5/19/11 - 3 days after MFE

I’m getting restless. I was just getting into the full swing of studying and now I have to stop?? I want to study!

I’m not 100% thrilled with my performance on MFE. Although I feel there is a good chance I passed, I SHOULD have been able to answer almost every question there. I put in a lot of hours, but for some reason I don’t think I ever got 100% full steam on this exam until the last two weeks. I can only speculate, but I feel that three reasons for that were: 1. I had a ton more time that I did previously, 2. I got derailed for a week at a time a couple of times due to “life” and 3. The material (especially the practice problems) just wasn’t that interesting to me.

Another factor that I think came into play is that I was missing the internal drive that pushed me for P and FM. When I was taking those, I was trying to accomplish and prove something. In effect, I had a type of negative energy fueling me – I was pushing against something. I wanted to get out of my job, get a new job, prove I could do something incredibly difficult. With MFE, I really only had positive energy fueling me – I already had the actuarial job and was in a supportive environment, it is expected that I won’t pass an exam or two, and I was given study hours. Now, you are going to think I’m crazy, but while those things helped me, they don’t help give me the internal fuel. I guess I really respond much better to proving something or pushing against something that just doing something that I am given ample help doing. Now, not to say I don’t want the situation I’m in – I do – but it certainly was an adjustment to figure out how to fuel my efforts.

That being said, I still feel I did adequate preparation, and the study time and support I was given was essential to getting where I got with the material. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to learn nearly as much as I did.

Given the above and the fact that I’m not 100% sure I passed this time around, I feel the fire in my belly again. Right now, I am starting to look at the C material and feel the same kind of drive I felt when I first began to look at the P material. Exam C would be a definite challenge for me, requiring the same amount of effort I put into P, and I believe the material would be as interesting as P was as well. Also, on the chance I do fail MFE, the C window is 3 weeks before MFE, allowing me some time to get back into MFE and take it again.

I have begun to look at the Loss Models textbook and some youtube videos to provide some background on the early topics. I will make another post in the near future with exactly what I have reviewed and some comments on the material. If I do decide to jump in and really study Exam C, I will order The Infinite Actuary course as well. I really liked the instructor when he taught P, and have been looking forward to his course on C.

I think the next week or so will really help me decide if I am going to go into this full speed or take a break. I can’t really do that with MLC, because if I did fail MFE it would be more difficult to take both, as the exams would likely be only a week apart at best (the MLC date hasn’t been released yet).

Post exam wrap up

Ok, I took the exam this afternoon. Here is the lowdown:

As for the exam itself, I thought it was very fair. A good mix of questions, difficulty levels, and syllabus material. Everything I saw was covered in material I reviewed somewhere. The questions were easy enough to follow, but some of the more difficult ones required a bit of cleverness to get the right answers. It really reminded me of Exam P quite a bit.

How did I do? Out of the 30, I felt really good about 18, somewhere between 50-80% on 5, and I totally guessed on 7. Of those 23 I did answer, I know for sure I got 1 of them wrong. For the 7 I guessed on, there were 1 or 2 I thought I knew how to to but never got close to an answer choice, and 5 I just didn't know how to do. So, assuming I got some of my confident answers wrong and some of my guessed answers right, I should be close to a 6 either way. This is the first time I have to wait 8 weeks for results, should be interesting.

I did do something different this time, and I'm not sure how I felt about it. I spent the morning before the exam working through a couple of practice exams in a local Panera. I'm not sure if it was all the noise of the Panera, or just the response to looking at so many questions, but by the end of the morning I was really feeling shaky. I did find 2-3 very simple thing I was doing wrong in the practice exams, so that did help, but overall by the time I was walking into the exam I was feeling very scattered and shaky. I think some of that was just taking the exam on Monday v last Friday or Saturday. I think I would have been best off taking it Friday, but who knows. I think Saturday and Sunday I was tired from doing so much studying the prior 3 days and also I couldn't spent much time studying on Sat/Sun, so I lost the edge a little bit. Also, some exam jitters come into play of course. By the time I got through looking at the first 7 or 8 questions I was ok.

I did run out of time taking the exam, in that I didn't get to do as thorough of a review on the 23 I did answer as I would have liked, and even if I knew how to answer the ones I guessed on I wouldn't have had time for all of them. Now, when I get an answer I am confident in during the exam I usually do run a double check right there if there is an easy way to check the answer via an alternate method. Although this takes extra time, I feel it is important to get the answers you SHOULD get correct, even if it takes a minute or two to look at it a different way. When I was doing my second run though, I would like to have rerun some of the answers I was pretty confident in already, but alas time did not permit.

Ok, this is the first time I will have to wait for a score. Should be interesting. I wonder how much time I will spend analyzing it v. how much time I will spend just not worrying about it. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts going forward now that I'm not studying so much! I am definitely tired of studying, it will be nice to have a break!

5/8/11 - T minus 7

Wow, the exam is getting closer! I haven't posted very much during studying for this exam - I'm not sure if it is just because I have been super busy, or because the additional time I have had to study has caused me to approach it a little differently. While I used the blog last time to keep myself on the pace and allow myself to look back, maybe I haven't had the need to do so this time around? I know it would have been helpful to see my exact progress if I had posted more. Perhaps next time around I will post a bit more.

That being said, we are down to the final week. The past 18 days have been tough. I find myself going from total despair, to a feeling like I have a little bit of a chance, and back to total despair. Two members of my family were sick for an entire week two weeks ago, so it was very difficult for me to find time to study that week, and the time I was able to dedicate wasn't very productive because my attention was split and I was already exhausted from taking care of my family. Last week I was able to put a lot of time in and make a lot of progress, and I fully intend to this week as well.

I have taken some of the ASM practice exams and find them pretty tough. While I am not taking all of them under true exam conditions, I find I am able to answer about 50% of the questions. Some of the Brownian Motion and Ito's Lemma applications I find tough, as well as anything beyond the very basics of the interest rate models sections.

As for things I am trying to add to my repertoire this week, I hope to nail down state pricing, converting from risk neutral to true probabilities and returns, and a few other things I have noticed I need to brush up on here or there. Perhaps in the next day or two I should put together a post with a game plan of stuff I know, stuff I think I can master, stuff I can maybe get but is difficult, and stuff I feel I have no chance on. I will do that if I can, but really my first priority now is studying of course.

This has been a long and grueling process. I'm not sure if next time around I will start studying so early. At this point I feel like I have study exhaustion. I will be in a slightly different situation this time around in that I won't have my results for 8 weeks, so perhaps I will use that time as a total break, since I won't know which exam I am taking next until I get my results. As of now, I intend to take MLC if I pass MFE.

As of right now, my confidence is only at about a 3.