“Risking your life” is super dramatic. 1-1.5m people die in car accidents per year, was the CAS making you risk your life by requiring you to leave your bubble and drive to a test center in prior years? Given the majority of exam takers are under 30, your concern doesn’t make any logical sense considering how wildly unlikely you are to die from the specific cause you’re so concerned about. Hell, some test sites even give us orange juice and muffins loaded with super deadly sugar. How irresponsible of them?!

The point is, like all things in life, if you don’t feel comfortable, don’t to it.

It’s unfortunate that you have a high risk health condition. I’d be very surprised if they reject your request for a refund given their recent, very public, post to the contrary: https://www.casact.org/press/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&articleID=4865 . In fact, if they reject it, please post their response, I’d be happy to join in with you in putting pressure on them to respect their own policy. Also presumably you’re in the US, so you have a very strong lawsuit if you choose not to take your exam and you’re fired.

Again, as all things in life, if doing something makes you uncomfortable, don’t do it. I think you have a lot of possible routes you can go down to solve this problem.

I disagree with pretty much everything you’ve said.

I think the CAS did an excellent job with the transition to the new format. I think they gave plenty of notice of the change, plenty of opportunity to get a refund, and plenty of time to understand the differences with the new format. You were welcome to attend the webinars to ask question and voice concerns.

I’m not sure about the non refundable $100, It could be a charge from Pearson as you took a time slot that someone else could have used. I think they offered full refunds earlier on.

I felt that the site I went to was safe and well managed. Plenty of hand sanitizing/washing, everyone wore a mask, plenty of spacing between people. It felt much less dangerous that going to the grocery store. I really have zero complaints with my testing experience.

There are more Pearson testing centers than CAS testing sites, so I don’t understand your discrimination argument.

If not releasing the exams leads to a 3rd sitting each year and faster grading, I can live with that. There are plenty of questions released from past exams to use as long as the question formats don’t change too much.

I don’t think the NDA means no discussing it ever, just until the testing window is over, but I could be mistaken.

Yes, we have all spent hundreds of hours studying, are you suggesting they cancel everyone’s exam because you have some health concerns and your employer is being unreasonable?

All things considered, I think they did a great job. The exams were set up to be administered by Pearson and likely couldn’t be shifted or set up to be online, at your house due to the software they’re using. The decision to flip to CBT happened in April or May and then they had four to five months to look at various vendors, get exams CBT ready, etc. All things considered, understanding their staff and volunteers are also dealing with the stresses with of this pandemic, I think they did a great job. What’s unfortunate is great solution for one is not so great for another. It sounds like their solutions was not so great for the OP, which is a bummer.

I’ll post this here too, since it’s relevant to CAS’s response.

CAS Press Release 4/7/20

By cancelling the April exam sitting now, we will be able to expend our energy on a viable contingency plan for October that would allow candidates to take exams remotely.

Where is that contingency option? According to the other thread, the contingency is a refund, or an expectation to travel 6 hours out of state and quarantine for two weeks before sitting.

These responses are ridiculous. I agree with the point on the CAS making a top-down decision, but I’ve never seen them act differently. While in theory, they should consult us on these matters, I wouldn’t hold my breath expecting it. Not worth the energy trying to fight them on this, they’ve already made it clear from their actions that their goal is to make it even more difficult for us to get through the exam process than it was for them.

But as for the rest…

“Risking your life” are you for real? For those that have additional health conditions, I understand the risks and honestly don’t sit for the exam if you genuinely feel your life is in danger by doing so. The vaccine is coming and you’ll get a chance to take it next year. And if you are seriously claiming your employer will fire you if you don’t take the exam now, then please PM me the name of your company, and I will assist you in helping you get a better job because that is BS, and I cannot imagine any even half remotely decent employer would do that. I for one do not believe any company would do that during a pandemic, but I could be mistaken. I get the anxiety, I am not under 30 and am concerned too but if it’s too much for you, don’t sit. You’ll get another chance.

This whole demanding a remote option is perhaps the most entitled one. If they haven’t offered it to the people who already sat, why do you feel and demand they should offer it to you? This is just mind-boggling. And before people try the “states closing down argument”, IL is the only state I’ve heard this supposedly happen (and the CAS is already working on contingency plans for them). No other state has gone into lockdown and closing, so please stop spreading that it’s happening all over the country because there is no evidence of that. If I am mistaken, please tell me which state you’re in and the state-wide lockdown that was issued if that is indeed the case because I have not seen that anywhere. Or demanding the whole sitting to be cancelled because some people had to travel?

The point that I’d like to bring up which IMO is truly the biggest issue with the whole thing, is the fact that people taking exams at the end of the window (likely the OP plus a few other loud folk), are going to have a MAJOR advantage (basically a free pass if they’ve done a decent job preparing on their own). Despite what the CAS may claim with the NDA and Code of Conduct, people are going to talk. The people taking exams at the end window, especially who work at larger companies are going to share about the exams, and those at the end will have unfair advantage. It happened on the TBE 5 sitting, it happened on the non-proctored online courses, and I guarantee it’ll happen this time. If you seriously think people will not reveal anything, then I don’t know what kind of a rock you’re living under. I think of it akin to interview candidates at companies. If an actuary interviewing the candidate at the prospective employer knows an actuary at the candidate’s prior workplace, you can bet they will contact them and ask about them. That is 100% an unethical & unprofessional thing to do without the candidate’s permission, but I guarantee it happens all the time.

This is why it is gravely concerning that because people taking it at the end will cheat (you can define that however you wish), they will score better. And then the CAS will likely raise the passmark or grade harsher since they can’t let 70% of people pass again (remember TBE spring 2018 sitting where they passed 70% and then screwed us with super low pass rates in the fall). The only workaround I can think of is to give different exams (it’s been over a year since last fall, I would think they have at least 2 tests worth of questions developed) to the people taking it later in the window, but I suspect given the pandemic that may not be done. I’d hope that it would taken into consideration when grading (e.g. they can release a distribution of scores by day), but I doubt they can/will adjust people’s individual exams from this, and those who took it earlier may end up getting screwed. If there is a failure on the CAS for exams, it’s this.