Exam 8 Intro

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.

Since the material within the larger readings builds up, we recommend you study them from the beginning to the end.

How is Exam 8 Different

There are a few things to be aware of about Exam 8. The more you know about the exam, the more likely you will be successful.

• The material covered in Exam 8 may seem relatively easy for some, but the exam questions are difficult.

• Exam 8 requires developing a deep understanding of the concepts and how the source readings relate to each other, as it is one of three exams that incorporate Integrative Questions (IQs). You will definitely need to do more in-depth studying than what was required for 5 & 6.

• It requires connecting ideas from multiple papers.

• The Exam 8 syllabus is constantly evolving so exam takers lack a stable bank of previous exam questions to practice from. No worries for you as BattleActs has created a large problem bank.

• The Exam 8 syllabus is short and dense (approx. 700 pages) compared to earlier exams. A single sentence or paragraph could become a key question on one exam and then not be asked for several more.

• Exam 8 has questions that come out of “left field” and questions are less predictable than other exams. You may need to apply concepts to a completely new scenario. The best way to prepare for these unexpected questions is to be aware they may happen, and to master the basics. If you don't have to pause to remember the basics then you've got more time to watch out for sneaky things or synthesize ideas between different sources and you won’t be thrown off on exam day!

• The syllabus changes often across sittings which adds extra prep time if you are taking the exam again. Save valuable time by reading the Syllabus Changes article. This feature means you don't need to spend valuable study time hunting through articles trying to figure out what has changed.

• The past exams released by the CAS aren't as helpful because the CAS has changed their emphasis over time. Older exams are easier in general and contain less GLM material.

• Seems like time management is becoming more and more of a factor on exam day. You need to have a deep understanding of the material and have practiced and practiced the calculation problems to quickly answer questions on exam day.

• There are typically two IQs on any exam. These account for about 20% - 25% of the total exam points so you should allow at least an hour for these questions.

• IQs usually have a lot of sub-parts which may depend on each other. It's okay to say you made up a (plausible) answer to an earlier part if it means you can make progress on another part. With CBT, it's even easier to update your work if you later solve an earlier part!

Studying for Exam 8

Take a little extra time up front to get organized and you will save yourself a lot of time in the end.

1. Focus your study time. Use the Exam 8 Readings Ranking Table for this. We’ve ranked the readings and indicated how much time to spend on each one!! Tip - for Exam 8, as 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.
2. Not all topics are tested equally, so they don’t deserve equal amounts of your attention.
3. Set up a study schedule. Look at a calendar to see how much time you have until exam day. Use our recommendations on how much time to spend on each article to draw up a study schedule. Leave the last few weeks for review and practice exams.
4. Start studying. We recommend you do a quick read through of your chosen wiki article, then scan the source article and go back again to the wiki article for in-depth studying. Some people choose to skip reading the source material.
5. Memorize and practice the fundamentals. Do the quizzes (BattleCards) and calculation problems. Once you have mastered this material, move on to what is less frequently tested.
6. Test your retention. Remember to practice by writing or typing out the answers and use active studying by explaining the concepts in your own words. Use our BRQ score to provide you with an objective measure of how well you know the material.
7. Stay motivated. Use the Leaderboard to see how you're progressing versus everyone else. (You can appear anonymously if you wish.)

Tips for a short answer exam

• You need to be able to recall information vs recognition. It takes longer to memorize for recall than it does for recognition. Your retention is improved by writing or typing out the answers. Another tip is to use active studying by explaining the concepts in your own words.
• You can get partial credit for any given problem.
• There is an emphasis placed on "showing your work".
• Exam graders focus on (1) do you understand the process? and (2) do you communicate it effectively so someone else can follow what you did?
• Many problems have steps that require judgment and there can be a range of acceptable answers, or even the question may be unclear. If you are not sure, then state your assumption or how you are interpreting the question.
• In a long multi-step problem, it’s sometimes difficult to get all the way to the end without making a small mistake. Don’t stress over this. If your method is correct, you’ll get most of the points for the problem.
• Look at the point value of the question to determine how long your answer should be. You should roughly have one bullet point or one significant answer for each quarter of a point.
• Use commonly used abbreviations to save time on exam day.
• Answer questions efficiently on exam day. You’ll see tips in our wiki articles to help you with this.
• You have to have a well-rehearsed, time management strategy exam day. See the On BattleDay article for more on this.

Last 3 Weeks Before Exam

Use this time to review and do at least one practice exam. We keep one exam as a hold-out sample from the BattleCard database, so you can use this exam for fresh practice .

• Read the On BattleDay article. These are simple tips, yet will save you a lot of precious time on exam day.

• Use the quiz subscores to identify your weak areas. You can also use the Battlecard filtering function page [[1]] for this and to filter and display questions you need to practice more. Prioritize your weak areas based on how likely they’ll show up on the exam. The color-coding of BattleCards is a popular feature!

• Do at least one practice exam. You can find old exams and an original practice exam here. Practice Exam We kept the last available exam (Fall 2019) as a hold-out sample from the BattleCard database, so you can use this exam as well as BA original practice exams.

Common Reasons for Not Passing

Memorization

• This is the number one reason people fail Exam 6.
• If you have to memorize 10 facts, you can probably do it in 10 minutes. But if you have to memorize 20 facts, it will take more than twice as long. Now extrapolate that to Exam 6 where you have to memorize something like 1500 facts. To learn these facts reliably, you need to go over each one dozens of times, and you have to do it carefully. There's a difference between merely recognizing a question and truly thinking through the answer. After writing out 10 or 20 BattleCard answers in full, you can switch to saying the answer out loud, or train yourself to recite it mentally.
• Use the Shuffle button on the BattleCard page. Once you've done a set of BattleCards several times, do them in a different order every so often.

Time Management

Running out of time is a heart-breaking way to fail an exam. If you're well-prepared, then time management will be a smaller issue because you'll know how to answer most (or all) of the questions. You have to make sure you finish, even if that means writing less than you want to for a particular question. Make sure you don't miss a question you know how to do.

Bloom's Taxonomy

This is something that's hard to teach because being good at answering these types of questions improves mainly through experience. Bloom's Taxonomy questions are based on facts, but facts alone aren't enough to give a complete answer. The best advice here is to study the answers in the examiner's reports, and just try to absorb how these problems are done.

Calculations

This is already an area of strength for actuaries, however, you need to be able to do the calculational problems quickly during the exam. Make sure to practice practice, practice using our web-based problems and practice problems in excel. Focus on doing each problem many times over the course of your study.

Points to Keep in Mind for the Computer Based Testing Environment.

• In the Pearson platform, you won't be able to write out formulas in the same way as with paper and pencil. So you have to be more careful how you lay out your solutions. It has to be clear what steps you follow so the grader will know you understand the method, even if you don't do the whole problem correctly. For a more complicated calculation, try to avoid putting the whole calculation in one cell. If possible, break the calculation up into two or three cells so the graders can clearly see your steps. You want to label your calculations so the grader understands what you are doing. Remember, the graders will see the formulas you put into the cell.

• You don't need to spend time on formatting such as underlining or bolding. Exception: It can help the grader if you highlight your final answer to each sub-part of a question when there's a lot of work on a page.

• Exam 8 questions can be long (particularly the IQs). It can be hard to legibly fit the question on the screen and see your work. Remember, it's okay to start problems to the side of the question rather than directly below. Ultimately, practicing with questions in the CBT format is the only way to get comfortable with these limitations.

• Currently the questions in the CBT environment aren't always structured so you can reference a value by clicking on a cell. Take time to make sure you've copied any figures from the text correctly.

• Something that hasn't changed for the CBT format is the need to justify any judgmental selections. Common examples are LDF and trend selections. All you need is a phrase in the cell next to your selection such as, "based on an upward trend" or "based on seasonality". It can be short but you have to at least mention the key point you used in making your decision.

• On past exams, it was sometimes required to draw diagrams or graphs as part of your answer, or to provide mathematical derivations of formulas. This cannot be done on the Pearson platform. Note however that drawing a diagram on your scrap paper may assist you in solving a problem even if the diagram cannot be included as part of your answer.

Disclaimer

The BattleActs study system is designed to help you focus on what we believe to be the most important and most frequently tested topics on the exam. Questions may come up from material not covered in our study system. We suggest that you use your own judgement where to use your time when reading the source material.