monkey suckling at the power teet of the SOA.

I finished MLC with a 10 and 1.5 hours left to check my work...I didn't even have 30 seconds to check if my candidate number was on every sheet during my first FSA exam before time was called.

Honestly, I didn't even think once on the exam. If it takes you more than 2 minutes to determine a starting point for a problem, it's over, move on, you lost points.

You see the word "survivorship", "mortality", and "assumption" for example, and it doesn't even matter what the question said: you just need to immediately write down the 9 item list.

I think the SOA should just shift to giving two to three key words, and assigning a point value instead of asking questions. Like, Question 1: Mortality Variation (2 pts.)

[ACEManual]

Wanted to respond to a comment above about the differences between the OLS and the study guide. The OLS combines repetition in the syllabus. So if there are two study notes which discuss the same thing, they are combined into one section.

Overall students have always provided feedback that this is a HUGE value add.

Jacob

[Bballry1234]

Originally Posted by ACEManual

Wanted to respond to a comment above about the differences between the OLS and the study guide. The OLS combines repetition in the syllabus. So if there are two study notes which discuss the same thing, they are combined into one section.

Overall students have always provided feedback that this is a HUGE value add.

Jacob

I'm using ace again for CSP. Is it sad though that the only reason I buy the manual is because it makes it easier to correct the errata on the pre-packaged notecards?

[samiam1985]

Originally Posted by ACEManual

Wanted to respond to a comment above about the differences between the OLS and the study guide. The OLS combines repetition in the syllabus. So if there are two study notes which discuss the same thing, they are combined into one section.

Overall students have always provided feedback that this is a HUGE value add.

Jacob

Jacob, I don't find the method of the OLS to be the issue. I find the fact that there are multiple sources talking about the same thing (and occasionally offering different information) to be the problem. I understand the fact that all sources are then covered by the study manual, it just creates a disconnect between how things should be covered (the OLS) and how things NEED to be covered due to stupid source-specific questions on the exams (the manual). Soooooo Jacob, how about you tell the SOA to shake things up a little bit and offer condensed, non-overlapping, non-biased texts ("Does Preferred Wear Off" anyone?) that can then be questioned in a more intuitive manner? Consider that a rhetorical question since outside opinion appears to be ignored in many cases (even though having credentials should ideally make us "respected" people to listen to).

So to jump slightly back on topic: to semi-mirror part of what bballry said, knowing your notecards is a pretty huge part of this test (not quite as huge as it was in '07 and '08, though. Just look at the tests). Having a full understanding of all the material will not get you a perfect score on the test. You will be asked for specific lists that will make you think "This is testing my ability as an actuary?" I would say that if a card has a list of 4 or more items you should probably memorize it to the greatest extent possible.

With that said, memorizing a list is not the only thing to do. When the question says "explain" or "describe" you're going to need an understanding of the list items to properly obtain your points. This understanding is not always on the cards (and who would want to look at the size 4 font that would be needed to achieve this?) so read manuals and texts if you don't fully "get" the items.

In summary, know everything and become a mind-reader of sorts to help you decipher exactly what the question is asking (easier said than done in many cases). Also, don't sleep. Imagine all that time that could be used for information consumption instead of restoring your body!

[ActuarialBAMF]

Sooo you guys have swayed me and I'm changing my outline to incorporate the Ace Seminary and questions instead of TIA...registration should be coming in soon!