CPCU 540 for the Finance Credit?

[no driver]

Originally Posted by Alto Reed on a Tenor Sax

If you have the SMART guide, make full use of the CD of practice exams. The real exam will have very similar questions, some of them will be verbatim right off the CD. If you can answer every one of those questions on the CD, you should do very well on the exam.

That's what I'll be doing on the second pass through the SMART guide

[banpeikun]

I ended up choosing NEAS for Corporate Finance, since it was less of an unknown

[Forerunner]

Originally Posted by no driver

I got the SMART package and am studying for the July-September window exam right now (hopefully as close to July 15th as possible so I can turn my attention to MFE). I'm already on chapter 6 of 15 in the SMART guide and it's going pretty quickly so far. I don't know the info well enough to pass at the moment but since it is going so fast I'm reading through once to get an idea of the entire topic and then I'm going to go back and start making my lists etc for the test. I tried some of the practice test questions and they really are ridiculously straight forward ("List three advantages of a sole proprietorship" etc). Straight memorization.

Also, there are a couple chapters on time value of money, and I would guess that's one of the topics that takes a long time for non-actuaries. I might make it to 40 hours but I'd be shocked if I studied 60.

Hi no driver,

Where can I find the SMART pack? Does it have everything needed for the exam, including SMART guide, course guide, CD-ROM, "Cliff notes", flash cards etc.? This seems to be a more straightforward method for VEE finance.

Thanks,

Forerunner

[no driver]

Originally Posted by Forerunner

Hi no driver,

Where can I find the SMART pack? Does it have everything needed for the exam, including SMART guide, course guide, CD-ROM, "Cliff notes", flash cards etc.? This seems to be a more straightforward method for VEE finance.

Thanks,

Forerunner

Go to www.aicpcu.org, click on Online Shopping->Browse Programs/Courses, then pick CPCU 540 in the drop down menu and click on the Materials link. I ordered package 540CP, which has the text, workbook, SMART guide, CD-ROM, flash cards, and a free bonus highlighter. If you just want the SMART guide and CD-ROM you could order the 540S package (it doesn't list the CD but when I called after they started to fulfill my order they assured me that the SMART guide and CD were packaged together. However, vjvj said that this is not the case. You should call them to find out how to get the CD if you aren't going to get the full 540CP package).

So far I've opened the book twice, both to briefly check things that were oddly worded in the SMART guide, but when I go back through again and start to commit things to memory I might end up reading parts of the text to get a better understanding of some of the topics.

There are a lot of things that have been covered so far that I didn't really expect (how does an insurance company pick a bank, etc) but I'm just reading through the TVM and annuity chapters so I suspect there may be more technical information like I expected coming up. Or maybe my expectations were completely off base since I don't have any finance background.

At any rate, so far so good and nothing has been difficult, just a lot of lists to remember.

[Forerunner]

Originally Posted by no driver

Go to www.aicpcu.org, click on Online Shopping->Browse Programs/Courses, then pick CPCU 540 in the drop down menu and click on the Materials link. I ordered package 540CP, which has the text, workbook, SMART guide, CD-ROM, flash cards, and a free bonus highlighter. If you just want the SMART guide and CD-ROM you could order the 540S package (it doesn't list the CD but when I called after they started to fulfill my order they assured me that the SMART guide and CD were packaged together. You might want to call them just to confirm anyway since it's not listed).

So far I've opened the book twice, both to briefly check things that were oddly worded in the SMART guide, but when I go back through again and start to commit things to memory I might end up reading parts of the text to get a better understanding of some of the topics.

There are a lot of things that have been covered so far that I didn't really expect (how does an insurance company pick a bank, etc) but I'm just reading through the TVM and annuity chapters so I suspect there may be more technical information like I expected coming up. Or maybe my expectations were completely off base since I don't have any finance background.

At any rate, so far so good and nothing has been difficult, just a lot of lists to remember.

Thank you no driver. I will probably need the SMART study Aids (540S) and the course guide (54001). If I need more details on a specific topic, I can look up in the Principles of Corporate finance. I bought that book because I was planning to take the NEAS online course.

Good luck with your exam and let us know how it goes.

[Alto Reed on a Tenor Sax]

Woo hoo! I got my letter today saying that I had been granted my CF credit. . I actually took the exam back a year and a half ago, but just last month got around to sending in the paperwork.

I was worried they would give me grief because I couldn't get an "official" letter saying that I had passed the online class, above and beyond the exam, which as I understand it is required for completing the credit. But apparently my printed-off copy of the email from the person at the AICPCU saying I had passed the class was good enough.

[Forerunner]

So the online class is required or passing the exam without the class is enough?

Originally Posted by Alto Reed on a Tenor Sax

Woo hoo! I got my letter today saying that I had been granted my CF credit. . I actually took the exam back a year and a half ago, but just last month got around to sending in the paperwork.

I was worried they would give me grief because I couldn't get an "official" letter saying that I had passed the online class, above and beyond the exam, which as I understand it is required for completing the credit. But apparently my printed-off copy of the email from the person at the AICPCU saying I had passed the class was good enough.

[tommie frazier]

passing the 540 exam alone should be enough.

[Alto Reed on a Tenor Sax]

Originally Posted by tommie frazier

passing the 540 exam alone should be enough.

I read on this board that the online class was required, too. Somebody said they talked to the SOA and confirmed that. I didn't do a whole lot of leg work to confirm it myself, since I kind of wanted to take the class anyway. I mean, I didn't call the SOA myself. I did, though, read the guidelines for credit, and although the wording wasn't totally clear, it did seem to indicate that the class was required, over and above just passing the exam.

Feel free to prove me wrong,I'm just passing along my own second-hand info. Call the SOA yourself, and see if they give you a different answer.

[knotted]

Hello,
I just thought I would share my experience with CPCU 540.

I took a computer-based version of this test this past Saturday (not sure if there is a paper version). Three days later, I received an email saying I had passed and that I would receive an official grade report within 3 weeks.

I had ordered the CPCU 540 comprehensive package (textbook, a workbook which outlines the textbook, a workbook of questions, flashcards, and the CD-Rom). In the end, I only used the workbook which outlined the textbook (went through this twice) and the CD-Rom. I didn’t track my hours but I’m guessing I spent around 40 hours studying.

The three reasons I went for the CPCU 540 option are
1) I really disliked my NEAS Regression experience. I had a lot of frustration over how poorly designed the course was.
2) With the CPCU 540 exam, I liked the fact that I didn’t have to turn in homework.
3) I also appreciated the scheduling flexibility of the CPCU 540 exam. Since it’s on the computer, you can schedule it any time you want (well, assuming there are available slots). Also, you are provided with a 60 day window in which you can reschedule the test as many times as you would like for free if you are not ready (which I did take advantage of).

I thought this was a good option. I’ll just mention a caveat though – this is not a super-easy way to pass out of the CF VEE credit, that is – it’s not like the CLEP exams for economics. I did have to commit a lot of lists to memory. Is it harder than doing NEAS? I don’t necessarily think so (of course, I haven’t done NEAS for CF). I suspect the easiness of the exam depends on what kind of material you like to study. I should also mention that I had passed FM about a year ago. There were some computations on this exam, some of which were based on the easy pieces from FM – so I felt like they were giveaways. During the test, I felt that I had over studied and was happily surprised with how easy the exam was. Nevertheless, studying was still kind of a pain.

Hope this helps.