6/27/11 update

I have been moving along with the early studying for exam C. My goal has been to get about 2 hours per weeknight in for a total of 10 hours per week. I haven’t really been at that pace, getting more like 4-6 per week in.

I ordered Howard Mahler’s study manual, which is a little more expensive than ASM. It is also HUGE! That is a good thing, as I am finding it pretty effective so far. The manual breaks down everything into short chapters. So far, some of them are so short or so basic I can just skim them and mentally check them off. When I hit material I have to work through, it is nice to have an easily digestible chunk of material to think about and then move on. Most of the questions and even some of the topics should be skipped the first time through (Mahler lays out the system in the beginning of the manual), so it isn’t really as intimidating as it might seem. I like the “bite size chunks” approach so far, we shall see if that holds up.

I also have been listening to (and watching) the TIA lessons, but I have been spending more time with the Mahler manual. I would say a few concepts were easier to grasp from the TIA lessons, and when I hit them in Mahler, while they were still explained well, I thought TIA made them a little easier for me to grasp. My ultimate goal here is to keep a pace with both, so I don’t spend too much time getting bogged down in one or the other, and hopefully the balance of approaches will make things easier to grasp overall. Also

My goal is to have the first review of everything done by 8/27 or so. That gives me two more months, and then I will have approximately 8 weeks to work on practice problems. I think I will be able to hit that goal, but I am still pretty far out to tell. I’d estimate I am only 10-15% into the material as of now.

The results for MFE come out in 4 days! I’ll finally found out how that went. While I of course want to find out, I don’t find myself very anxious about it right now. I can’t change it at this point, so I am trying to stay relaxed!

6/2/11 - C progress and waiting for MFE results

The studying for C is moving along. I have purchased The Infinite Actuary (TIA) course and am going through the first sections of that. I have also downloaded the Mahler sample chapters and have been reviewing that. I have ordered the Mahler manual, but it has not arrived yet.

For both of these sources, I have mapped out a timeline of how I want to progress. The timeline would give me two months after finishing the material to just review practice problems. The two sources don't correspond by chapters and seem to take different approaches to organizing the material. I'm not sure at this point if I will end up using one as a primary source, or just try to divide my time between both knowing there will be overlap in various places.

I decided to buy the Mahler manual after reading the sample chapters and noticing how he breaks down the information into bite size chunks, and he seems to provide detail down to the most basic level. I feel I could really benefit from a "building blocks" approach to this material. I bought the TIA seminar as it has the same instruction who taught the exam P seminar. I loved his course, and felt it was totally key to me passing that exam, so I have a lot of faith he can get to to passing C as well. I have to admit that thus far I am not as impressed with the C lessons, but I still like them. I think his approach really pays off once the light bulbs start going off and you really start getting it, as he shows you how to deal with specific types of exam questions. Hopefully I will be getting it sooner rather than later!

The pass/fail results for MFE will be released July 1. I have spent a little more time thinking about it an analyzing my possible scenarios, and I still expect to get a 5 or 6. I would say I have a 65% chance of a 6 and 35% chance of a 5. Of course those percentages aren't based on anything but how I felt about groups of questions coming out of the exam as well as my gut feelings. The time waiting definitely gives you a lot of time to think about your results, whereas with the first two exams I didn't spend much time thinking about the exam after it was over because I already knew I passed!