BattleBriefings

Introduction

Exam 8 consists of roughly 700 pages of material, not all of which appears on every exam. There are five larger readings (in approximate order of importance)

• "Generalized Linear Models for Insurance Rating" by Goldburd, Khare, Tevet & Guller
• "Individual Risk Study Note" by Fisher et al.
• "Distributions for Actuaries" by Bahnemann (Chapters 5 & 6 only)
• "Basics of Reinsurance Pricing" by Clark
• "Catastrophe Modeling: A New Approach to Managing Risk" by Grossi & Kunreuther

There are nine other readings which are smaller and cover a variety of topics. To help you study efficiently BattleActs has ranked the articles based on how likely they are to show up on an exam. Since the material within the larger readings builds up, we recommend you study them from the beginning to the end rather than reading the articles based on their rank. Use the Recommended Reading Order table below for your initial first and second runs through the material; the alternating bands of red and blue are used to indicate when an article comes from a different source reading.

Once you've gone through the larger readings in order once or twice you should hone your skills by using the ranking table to focus on the more likely topics. When you want a change of pace, pick up one of the smaller readings for a break. These are generally self-contained or rely on knowledge you acquired in earlier exams.

The ranking table is based on the CAS exams from 2011 — 2019 and Alice the Actuary's expert opinions (Alice is BattleActs' awesome actuarial alter ego). However, the syllabus and readings have varied a lot during this period. For more insight on the structure of Exam 8 and how it is evolving make sure you check out our All About Exam 8 page.

Recommended Reading Order

Rank Reading Study Time Top 5! Goldburd.Basics 3 days Bottom 20% Goldburd.ModelBuilding 30 minutes Bottom 20% Goldburd.DataPrep 3 hours Bottom 20% Goldburd.ModelSelection 1 day Core Content Goldburd.Interactions 2 days Core Content Goldburd.ModelRefinement 3 days Core Content Goldburd.Validation 1 day Bottom 20% Goldburd.Comments 3 hours Top 5! Fisher.ExpRating 2 days Core Content Fisher.RiskSharing 2 days Less Likely Fisher.OtherLSPlans 1 day Less Likely Fisher.AggExcess 1 day Core Content Fisher.Visualization 1 week Core Content Fisher.TableM 1 day Less Likely Fisher.LimitedTableM 1 day Core Content Fisher.TableL 1 day Bottom 20% Fisher.Understanding 3 hours Top 5! Fisher.CaseStudy 1 week Top 5! Bahnemann.Chapter5 3 days

Rank Reading Study Time Top 5! Bahnemann.Chapter6 1 week Core Content Clark.Reinsurance 3 days Core Content Clark.PropPerRisk 3 days Less Likely Clark.CasPerOcc 3 days Bottom 20% Clark.AggModels 1 day Less Likely Clark.PropertyCAT 1 day Bottom 20% Grossi.Overview 1 hour Core Content Grossi.Curves 1 day Less Likely Grossi.CATModels 4 hours Less Likely Bailey.Simon 1 day Core Content Bernegger.Exposure 3 days Core Content ISO.Rating 2 days Core Content Robertson.HazardGroups 2 days Core Content Couret.Venter 2 days Less Likely NCCI.ExperienceRating 2 days Less Likely Mahler.Credibility 1 day Less Likely NCCI.Circular 1 day Bottom 20% NCCI.InformationalExhibits 4 hours Bottom 20% ASOP.12 2 hours

Guide to the Ranked Readings

Rank	Description
Top 5!	These articles account for about 30% to 40% of the questions on a typical exam. However, they often build upon material from lower ranked articles which generally do not have their own question.
Core Content	These articles make up the next 20% to 30% of the material and usually have their own (lower value) questions. While not guaranteed to turn up on every exam, they're pretty dependable.
Less Likely	These articles are about 15% to 25% of the syllabus. They may be a sub-part of a question, contained within an Integrative Question (IQ), or perhaps not on every exam. You need to know them well but forgetting the odd detail is not the end of the world.
Bottom 20%	This is the lowest weighted syllabus material. It's often full of useful information to help you master the higher ranked articles but it's rare to get a standalone question or even a sub-part on any given exam.

Ranked Readings

Summer Surprise

By Rank (based roughly on pts-per-exam over recent exams)

 Background colours  in the grid indicate articles from the largest source papers.

Top 5 [35%] Cum: 35%	Fisher.ExpRating 2 days	Fisher.CaseStudy 1 WEEK	Bahnemann.Chapter6 1 WEEK	Goldburd.Basics several days	Bahnemann.Chapter5 several days
6 – 10 [15%] Cum: 50%	Fisher.Visualization 1 WEEK	Clark.Reinsurance several days	Fisher.TableM 1 day	Goldburd.Interactions 2 days	Goldburd.ModelRefinement 3 days
11 – 15 [10%] Cum: 60%	Goldburd.Validation 1 day	Bernegger.Exposure several days	ISO.Rating several days	Robertson.HazardGroups EASY: 2 days	Grossi.Curves 1 day
16 – 20 [10%] Cum: 70%	Fisher.TableL 1 day	Couret.Venter 2 days	Clark.PropPerRisk several days	Fisher.RiskSharing 2 days	NCCI.ExperienceRating 2 days
21 – 25 [10%]	Fisher.OtherLSPlans	Bailey.Simon	Grossi.CATModels	Clark.CasPerOcc	Mahler.Credibility
26 – 30 [10%]	Clark.PropertyCAT	Fisher.LimitedTableM	Fisher.AggExcess	NCCI.Circular	Goldburd.DataPrep
31 – 35 [5%]	Goldburd.ModelSelection	Fisher.Understanding	Grossi.Overview	Goldburd.ModelBuilding	Goldburd.Comments
36 – 38 [5%]	Clark.AggModels	NCCI.InformationalExhibits	ASOP.12