12/22/10 - MFE Study update

I am on schedule for my review of the TIA material, but I have taken a different approach than I originally thought I would. I find it tough to spend a day or two working problems when in the back of my mind I know there is more material I want to get to, so after Section C I switched to reviewing the material without working on the associated problems. This will allow me to get through the material on a first run a little faster, and I can then get to working problems on all the material.

As of today, I am on Section G. I am not sure how much I will be able to get through with the holidays coming up, but I do expect to be done with my first review around 1/1/11 and starting to focus on working problems by then. I am sure I will have to go back and review material once I get into the problems, which is to be expected.

As of right now, I am fairly confident of being able to pass the exam. There are a ton of formulas and concepts to learn, but I have a lot of time to do so. I should be able to get over 300 hours of study in before the day of my exam, so lack of time won’t be an issue. I haven’t run into anything that I haven’t been able to comprehend, so it is just a matter of solidifying the knowledge. I understand that the hardest material is the last two sections, so I am prepared to have to spend a little more time to wrap my head around these.

One thing I have learned is not to plan on doing too much studying between Thanksgiving and New Years. There is just too much going on to be able to spend much time and energy studying. I think in future years I will continue to use that time period for my first read through of the material, much like I did this year.

11/23/10 - MFE Study Schedule

Ok, I have been spending a little more time looking at the MFE material, and this is the schedule I am going to start with. I am using the Sections as broken out in TIA, as that will be my primary source. I will also be reading along in ASM with each section.

Each date listed is what I plan to work on in the week beginning on that date.

11/13/10 - TIA A. Parity and Other Relationships
11/20/10 - TIA B. Binomial Trees
11/27/10 - TIA C. Black-Scholes Formula
12/4/10 - TIA D. Market Making
12/11/10 - TIA E. Exotic Options
12/18/10 - TIA F. Lognormality
12/25/10 - TIA G. Stochastic Differential Equations
1/1/11 - TIA H. Interest Rate Models

In each week, I plan to review all the lessons, work to memorize the appropriate formulas, and work through the end of lesson questions. My plan is to have a comfort level with each section by the end of the week, knowing what formulas I still need to memorize, and knowing that I know how to approach the problems.

I know this study schedule finishes 4 months before the exam! I will reassess where I am at the end of this schedule. Right now I intend to begin working practice problems more seriously after finishing the lessons, with the intention of memorizing all the formulas and working the problems in good time. Realistically, I may decide certain lessons need more attention first, etc.

Currently, I am working through the lessons in section B. There are still some formulas I need to start memorizing, and then I will try to work practice problems starting tonight or tomorrow night.

11/18/10 - Beginning Studying for MFE

Ok, I have just begun to study for MFE. I have about 25 weeks left until the exam, so I certainly have plenty of time to tackle it. Hopefully, I can average 2 hours per day over those weeks, which will give me 350 hours of studying.

I am going to use The Infinite Actuary's online seminar as well as the ASM manual. Back in September I worked through the first few chapters of ASM, but I am going to start from scratch here.

Yesterday, I did the Section A.1 of TIA, which was on Put Call Parity. This was really just a review of stuff I learned in FM, and it came back to me after a little bit. It was almost easy enough to make me overconfident, but I know I have a long way to go!

Today I looked at Section A.2, which dealt with options on currencies, bonds, and exchange options. The currency options I know I had a good handle on back in September, but the execution wasn't exactly coming back to me tonight. I am going to have to note formulas as I go along and keep them right near my monitor at work for frequent review. I will have to spend a little more time on this section before moving on, perhaps in combination with A.3 over the next few days.

There are 28 lessons grouped into 8 categories in the TIA seminar. I will have to put some thought into a schedule for me to tackle them. Although it seems like I have quite a while, I think this material is going to take a lot of work.

Should I start ending each post with a confidence level of passing this early? No, I don't think I will. As I get through more of the material and put a structure on my study schedule that will help me gauge my confidence level.

10/19/10 update

Ok, lots to update here! Well, maybe not lots, but one significant item - I was offered that position I interviewed for within my company! I accepted on the spot of course. I start there on 11/1. With the position, my exams will be paid for, I will get study materials, etc. It will be awesome!

I believe it was a combination of a strong work history as well as the two exams that made me stand out for the position. I'm sure there are a lot of candidates just out of school, with one internship perhaps, and two or three exams, but perhaps this gives hope for those of us that are "middle aged" and are deciding to look at this career. I asked about people who are career changing in my interviews for this position, and people have come from much more diverse backgrounds that me. I was in an operations position already within the company, and with a solid work history there that really helped me stand out - but even people with good work histories in unrelated fields are people that stand out, according to some of the people I interviewed with.

So, I have been only glancing at the MFE material for now, and plan to start the real study effort after 11/1. I'm going to put a testing date countdown on the blog, but that will be tentative until the actual test date is confirmed. Looks like MFE will be going from a fixed test date to a Computer Based Test with flexible dates in 2011, as I get more info I will pass along updates.

9/28/10 update

It has been a month since I passed Exam FM! I wavered for a week or two on trying to take Exam MFE on Nov 5. I bought a study manual and started reviewing it, but ultimately decided I shouldn't attempt to squeeze in another exam with only 10 weeks of studying. At this point I am going to take MFE in May 2011.

In the meantime, I was able to obtain a job interview for a position as an actuarial student within the company I currently work for. I think it went well, we shall see if that comes through. If it does, that will be so awesome. Can you imagine exams paid for and study time at work?!?

I expect to update more frequently as I begin to study for MFE more seriously.

Passed!

Took Exam FM/2 today and passed! Of the 35 questions, I was very confident in 30 of my answers, totally guessed on 4 answers, and there was 1 question that I kept getting two different answers depending on how I approached it. Both were possible answers, so I just chose one of them.

I found the exam itself not quite as difficult as practice exams I encountered. Having gone over the material and practice questions over and over, the 30 questions I felt comfortable with were well within what I had studied, and in fact many were almost TOO easy. I'm not saying the exam was easy, but there were a lot of questions where I got an answer very easily and reread the question slowly 4 or 5 more times to make sure I took in all of it. Good thing I did, as there were two or three times I changed an answer due to a detail in the question (interest v discount, beginning v end of period, etc).

I'm not sure which exam I am going to attack next at this point. I will keep you posted!

8/20/10 - T minus 3

Since the last post, I have managed to get back in the studying groove a bit. I haven't been able to get anywhere near the focus or energy I had for Exam P, but I've been putting in a few hours every day. I'm really not sure how I feel about the exam or my chances overall at this point. I have at least a small measure of confidence in every section of the material, so I should have at least a fighting chance at every question. Oh the other hand, I find myself getting tripped up or doing things incorrectly more often than I would like. I am going to put in a solid effort over the next 3 nights and go into the exam just looking to do my best. I know that sounds like I should be doing that anyway, but I guess what I mean is I'm going to try not to put any pressure on myself. Sure, I want to pass, and in the moment I will feel some pressure I am sure, but I also know I can only do what I can do.

Ok, that last paragraph was really rambling! I am still pretty exhausted from the summer, from the past year, etc. I need a break! I will try to give myself a week or two before tackling my next project.

My confidence in passing is at about a 4 right now.

8/11/10 T minus 11

Long time no post. It has been a rough month for studying. The two trips I took turned out to be really exhausting. I guess all travel is, but I'm not usually studying for an exam so perhaps I don't notice as much! My job has been very taxing during the last month as well. If I had thought about it, August is one of my busiest months and not the time to try to study on the side. That being said, I would have scheduled the exam anyway to see how it went.

So, in the past month I have tried to keep up the studying as much as I can, but I just don't find the new material I need to know sticking. I find myself exhausted still, and just can't focus in the evenings when I sit down to study. My motivation and drive is pretty low right now as well. Needless to say, my studying hasn't gone well. I'm not confident at all of being able to pass this exam in 11 days. With exam P, I had a clear path and was able to focus on it. With this exam, I know the stuff I still need to learn, but I just don't have a great structure for it.

My confidence in passing right now is at about a 1.5.

T minus 41

I finished reviewing the material and have been digging into practice problems since the last update 10 days ago. I'm am finding a nice percentage of problems I already am confident with, but there is still a bunch of problems where I know that the method to solve was in the material but I don't have it memorized yet. I haven't been going back to work on those yet, I wanted to make one pass through all the material just seeing how many I knew already. I am at about 25%, which is a lot better than where I was for Exam P at this time.

I have 41 days left, but about 11 of those days are going to be vacation days to one degree or another. I am still going to try to do some problems while I am away on a family vacation, but we will see if that is really possible. If I think of it as I have a "net" of 30 days left to work on this, I start to feel a little bit of pressure, which is good. That will keep me focused on the material, and hopefully I can still use parts of those 11 vacation days.

I am finding that even for the problems I don't know how to solve yet, it is only because I don't know a specific formula or method. In other words, I know what I need to learn, I just don't know it yet. That does give me some confidence, in that my follow up studies should be very focused.

I am still pretty confident of passing. I'd say I'm at an 8 right now.

T minus 51

I have been making progress on the FM material. I am almost finished with the first review of all the material, then I will begin working on problems hardcore.

I am finding that this material is much more conceptually familiar to me than the exam P material, I don't spend a ton of time just confused as I am trying to think about it as I did with Exam P material! I expected that, so I am glad to see my progress is meeting my expectations.

I also had anticipated finishing my first run through the material by next Saturday (7/10) so I am on pace for that as well.

So, everything is proceeding as I expected thus far. I am a little bit nervous that some of the problem solving techniques won't gel for me, but only a little. If I can pick up the Exam P problem solving techniques with hard work, I REALLY should be able to pick these up.

My confidence level is still very high - 8.5 right now.

Guide to passing Exam 1/P

I originally wrote this up the day after I passed the Exam. There is more stuff I'd like to add and some areas I'd like to polish, but short of leaving it in limbo forever I wanted to get this out there. I will come back and revise as the spirit moves me!
******************
So I recently passed Exam P. As a "career changer" with a full time job, wife, and 3 children (a 2 year old and 4 month old twins), I thought I could give some observations on how I prepared and how I would recommend others in similar situations should prepare. I'm going to stay away from the "why" and purely focus on the "how" here.

1. The first step I took, and this is the one that really convinced me to give Exam P a shot, is that I started reading Marcel Finan's pdf text book focused on Exam P. I would reccomend this to anyone who is even thinking about the exam. Read through the first 12 Chapters and see how comfortable you feel with the ideas in the material. I'm not saying you need to have mastered the material just yet, but you really need to have a good grasp of this material, as it is the basic foundation of the concepts in the exam.

2. Once you feel comfortable with that material, read Chapters 13-21 and try to do the associated problems. Discrete distributions are where you start seeing applications of the concepts, and the continuous distributions is where the material will start getting more difficult.

3. Ok, now that you have gotten this far, you need to learn calculus. When I started studying, it had been 17.5 years since my last calculus class. I had no recollection of any of the material at all. I found two great sources that will give you everything you need for this exam. The first is the book Calculus for Dummies by Mark Ryan. The book isn't very expensive, and you should be able to get it from the library. Chapters 1-14 are the important chapters for Exam P. He spends more time on integration of trig functions that you really need - read through this part but don't focus TOO much on the trig stuff. Chapter 15 is good to read as well, but not quite as important. The second source is The Calculus 1&2 tutor dvd set from MathTutorDVD.com. These DVDs are awesome! The instructor has a pleasant (if not a little dry) delivery, and I believe going through the whole set and taking detailed notes can get anyone up to the point they need to be for this exam. I ended up going back to certain chapters a few times as topics came up in future study that I wasn't feeling so comfortable with, I imagine you will do that as well.

4. Now, the rubber meets the road. For those of you who haven't studied math in a while, I think using only a study book is going to be difficult. The notation and conventions used, combined with some of the assumed knowledge (ie skipped steps in computations), will make the work difficult to follow. While the rest of the studying can be done using a textbook, I strongly recommend The Infinite Actuary's online Exam P course. Its not cheap, but then again, how much is your time worth? This course will save you at least 40 hours of studying - at $10 an hour, you have already saved the cost of the course. If you are a career changer with a family, time is your most valuable commodity, and the cost of the course is nominal compared with the actual value of the time it will save you. Also, you can email any question to Dave (the instructor), which is a nice resource to have.

5. Ok, you've spent a lot of time, and you've made it through all the material and all the practice problems. You are halfway there! Yes, I said halfway... Now, you need to work problems. A LOT of problem. Over and over. Then again and again. You need to work them until you can do it in your sleep (yes, I dreamed in Exam P material). You need to work them until you can recognize easily what needs to be done and can execute quickly. I used the SOA 149 sample problems and TIA Exams 1-4 (which are available for free even if you don't buy the course) as problems to work on. I made an Excel workbook that had one sheet for the SOA problems and one for the TIA. I listed out each problem vertically in 4 or 5 columns, and marked an X next to the ones I really felt I mastered. I had a formula that counted the X's and told me what percentage of the problems I mastered. This was great motivation, to constantly increase my percentage, and also gave me an assessment of how much more work I had to do. As I noticed which problems were giving me difficulty, I noted what type of problem it was, and did countif formulas to tell me what areas had the most problems I couldn't figure out, and those were the areas I focused more study on. I eventually got my SOA % up to 75 and my TIA % up to about 60. I never did master ALL of the material, but I did the best I could in the time allotted and I felt those levels at least gave me a chance to pass.

6. Now that you spent a few weeks doing that, you still have a week or so to go before the exam. Go back and redo EVERY problem, marking off the ones you can do quickly and efficiently in the same manner as above but on a new list. Your goal here is both speed and accuracy. This will ferret out the stuff you need a refresher on. As the week goes on and you review the areas that give you problems, redo those problems the in the next two days to drill the concepts in. Hopefully, you can get your percentage in this step near 70% or more.

7. In the two nights prior to the exam, roll back the problems working a little bit. Review the notes you have been making on formulas and concepts that have been problematic for you (I hope I needn't have told you to be taking notes every step of the way here). Watch Rocky 3 - that movie has some great analogies to this Exam studying process. Apollo at the beginning is college - you've beat him. The opponents Rocky was beating all along are your work assignments etc, stuff that you had to work to do, but wasn't as challenging as this. Clubber Lang - he is Exam P. Now, Apollo becomes the study guide you use, the online forums that provide guidance, etc.

Good luck!

**I'm adding this after having written the above post, I'll eventually get it into the body of the post but just found this and wanted to make sure it got linked from this page.  Apparently in the time since I originally wrote this, The University of Wisconsin has put together this excellent resource for SOA sample questions.  It is linked from the SOA Exam P page, and I wanted to mention it here because it looks like an excellent resource!  Go check it out!

T minus 63

I haven't done much studying at all the past few days. I have been working on a project in the back yard that has been very physically demanding, and by the time I have tried to sit down to study I just haven't had the energy to absorb new material. The good thing is this should be done this week, and I still have a lot of time. Also, I will know how to schedule demanding projects in the future so as not to interfere with times I NEED to study. The break from studying hardcore has actually been nice, I've been putting in the time during my lunch hours and breaks, and little bits at night, but no long sessions.

T minus 66

Still a long way to go, it is interesting to approach new material for the first time again. While the ideas behind the material are very familiar to me, some of the notation and scenarios and problems to solve are new and can be difficult. I'm sure I will get there, but the feeling of ending every night with still more to learn is reminiscent of studying for Exam P.

Also, I find having to do things around the house is really starting to reduce my study time. Better to do those projects now and treat it as a mental break, because the last few weeks leading up to the exam I will be focusing much more intensely on the material.

That brings up another interesting observation. When learning the material for the first time, I can't quite put in the marathon hours I did when trying to master the problem solving. It seems the brain limits me to 2-3 hours max per session, sometimes less. When I was working through the problem solving portion of Exam P, I could go on and on until I just needed to sleep! Hopefully I will hit that kind of stride again when I get to that portion of the studying.

I am a little behind the pace I set for myself on the material, but I do have a lot of wiggle room in the pace at this point, and I think I will get through some of the later chapters ahead of pace.

My confidence level at this point is very high - 8.5.

Exam 2/FM Scheduled

I have scheduled exam 2 for 8/23. I added a counter to the top right portion of the blog. T minus 73 Days!

I have already spent 7-8 hours studying, I should be well on my way for this one!

6/4 - I passed!

It's true - somehow, I passed.

In taking inventory of how I felt about each question, there were 14 questions I felt really solid on, 5 I felt about 70-80% on, and 11 I was doing some degree of guesstimating on. There are 30 questions overall - only 25 count, but you don't know which 25. The passing score has been about 63% recently, but I don't believe they will release the passing percentage as applied to this exam until sometime in the future.

I spent the full 3 hours, and could have spent even more time. Many of the 14 were the type of questions I was used to, but a lot of those were worded very trickily. I actually went back and changed maybe 3-4 answers on those after rereading the question and noticing I calculated something that didn't quite match the wording.

There were a couple of questions that I could swear I was calculating correctly, but the answers I kept getting were not one of the available choices. In one case I just took the closest answer, and in another case I don't remember exactly what I did. I think I took the closest, but even running the numbers a few different ways I never got an answer that was one of the available choices.

So as I tallied up my feelings on each of the answers, I felt I would be close to passing. I figured even on the questions I was very confident on I probably had one math mistake, so depending on how good I was with the 70-80% confidence questions and how good I was with the guesstimate questions, I thought I had a chance to get there. By the time I got to the point where the "Congratulations" screen would come up, I was just kind of worn out and wasn't feeling much anxiousness about it either way. Once I saw that I passed, I let out an audible "Oh wow".

A funny side story: As was being checked out of the testing center, I asked the two women working there if anyone had ever hugged them on the way out. One said she had been hugged, high fived, etc, but the woman working on my data was kind of surprised by the question and said she had not. The more she thought about it, the more amused she was by the whole concept, and by the time I left she actually gave me a hug for making her day by having the conversation with her. I could see that she was very happy that I was trying to be engaging with her, and it was fun to be able to make someone's day by throwing them off guard like that!

The exam window for Exam 2 is Aug 19-25, or about 10 weeks away. I am going to start looking at the material in a day or two and see if I feel I can hit that deadline. I think I will be able to. The window to register for the exam ends July 8, so I do have some time to decide...

6/2 - additional thoughts

Ok, spent some more time doing the SOA problems tonight, and after that spent some time assessing what it is I still don't know. I don't expect the areas I am shaky in to big a huge part of the test, maybe as large as 25%, but possibly as low as 10%.

I plan on crash reviewing a few things I know but need to spend more time memorizing tomorrow. I am surprised to find all the things I have memorized now in relation to how confused I was when I looked at most of these questions the first, second or third time!

To continue the boxing analogy I used in the last post, I decided to watch a Rocky movie on Netflix tonight while reviewing formulas. In a way I kind of feel like Rocky, taking on something that is difficult even under the best of circumstances. I have studied nearly every night for the past 2 months with every free moment I can put together - lunches, breaks at work, listening to mp3s while driving, you name it. At times I thought I had no chance, but I kept pushing, and even if I don't pass this time around I am confident I can do it next time around. I will be making every effort to pass this time, so hopefully I can begin to work on Exam 2. Exam 2 should be easier for me given my background, so I expect to go through that material at a similar pace.

Ok, off to try to get some rest!

6/2 - T minus 2

Been quiet on the posting front because I have been focusing 100% of my attention on the studying front. Been hitting the problems and reviewing the concepts every chance I can. I am up to over 75% on the SOA questions, and over 60% on the TIA exams.

I am resigned to the fact that there are some topics I'm just not going to be able to figure out in time. A few types of problems I have tried to work through, putting in a ton of hours over last weekend, but still can't frame them in my head in a way I can remember and execute. I get the gist of what I need to do, so that may help in guesstimating, but I have turned to making sure I have mastered the concepts I already know in the past few days rather than trying to figure out the last few things. My logic is that I want to ensure I do the 70% of stuff I can right, which should be enough in itself to pass. Now, I am sure I will make some math errors and not be able to figure out what I need to do a couple of times, so I don't imagine I will even be perfect on that 70%. The way I look at it now is that I have a "puncher's chance" on this exam. If I can play my cards right, keep my cool, and get a decent set of questions, all I gotta do is hit them just right and with the right timing and I may be able to get out of there with a pass. I am by no means a shoo-in or overconfident on this, but I think I've got a shot.

If I don't pass this time around, the next round is in 7 weeks, and I am pretty confident I will pass then. I've spent only 8 weeks studying, some of that just learning the prerequisites, and I've gotten this far! With 7 more weeks, I will be in great shape for try 2. I'm not focusing on that just yet though, I'm really going to give it a go on Friday!

I don't know if the confidence level really applies anymore, but I could really say it is anywhere from a 3 to a 6. 7 seems too high, and 2 too low. So, assuming it is uniformly distributed on 3->6, my confidence level it at 4.5.

5/24 - T minus 11 - I want to believe

I am starting to think I can get there. I am piecing the concepts together little by little, and feel like in 10 more days I can at least have a reasonable shot to pass.

In working on the SOA questions, I am over 50% in regards to the ratio of questions I am comfortable with. There are still more I can currently answer, but I'm only counting questions I think I can do relatively quickly and with little potential for major error. I am over 40% on the TIA sample exams 1-3, which seem to be a little tougher.

For the first time tonight, I am really starting to feel confident. A very cautious confidence, but a confidence that I think I can get there. The next 10 days will be crucial, that goes without saying (yet I said it anyway), but I feel like I can see the home stretch as far as knowledge I need to master. I just hope 10 days is enough time. I'd love another week, but I don't have that option.

One thing I did today that should help is categorize all the remaining SOA and TIA questions I am having trouble with, so I know exactly what material to review. I am grouping them by topic, so those topics with the most outstanding questions are those I need to prioritize.

5/23/10 - T minus 12

I put a TON of hours in over the past 3 days. I am getting there little by little. I have been reviewing the SOA 149 exam questions and noting which questions I answered successfully and feel like I will again with a similar question. I have gotten the percentage of those questions up from around 30 to almost 43% over the past few days. There are still some that I have no idea where to go with, and those are areas I will have to get up to speed on.

I have 12 days to go, and the pass mark for Exam P over the past few sittings has been around 63%. I'm going to assume that the exam is harder than the SOA, plus there will be questions I am not familiar with, so I'd really like to get my comfort with the SOA questions over 80%. Ideally, I'd like to get to 90+, but I only have a limited number of days to work with.

I will be putting at much focus as I can on this over the next 12 days. Each day's progress should be interesting! Right now, I'd rate my confidence as a 1.

5/21/10 - T minus 14

Wow - I've put in more hours this week than in any other week so far! Perhaps even more impressive than that, I think it is pretty much 100% certain that I will fail in 2 weeks.

I have the discrete probability material down cold, but that is only 20-30% of the exam. The continuous probability material is giving me fits. I just can't seem to get my head wrapped around it, and I don't see getting it all in 2 weeks. I am going to put a ton of time and and really try to get there, but I just can't see it coming together in 2 weeks. I can't really even identify a specific problem area, anything beyond the most basic integrals and derivatives just seems to go to mush in my head.

More to come...

5/14 - T minus 21

I did two more practice exams during the week, for a total of 3. In each one, I got all the pure probability questions fairly easily, which ends up being 20-25% of the total # of questions. For the remaining questions, I have the basic idea on most of them, but don't quite have the formulas memorized. I am finding I can do a few more once I look up formulas, but I often have an easy mistake in the math somewhere that I don't find once I struggle with it for a bit.

As I review each practice exam, I have a system for note taking that helps me highlight the specific things I need to learn from that question - both the logic and strategy involved, as well as any formulas I need to learn. I am then summarizing that data on a sheet which shows me the items I need to learn, and I make specific notes on that sheet which have the exact things I need from those notes, whether it be the process for that type of question, the formulas, etc.

I found that towards the end of the 3rd exam I was really starting to build some muscle as far as my ability to work the questions. I was finally able to get a fair way through on some questions I had no idea on before. Hopefully 3 more weeks of this will get me there in time!

My confidence has wavered quite a bit this week. I will put it at 1.5 right now.

5/10 - T minus 25

I finished the new material last week, and started a quick overview of what I learned so far.

I took most of Saturday and Sunday off, only spending a little bit of time on the material. It was good to take a break and remember what "normal" is for my free time, and hopefully that can recharge me for the next few weeks while I try to peak at the right time.

I did a practice exam today - well, since I did it during lunch I didn't spend the 3 hours, but I really didn't need to. There were only 7 questions I got right, and maybe 10 questions I knew how to start. That is what I expected, I still have a lot of formulas to memorize. I thought this would be good to get a feel for exactly where I am, and I will review the rest of the questions I didn't know how to do off the top of my head tonight.

My confidence right now is at a 2. I'm not feeling frustrated or beaten down at the moment, but am hopeful I can solidify the knowledge in the next 3 weeks!

5/4/10 - T minus 31

I have been continuing to work on joint distributions, and am feeling similar frustration as I was feeling when working on continuous distributions two weeks ago. I can see how everything works once it is shown to me, but I don't feel like I am anywhere near being able to just run through this work myself.

I am going to focus on the sample SOA exam problems for joint distributions as I continue to work through the material this week. Hopefully by studying the types of problems that will be on the exam I can get a feel as to where I need to get with the topic, and solidify my understanding in the meantime.

Confidence level is at a 1 currently.

4/30/10 - T minus 35

I have changed my strategy a little bit as compared to when I started studying. Originally, I was working through all the sample problems at the end of each section, which added a day or two in working through each chapter. Now, I am browsing the problems, making sure I understand conceptually HOW to do them, and picking one or two to review the solutions in detail. I chose to do this in order to speed up the time I spend working through the material and spend more time on the back end working sample exam problems. Originally I had about 2-2.5 weeks scheduled for practice exams, and I wanted to up this to 3-4 weeks. The logic being the more time I spend on actual problems from previous exams and problems of the same type as the upcoming exam, the more I can drill down on the execution of potential exam questions. While it would be great to spend the time on the interim review problems for each section, that seemed like something worth sacrificing to nearly double my time on actual exam-style questions.

I am working my way through joint distribution material now. Some of it has seemed fairly easy, but the material I worked on today was pretty difficult and I will have to look at it again to fully grasp it.

My confidence is at 2.5. I feel like I am getting there, but I certainly don't feel overconfident.

4/28/10 - T minus 37

On 4/26, I had a great night where I got a few good hours in before I was too tired to continue. For some reason, I also couldn't sleep that night, so last night I only got a little bit of time in before I had to give up due to my brain shutting down.

On weekdays my two opportunities to study are 1. lunch and 2. After the kids get to bed. I can usually get a solid 30 minutes in during lunch. Sometimes I find it productive as a quick hit on a topic, but other times I find it doesn't help that much, because I am not able to fully dig into a topic and it only saves me a few minutes that night when I need to start over. At night, between the three kids I can usually get a good start by 8-8:30. My brain usually shuts off anywhere from 9:30 - 10:30, so if all goes well I hope to get two solid hours in each night.

I am near finishing continuous distributions and haven't yet moved to joint distributions. I feel ok with the material, but I know this is just a first pass and I really have to solidify my knowledge in a couple of weeks when I start practice exams.

My confidence level is currently at 2.

4/25/10 - T minus 40

Ok, I am feeling a little bit better about the material now. I spent a lot of time in my notebook writing out the issues I was having trouble with. That helped me at least sort through them in my mind to the point where I can think through them without getting confused. I find myself practicing at various times throughout the day just going through the material in my head to run through it again.

Now, I need to continue to work through the specific named distributions on the syllabus, and get to joint distributions. This week would have been the scheduled week for continuous distributions, so at least I am not behind schedule.

There is still a LOT of material for me to master. While I am feeling better, I can't say I'm all that confident right now. Confidence level today is at 1.

4/23/10 - T minus 42

Tough night last night. I keep trying to work through these concepts of continuous distributions, and while I understand them when reading through them, I'm not able to answer the problem questions accurately. I'm not even getting on the right track with the questions - I'm always a little off in the execution somewhere. There is a chance I am making too much of this current difficulty, but I am beginning to get a little frustrated.

I am thinking it might be a good idea to use this blog to write out concepts I am having difficultly with. While I am writing them out in a notebook, it can't hurt to put them in another format, especially one other people may be able to use for a reference as well.

My confidence level is at 0 today.

4/22/10 - T minus 43

I find myself feeling somewhat less confident after last night. It felt like some of the material I was reviewing I would never be able to do on my own and at the speed required. I could follow along, but it just seemed a little out of reach. I shouldn't be surprised by that I guess, as I am learning new material every day and that is the whole point. I know there is even more difficult material ahead, so I just have to keep going.

I also spent a little time last night reviewing material I've already covered to keep it fresh. Hopefully I will be able to reach a critical mass of retaining ALL the material by the time of the exam!

My confidence level is at about 1.5 today.

4/21/10 - T minus 44

I worked through some material on the distribution functions of continuous distributions last night and worked on 10 sample questions. I didn't actually get any of the sample questions right, but I was in the right ballpark as far as approach on most of them. So, I feel like I'm at least getting the idea as I begin this section. That increases my confidence a little bit today.

I am a little bit ahead of schedule in starting continuous distributions. Below is the schedule I created for myself in regards to material I want to cover each week. Hopefully, I can keep on this schedule in order to complete the material and give myself enough time to review and practice exam questions.

Week of:
April 25 – Continuous Distributions
May 2 – Finish Continuous and start Joint Distributions
May 9 – Joint Distributions
May 16 – Additional material & review
May 23 – Practice Exams
May 30 – Practice Exams

As per the suggestion, I am going to rate my confidence on a 0-10 scale each day, corresponding with a 0-100% chance I feel I will pass on June 4. It is still early, so obviously I am assessing based on material I have already reviewed and my expectation of what is to come. Today I am going to rate my confidence at 3, which may seem low but actually feels high to me. In other words, I feel like I at least have a shot right now. The average overall pass rate is about 35%, and that includes people who were able to put a lot more study time in than I am going to be able to!

4/20/10

I have finished my initial review of calculus. While I understand all the concepts I need to know, I am not yet at the point where I can execute all the derivatives and integrals as quick or as accurately as I will need to. I am going to start learning continuous distributions while continuing to drill on my calculus.

I find it interesting to gauge my confidence level each day. Today I feel like I have a decent shot to pass on June 4, but as I hit new or tough material that confidence wanes and I feel like I have no shot. There is still a long way to go, but I enjoy taking these daily snapshots of how I feel about where I am along the way.

The First Step

After many years of flirting with the idea, I decided to take a serious look at Exam P on April 4, 2010. I am well into my career in a non-actuarial position, and haven't seen Calculus since Fall of 1992! After a week of reviewing the material on the exam, I decided to pull the trigger on a very aggressive exam date - June 4! That gives me only 60 days to start basically from scratch. I know that it will be quite a feat to pass that quickly, and if I fail I plan to take the exam again in the July-August window.

I will use this blog to update my progress and post observations, as it seems every night I end up with another hurdle of something new to learn. So far, I have gone over the probability and discrete distribution material and feel pretty comfortable. I am currently reviewing calculus in preparation for continuous distribution material. In the last week, I have gone from having no recollection of calculus to at least being comfortable with the ideas behind derivatives and integration. I am still mastering the execution of those concepts though!

At this point, I have 47 days to go and have so much material to get through. I hope to have at least 3 full weeks to drill practice exam questions after finishing the material - hopefully I can get there, but I will have to evaluate the schedule week by week.