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Been reviewing this test a little the past few days, and I remain so aggravated by it.
The Valuation focus of 4 points on question 1 is ludicrous. That’s 10% of this exam. I’ve gone through the syllabus material twice and still can’t find the answer for question 1(b).
Take out those 4 points, and I think I pass pretty cleanly. But here I am, with my fate hinging on my inability to recall facts that are so insignificant and unrelated that I can’t find them even now, with an open book and zero time constraints. So annoying.
Well, one more week. Hope for justice, expect a lack of it, and hope the stress doesn’t kill me in the interim. Never change, SOA.I passed. They must’ve curved it or thrown those parts from question one that weren’t on the syllabus out after they got feedback because I was not feeling confident at all with those parts included. Hoping for good news from everyone else!
I didn’t pass, as expected. This is the most prepared I’ve ever felt for an actuarial exam and of course got blindsided. Terrible terrible exam.
Didn’t pass either. This was my last exam ever, and I failed for the first time. Felt like this was an extremely unfair exam, but who knows, maybe I’m just stupid.
Definitely a poorly written exam, and I’m sure they got a lot of feedback saying that. This being your first time failing an exam is great though! This was my second attempt at LAM, and I have had to retake several other exams throughout my career.
Took this exam in the Fall of 2020. Never felt more confident about an exam… devastated when I got a 5.
Walked out of the Spring 2021 exam feeling terrible (as we all did). Just a brutal sitting. Really didn’t expect to pass.
Shocked to see my number on the list this morning. I passed. I’m still in shock.
for those that didn’t get it – keep your head up! This was a tough one. You’ll get it next time!
For you guys that passed, do you have any tips on how to study better? I only used TIA this time around and didn’t find it to be very helpful for the actual exam.
Please feel free to email me francisyung@pakstudymanual.com to see if I can help you
Hey Jesus, I only used TIA for this exam in both Fall 2020 and my second attempt in Spring 2021. Going through all the videos again, getting a really good handle on all the flash cards, and working through all the major calculation problem types multiple times through had me feeling really good going into the sitting. I did all of the TIA practice exams and the Fall 2020 exam in real 2 hour and 15 minute simulations. I also did as many of the practice questions from previous exams that I could. Like I said, I felt super prepared but then I felt awful coming out after the bizarre exam we got. I would just stick with the same techniques that got you through all the other exams on your first try and don’t try to change up your formula that already works for you. Whenever I have failed and needed retakes, I found the material always became a bit clearer studying for the second sitting even without changing studying practices.
I used TIA in the fall. While I found it to be a good review, I didnt love their practice tests. They seemed to focus on weird things (e.g. a huuuge question on Importance Sampling, when it is literally only mentioned in one paragraph in the source material). Loved Eddie’s videos. Zack is fine too. I did find their message board and response time/commentary to be very helpful. Their instructors are readily available for any questions you have.
Decided to switch things up and use PAK for the spring. I found it to be incredibly frustrating… terrible overview of material, not much commentary on topics, and their practice questions only came from a handful of readings. Would not recommend to anyone who would want to pass. They were very unhelpful with any questions people had. I found myself going back to old TIA material I had saved and doing my own review of source material. I would stay far away form PAK for LAM.
Hi Bruins46,
Thanks for the overall positive feedback on TIA! I’m glad you enjoyed it. I just wanted to add a quick note that we did a bunch of reshuffling of topics in the practice exams last sitting to improve them. The note you have about Importance Sampling is something I agree with you on, and we pulled that out of the practice exam last sitting to get a better distribution of topics. So that’s been fixed. We listen closely to student feedback and that was one part where people made some recommendations, so we followed through and I think the practice exams are in a great spot now. Just wanted to provide that follow-up!
- Thanks Sorry Bruins that you didn’t have a good experience with PAK..but I have had great success with thr. I have used them for all FSA exams and I passed all of them on first try. There are a lot of positive feedback about PAK in my office so I just want people to know that just because it doesn’t work for one doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for everyone!
thank you PAK for helping me through this journey!
I passed with grade 10, but I was quite stressed too before checking result. The paper was challenger this time.
I used only TIA for the exam, only watched video and looked through 1 set of past year paper. But I summarized the contents by hand for 2 times and spent the last two days before exam on memorizing. My tip for the exam is to make sure that you have a big picture of the testable contents, be able to list down key points from the TIA slides, as such you will be able to roughly know where it tests when see the exam questions.
I guess its all water under the bridge at this point but they released sample solutions.
1a parts A and D, and all of 1b were all excluded from grading because it “couldn’t be answered with the information provided.”
Extremely frustrating to see this and unfortunately is an indication they aren’t peer reviewing questions before finalizing these exams.
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