Quest Complete

Or maybe I should say quest mostly complete.

I passed SDM finally.  Now I just have to go to the FAC and get my FSA.

In thinking about it, the name of this blog isn't FSA quest, it's exam quest.  I declare the quest complete!

Thanks to everyone who has made kind and supportive comments over the years, I do appreciate it.  It is interesting to think that I wasn't even sure I could pass one exam 6 years ago, never mind pass all of them!

I still have that Fellowship exam advice post in draft form, I'll have to get that up soon, especially as exam season will be ramping up again.

Post Exam Update

I felt like I did pretty well.  I would guess I confidently answered 80% of the points, and still provided decent answers for the rest.  There were very few points I didn’t feel like I had a chance for at all.  Of course I won’t get everything I confidently answered correct, but hopefully I’ll be able to get enough correct to pass.

Now on to the waiting…  I always find it a little weird to decompress after an exam.  Given the high level of productivity I am in the last 2 months before an exam, I am in the mode to want to be doing productive things constantly.  I start some online classes, I start doing projects around my house, etc.  It usually takes me until about now (2.5 weeks after the exam) to really start to relax.  I’ll still keep doing the productive things, but I might occasionally watch a movie or read a book as well.  You know - actual relaxing.  I think I remember how to do that...

I have to say the last month of studying was pretty stressful.  I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that stressed – certainly not in a long time.  While the whole process of taking any exam is stressful, this being my third attempt on this exam made it my last eligible attempt in the student program here at work, and I think that added more stress.  Never mind the pure fact of it being my third try on my last exam.  For all of April I constantly felt stressed out – I really had to limit the amount of external stress I put upon myself.  Even post-exam, it has taken a while for the stress to work itself out.  I still have some of it, maybe that is just going to continue until results come out??  On the positive side, the stress has helped me improve my overall health.  I’ve taken to running or walking pretty much every day now in order to help deal with it.  It had been hard to keep up my exercise and eating discipline while studying, and I had gained a fair amount of weight over the last 6 years.  I had planned to really work on that post-exam anyway, so I got a little bit of a head start!

After I took the exam I started a draft of a “How to study for FSA exams” type post.  The one caveat being the different tracks might require different approaches.  I’m going to circle back to it and hopefully post it pretty soon.

For everyone else out there who just took an exam, enjoy the break!  Or enjoy the modules… or studying for the next exam already…

SDM Result - Try 2

January 2015:
I’m meeting with the head of my department in a scheduled 1 on 1, and I show him the histogram of my exam scores.  I had just received a 6 in CFE, and was explaining to him how fortunate I was to receive so many 6s and 7s without ever receiving a 5.  I had received three 4s as well.  The point I was making was that whenever I was close to the line, I passed, and whenever I failed, I failed by enough that it didn’t feel tragic.

January 2016:
I get a 5 on my second try of SDM.

I really don’t know how I got a 5, except to say that I believe it was the lowest score I possibly could have gotten.  I studied a ton for this exam, and as it was my second try on the same exact syllabus I felt really comfortable with the material.  I remember thinking as it got close to exam day that the only thing “more” that I could do next time would be to make flashcards for the case study.  I was being humorous obviously (maybe?), but the point being was I felt I had covered the material a ton, and knew it really well.

As I left the exam, I felt I had really good answers for all but one question.  During the exam I changed a few answers I had already written after thinking I had discovered a trick in the question, only to realize after I left that the question was straightforward and the answer I threw away was actually the correct answer.  That was about 4 or 5 points of answers, and I was hoping I had enough other points that it wouldn’t come into play.  Also, the time I took to do that cost me in that I ran out of time at the very end, costing myself perhaps 1 point on a sub-question I knew but ran out of time on.  Still, I was thinking I had plenty of other points elsewhere.

BUT, given my experience last time, I spent the time waiting for results not thinking about it as much as possible and certainly not thinking I had passed.  I was prepared for anything.

So on results day, I open the passing exam candidate list and don’t see my number.  After looking at it for maybe 30 seconds, I realize there are no other numbers near mine.  I look at the file and realize I called up the passing numbers from the prior sitting.  Ha!  What a funny story that would be to tell people - I thought I had failed at first!

Then, I call up the current sitting results, and I’m not on there either.  This story isn’t so funny anymore…

The SOA has released the question by question results (you get a score for each question if you fail and upper level exam), and there are two questions for sure that I can’t believe I got as low as I did.  I’m not trying to sound like sour grapes here, but I did really well on certain questions I expected to, and middling to poor on my weaker questions, but there are two I thought I should have nailed and my scores were really low.  Since I got a 5 my exam would have been graded twice, so I’m sure the scoring is correct.  I have reviewed the answers the SOA has released and thought I would have gotten the bulk of the content of those answers, but apparently not.

So, I’m going to be studying one more time.  About 25% of the syllabus has changed, and I’ve been trying to both get familiar with the new stuff as well as refresh on the old stuff.

When I first started this blog (or quest if you will), my oldest was aged 2 and the twins were 3 months old.  Now that they are 8, 6, and 6, it is a lot harder to study.  They require a lot more energy to parent during the week, and they stay up later so my windows of study time are both shorter and I have less energy to study when I can.  That’s not an excuse by any means, just reality.  I will have to figure out how to make it happen one more time.

I’m finding right now that while I am pushing through starting to study again, I definitely am not in the zone.  I find with upper level exams I tend to peak in the last 6 weeks, so as long as I get my time in now building the fundamentals and try to get ready to maximize my time of peak studying focus, I should be ok.  I remember when studying for the prelims I could stay in peak studying mode for 3 - 4 months, but I don’t know if the nature of upper level material lends itself to that.

Thanks to those who have posted comments of support. I am glad people are getting something out of reading these experiences, and is nice to know there are those who would like to see this quest completed!  Hopefully we can finish this!

SDM Result

The more time went on after I took SDM in the spring, the more I was sure I had passed.  I told everyone – bosses, coworkers, friends, anyone who would listen – that while I still have to wait for results to be released, I was sure I had passed.  I was planning to go to the FAC in Seattle, already thinking about what books I should read on the plane and what activities I should do in the off hours.  I was ready to go off into the sunset into a study-free life…

So you know how this story ends, right?

My number wasn’t on the list.

While I knew I had to wait for official results, as mentioned above, I was sure I had passed.  Even now (grades have not been released yet) I have no idea how I didn’t pass.  I’ll review the exam in detail at some point once the answers are released, and hopefully I can make some sense of it.

The interesting thing as far as this blog goes though, is that this was a total gut-punch.  I’m not going to say my world came crashing down, but I was about as devastated as I get while still functioning.  This is maybe the first real setback as far as this blog is concerned.  While I have failed exams before, they were always exams that I was prepared to have failed, and it wasn’t a huge disappointment.

Looking back to my exam wrap up actually helped me deal with failing.  While I had become really confident of passing in the interim, I had forgotten just how difficult my studying in the spring session was, and how I had a sick kid with me on 3 of my 5 study days before the exam.  While those are by no means excuses, they at least serve to remind me that passing was by no means a lock before I took the exam.

I am still pretty upset.  I’m not upset at anything specific, I think it is just more the fact that in my mind I was done, and this is a pretty big setback.  I have to get into the studying groove again, and figure out how to get myself through the whole process and work to ensure a pass.  I REALLY didn’t think I was going to have to do that, so I’m still adjusting to the disappointment.

I imagine most of those who are taking exams and will eventually read this will come to a point like this in their exam-taking journey.  Hopefully seeing that it happens to a lot of people can be some comfort, and perhaps I’ll be able to blog a little bit more this time around to provide some perspective on how I am adjusting to the setback.

Maybe I should think of this like a concert…  The band went off the stage, but we’re coming back out for one more encore, which will include a couple of our greatest hits!  Ok, that is a little bit of stretch, but let’s go with it for now.

I think grades will come out later today, so I’ll provide some kind of update when I have more information.

Post-SDM wrap up

I considered typing up a post the day before I took my exam last week.  I was exhausted, stressed, almost non-functional as a human being.  I still participated with my family and took care of my kids, but the glaze of exam burnout had hit.  I decided from an efficiency standpoint not to expend the energy to type up a post, but I’ll try to relate the whole study sitting’s experience here.

I had a strong suspicion that I passed last time I took CFE, so I downloaded as many of the readings as I could before I got the official pass in January.  There weren’t a ton, but I did try to read up as much as I could.

Once I got the official pass in January, I ordered the source material as well as the PAK study manual and online seminar.  I was a big fan of the PAK material for this sitting, especially the videos.  I felt the PAK study notes by themselves were a little tough to get context on without either watching the videos or going back to the source readings, and I did both of those things many times.  I seem to remember that for ERM and CFE the study notes by themselves were sufficient a lot of the time, but in this case without larger context I found even using them as review material was difficult without more explanation.  This might be a symptom more of the material than of PAK’s presentation, as there was just a ton of information in seemingly every reading on the syllabus.

I found that my study sessions for FSA exams have been more efficient in short chunks rather than huge blocks (huge blocks worked for prelim exams), so I would do 30-45 minutes in the morning and at lunch and then 60-90 minutes in the evenings.  I didn’t study much on the weekends, because having 3 kids on weekends really saps all your energy!  Even trying to study after the kids went to bed would not have helped very much.

So, armed with that material and a structure, I began my studying in January.  It was rough going the whole way through.  While I found the material interesting, there was SO MUCH of it that it really made it hard to feel like I ever had a handle on it.  There must have been well more than 250 lists I could possibly have tried to memorize, and just so much material that could be tested that it often felt hopeless.  My strategy was to memorize a few formulas, but beyond that not to try to memorize anything specific, just to learn the material as well as possible and be able to understand and apply it.  Now, even with that strategy, every time I opened the study material there was always more and more concepts that could possibly be tested, and there is no way I would ever have been able to learn them all.  Every single week I just felt like I was trying to hold back a waterfall – I was tired from trying and it just kept coming!

So, at no point did I really feel confident.  I had some ideas of what techniques I would like to use for taking notes and reviewing the material, but by the time I finished my read through and initial review, there wasn’t enough time for me to really work with the material.  Keep in mind, I only had 3.5 months between finding out I passed CFE and taking SDM.  If you’re throwing family responsibilities in there and weekends are out for the most part, that isn’t a lot of time.  So, the last few weeks before the exam I started to formulate what I would try to do for next sitting and had a good strategy to pass in the fall.  Unfortunately, I still had to prepare for spring!

I am fortunate to have study time provided by the student program at work.  Most students take the 5 days prior to their exam off from work to study.  I have always done this, and found it very effective. Well, for the first 3 of the 5 days I had a sick kid at home!  While I should still be able to study with a sick kid at home, it was definitely a constant distraction and made it difficult to get into the full mindset or “zone”.  Also, I couldn’t take study breaks like I normally do.  A mid-afternoon trip to the grocery store has always been a good study break for me, and I couldn’t leave the house with a sick kid.

Halfway through the third study day, a coworker of mine who is taking the same exam called and we chatted about how we felt about our chances.  He was feeling positive, but I was not.  I felt like I knew nothing!  Keep in mind, the exam is in 3 days at this point.  He was encouraging, and after he called I decided to try to use one of the methods I was preparing for the fall, which was to take notes on all the sections by hand.  Essentially, extract what I felt was most important from the PAK notes (based on my highlighting and handwritten notes in there) and put it all in a notebook.  2 full days and 30 handwritten pages of notes later, I had given myself and handy mini review book, and had reinforced many of the concepts in an efficient manner.

At this point, I still felt like I didn’t KNOW anything from a memorization standpoint, but that I was pretty familiar with over 80% of the material based on my crunch-time hand written note taking.  If they asked me to apply concepts, I would be in good shape. If they wanted lists from the study material, I would come up short on most.

Well, the exam didn’t ask for a lot of lists to be regurgitated.  It turned out to be application of concepts and a lot of applying concepts to the case study.  My preparation was targeted towards that, and I feel like I got at least somewhere between 60-70% of the points, and quite possibly more than that.  Based on feedback from other students, all of us seem to agree that the exam felt a little bit easy, so we shall see where the pass mark and pass rate end up, but I am cautiously optimistic at this point.  I was able to answer every question with something, even if I thought it really wasn’t 100% correct, and I finished both the morning and afternoon sessions with at least 15 minutes to spare.  This is the best I have felt out post-exam of my 4 FSA exam sittings, so we shall see if that holds up when results are reached.

If the result in July is a pass, the quest is complete!

Passed CFE, on to SDM!

A bit of a late update on this one - I got my result for my second attempt at CFE in January, and I passed with a 6.  I feel like I am very fortunate to have gotten four 6's and no 5's at this point!

I have started studying for SDM, using the PAK online seminar and study guide.  I have been a little slow to get fully into gear, mostly due to "busy-ness" associated with family, but hopefully I can get two really strong months of studying in.  I am finding the material so far to be both interesting but seemingly challenging to learn at a level required for a FSA exam.  I could see some really challenging questions coming out of it asking very specific things, and it would be incredibly difficult to master every reading.  As I mentioned previously (I believe anyway), the only strategy I have developed for upper level exams is just to try to learn everything!  I'm going to keep doing that, and using the flashcards PAK provided as short term refreshes in between times I can make passes through each reading.

I did get a pass for my third and final FSA module, so I only have the DMAC left after this exam.  Wow, it has been a long 5 years!  

Post CFE thoughts

Well, I feel better after taking CFE that I did last time.  I think I got around 58 of the available 100 points.  For my previous 2 FSA exams, I estimated that 54 or 55 percent of the available points was the pass mark, so hopefully I can squeak by on this one.

As for the exam, I felt the morning session was pretty fair, and the afternoon session was pretty rough.  Based on comments online that seems to be a pretty universal feeling.  For the morning session, I felt that if you studied the material you would have a decent grasp of most of the things they were asking for.  In also felt the morning questions were pretty creative approaches to the material and I enjoyed reading and thinking about them.  The afternoon session was not like that.  I thought it was more representative of what a very difficult version of the exam would look like.  I’m not saying it was unfair, but more on the highly challenging level.

So, we shall see how results go.  In the meantime, I’m going to work on my final module and the DMAC, and start to review the syllabus for the next exam once it is released.

If you are waiting on results as well, good luck!

CFE update

It’s been a while since the last update!  I took CFE in the Spring, and had the same types of issues with structuring my studying that I had with ERM.  I just never felt like I had a great strategy except for “learn as much as possible”.  While that is a nice goal to have, it really doesn’t help break down into weekly and daily goals, except for the very basic “Study this section this day” division of material.

I ended up with a 4 on the Spring sitting of CFE.  I don’t quite know how to feel about that. There were two questions I COULD have gotten the points on that would have gotten me to passing.  One was a question that referred to the case study but it never occurred to me that the factor I needed to make my math work was something I had to pull out of the case study.  I was pulling apart the problem back and forth, knowing I could do it, and I never figured out what I was missing.  Right after the exam I asked someone else who took it about the question, and they mentioned that the factor I needed was in the case study.  Doh!  I never even thought to look there, though it should have been obvious.  There was another question that was entirely devoted to a topic I could not recall anything about.  If I had been able to get some points on that question, and get the calculation factor from the case study I would have been very close to passing.

So, the good news is I had a good shot to pass in the Spring, even though I did not.  I don’t know how to feel about that.  Should that give me confidence?  I suppose it should, but given a new set of questions on a new set of topics, I can’t assume I’m starting from a 4 and working my way up, I have to assume I am starting from 0 again, and while it is good to know I scored a 4 once, I can’t assume I will just be able to do that again.

As mentioned above, I still have no idea how to feel about preparedness for these exams.  Oh, how I long for the days when I knew I could do 70% of the practice questions on a prelim!  I feel like I know a lot of the material, but there will always be sections, subsections, lists, etc., that I don’t know yet!  So as I prepare, I always have that feeling like I DON’T know things, which is both discouraging but also motivating as it keeps me focused on trying to learn the next thing.  The only real strategy I have figured out for these exams is to learn as much as possible about everything, which is ok with me as I am genuinely interested in the material, but I am never going to be able to really master every topic and calculation.  To risk stating the obvious, I hope to know enough to score a 6 and be able to move on.

For anyone who is curious, my study strategy for FSA exams has basically boiled down to this:

1. Read the source material
2. Read the study guide
3. Make notecards or review purchased notecards
4. Review past exam questions, noting the types of questions asked and the calculations asked for
5. Try to distill the material into digestible chunks.  For the ERM exam I wrote my own study guide, but I have only done about half of one for CFE – I just don’t find the material as adaptable to writing up on my own.  For CFE, I am going through each section and determining whether it is best served by notecards or just reading the study guide (for sections that are too dense to easily make cards from)
6. Review what I put together in step 5 and continue to review past exam questions I noted as significant in step 4.
7. Use my last bit of available energy to take the exam, crossing the finish line collapsed flat on my face with one hand over the line.  (In my head, this is similar to an image of cartoon character I remember from my younger days, but I can't quite place the memory to find the exact image.)  

13 Days left for me.  Hopefully, all of you who are reading this – both current day and in the future – are finding the motivation to keep working hard until exam day!

Passed ERM Exam, onto CFE!

So I passed the ERM Exam with a 6.  Yay!

Ok, the time to celebrate is over.  I'm going to take Foundations of CFE in the spring.  I'm using TIA as my study material this time around.  I am signed up, and there aren't any videos yet!  There is a study manual though, so that is enough to chew on for now.  The first wave of videos should be available this weekend.

Good luck to all of you who are studying for spring!

First FSA exam thoughts, waiting for results!

I’m awaiting my result for the ERM exam – it will be released tomorrow!  I never provided any additional updates or thoughts on the exam, so I’ll share them while I wait.

I found that FSA exams are very different beasts to prepare for.  For a prelim exam, you get a group of practice questions, keep working on those so you can learn more and more concepts, and you have a pretty good idea when you are ready to take the final exams.  For FSA exams?  No such structure!

As I mentioned in the last post, I finished the reading towards the end of August, and then I had two months left and no real structure (ie get 70% on practice questions, etc).  I found that very difficult to deal with, as I never really knew where I was in my studying.  I ended up both buying flashcards and making my own “study manual”, both of which helped a lot.  When I say I made my own study manual, what I really mean is I took concepts from the texts and flashcards and put the main ideas in my own words.  Doing so really forced me to understand the concept and helped expose weaknesses.

I found the flashcards were really helpful at first, but after a while I couldn’t memorize anymore!  I bought the ACE flash cards (which I liked a lot), and there were about 300 cards.  I was able to memorize the first 60 or so, but after that I just couldn’t memorize additional cards.  I still reviewed the flashcards to try to learn the concepts, but I just didn’t have the capacity to store any more information verbatim.

So, towards the end of September and into October I was very frustrated, stressed, and discouraged.  As I mentioned, with the prelim exams I was always very organized, structured, and had a specific plan.  I couldn’t figure out an organized plan for FSA exams, and it made studying very difficult.  To compound things, given that I was so frustrated, I found it difficult to put time into studying!  I would take certain nights off entirely, or when I did study I would end up quitting earlier than usual just because I didn’t have specific goals/identified weaknesses, etc.  So, my study hours were not what I would have liked.  You might think memorizing flashcards would be a specific goal, but as I said I just couldn’t use that approach after a while.

I would up discouraged, tired, and essentially limping in to the final week.  The only thing that really kept me focused to any degree was the project of making my own manual.  I ended up reviewing all the concepts, thinking about how to structure the information, and using that as my main study document.

The morning of the exam I was resigned to my fate, prepared to take it again in the spring.  I remember sitting in Panera, having a bagel, and taking one last look at my study document to try to absorb what I could, but mostly thinking the document would be a good start for spring studying.

I went to the exam center, and as the exam started I was actually pretty relaxed due to my acceptance of my fate.  As the exam started, I read the questions during the 15 minute reading period and little by little realized I could answer some of the questions.  I started writing furiously, figuring I could at least get some of the points and make a good showing.  As I completed some questions, I would look at the remaining questions and realize for most of them I could provide an answer that would at least get some, if not all, of the points.  I ended up writing until there was 3 minutes left, and felt pretty decent about my exam.  I did end up totally making up answers to a few questions that I knew were incorrect in the hopes of maybe getting a point for getting a small part correct, but I saved those to the end and made sure the answers I was more sure of were completed first.

On the exam itself, there were 80 possible points.  I felt like I had about 38 of them for sure, a good chance at another 17, and maybe I’d pick up a few of the remaining 25.  I have no idea how many I’d need to pass, I’d guess 50 or 55, but perhaps it could be as high as 60 (of the 80).  So, assuming my estimates are correct I should at least have a chance of passing.  We shall see tomorrow!

Going forward, I’m not sure what I would change next time around or how my strategy will change.  I will start working on my own study manual and on flash cards starting from day 1, but it remains to be seen if that will provide more structure and less stress!

Almost an ASA, FSA exam update

I ended up passing MLC with a 7, so I have completed all the prelim exams!  Yay!  And it only took all my free time for 3 years (note sarcasm)!

I still have one VEE I need credit for.  I took the Actex class this summer and am awaiting my grade as I type.  I attended the APC as well, so I should be an ASA within the next couple of months.  I couldn’t even have imagined writing that when I started this blog three years ago.  I guess I am the type of person who puts my head down and does the work without spending a lot of time thinking about the end goal.  Granted, I always know I am working on the end goal and that is what drives me, I just don’t spend a lot of time pondering what it will feel like to be there.  So now that I can start thinking about the ASA, it actually is nice to know all the endless hours of studying pay off and to get there!

Was that enough rest and reflection?  FSA exams are on the docket!  I’ll be taking the ERM exam on Oct. 29.  It is a weird feeling again to not really know how to prepare.  I am almost done with the first pass of the reading, and obviously I need to memorize all the material and really understand how to apply it, but HOW to do that is a mystery to me right now.  I remember this feeling well from Exam P – knowing I wanted to get to a certain goal but not having an idea HOW.

One thing that greatly benefited me was finding someone else in the company taking the exam.  In talking this over with that person, I really figured out that I need to make my own study guide, much like I did for Exam C.  Putting together the notes in my own way will help me internalize the material.  Well, hopefully anyway!

Strategy for Passing FAP modules, Interim Assessment, and Final Assessment

Last year I completed the FAP Modules, the Interim Assessment (IA), and the Final Assessment (FA).  I was able to pass all of these on the first try.  I figured I’d share some of the strategy I used, as it seems to contradict some of the conventional wisdom floating around on message boards.

Format
For those who do not know, the FAP Modules are a set of 8 self-paced online lessons (Modules 1-8) and two timed assignments (the Interim and Final Assessment).  Each module has a series of slides to review as well as assigned book reading.

A typical module might have 5 sections, each with 50-100 slides to read, and then refer you to 5 or 6 chapters to read in the various books that go along with the modules.  After you complete that, you will have an end of module assignment, which is generally a series of calculations and write ups you will have to do that relate to what you read.

The IA is a large scale series of tasks that you have a 30 day window to complete.  The IA relates to material in Modules 1-5.  You would complete the IA after Module 5, and submit it for review and graded (pass/fail).

The FA is a large scale series of tasks that you complete after Module 8, and you have 96 hours after starting it to submit your final result.  It is graded pass/fail as well.

Module Strategy
Each Module consists of a large series of slides, assigned book reading, and some case studies and handouts within the slides.  After you complete this material, Modules 1-4 and 6-7 have end of Module exercises to complete.  The IA and FA function as the end of Module exercises for Modules 5 and 8.

For each Module, I first downloaded and reviewed the End of Module assignment to get an idea of what I was going to have to work through at the end of the module.  I then read every slide straight through.  There are a lot of points in the slide where it says something like “now read pages xxx-yyy in book abc”, but I found it very disorienting to keep switching back and forth between the online content and the books.  So, for each Module I kept a document that listed every book reading that was assigned, and where it was assigned.  I used google docs, but a word doc or anything similar would suffice.  Each entry would read something like “s4s30 UAP ch.9”, where s4s30 stands for section 4, slide 30, and UAP ch.9 is the book and chapter it says to read.

I also kept notes in another section on the same document.  So, if a slide had content I thought was worthy notes I would either type a summary in my notes, or copy and paste the section directly into my document.  As I made the notes, I used the same s4s30 type notation to note which slide the notes came from.  This is useful when you are going back and want more detail on what you noted!

The Modules each contain various handouts to read and case studies.  I saved each of these into a folder on my computer, and read the handouts as they came up in the slides.  Many of the case studies require calculation work in a spreadsheet – so they essentially function like homework to reinforce the concepts.  For the case studies, I reviewed the assignment and the data, and decided whether I felt it was really necessary to follow all the steps to get the main ideas, or if I could just review the summaries.  Most of the time I did not work through the entire case study, but I did spend time with it to absorb the ideas.

After completing all the above, I would begin the book reading, going in order as noted in my document.  I highlighted my books as if I was studying them, and made additional notes in my document for main points I thought were worthy of note taking.  My document would have notes like “UAP p.132” and then a write-up to note something I thought was significant from page 132 of the Understanding Actuarial Practice book.

After completing all of the above, you will get to the End of Module (EOM) assignment.  Given as you reviewed this before starting the Module, you should have an idea of where you are going to go with the assignment.  I would usually start by just making some high level notes on each question, then going back and reviewed my document of notes to see what might apply to the EOM assignment.  Once I have all that together, I did the write up as assigned.

As you can see, I took a very studious and diligent approach to the Modules.  Many people on the Actuarial Outpost recommend not even reading the assigned readings, or skimming them at best.  Well, you might be able to pass the Modules that way, but that is going to hurt you quite a bit when it comes to the IA and the FA.  Instead of being lax with your preparation and trying to sneak through, it is much better to work through the material as intended and assure yourself of a pass.  You will find many of the same people who recommend taking shortcuts also complaining that they failed an EOM exercise or the IA or FA!  Well, I wonder why??  It seems pretty obvious.  Don’t shortchange yourself or the assignment!  You wouldn’t approach your work at your employer that way, would you?  Well, if you would, then maybe this isn’t the strategy for you.

Interim Assessment and Final Assessment Strategy
You have 30 days from when you download the IA to submit it.  The IA is more or less a bunch of EOM assignments strung together.  I’m not allowed to say much more about the contents of the IA, but strategy-wise if you have followed the above approach for the Modules you should be in good shape.  You will be referring back to the slides, the books, and your notes to answer the questions.

For both the IA and the FA, before I started writing I made a series of passes through the questions making detailed notes of how I wanted to answer each question.  I would end up with an outline of my answer for most questions, and then from there it was just a matter of filling in the detail and making it flow.

30 days for the IA is plenty of time.  I spent 35-40 hours on it, so you can portion out the time spent as you choose.  I preferred to take full days off from work to work on the bulk of it, as I found it easier to keep going for many hours once I got in the groove.  I also had a handful of nights where I spent 2-3 hours working on an additional question or touching up my answers.  As long as you figure out a way to get 40 hours in, you will have enough time.

As for the FA, you have 4 days from the time you download it to submit your final answers.  This is barely enough time!  Given that this blog is from the middle-aged career changer’s standpoint, if you have a family, it will be tough to find the time to do this.  I took 4 days off from work, worked every minute of those days outside of 3-4 hours a day spent on family obligations (ie taking care of my kids), and it was a race to the end.  I am lucky I decided on day 1 to start very fast, expecting to rest and just watch movies on my last day.  There was no resting or watching movies available by day 4, I was still working as furiously as I was on day 1!

All in all I spent about 40 hours on the FA, and I could have spent more.  Taking notes throughout the Modules really paid off at this point.  I would think anyone who didn’t do the readings would be very handicapped when attempting to give competent answers to the FA questions.  I’m not saying it is impossible, but if you did not take notes you will spend a lot of time going back through the books or slides.  That time would have been better used writing your answers on the FA!

How long does this take?
If you follow these strategies, each module should take 20-30 hours (most less than 25).  I spent 35-40 hours each on the IA and FA.

Good luck!

Post MLC Wrap Up

MLC went pretty well.  I ended up able to answer 20 questions with a high degree of confidence.  There were 2 that I SHOULD have been able to answer, but I never could figure out the solution, and 3 which I made an attempt at but got nowhere fast and in the end totally guessed on.  One of the questions I should have been able to answer I figured out the solution a couple of days later – I was making a simple mistake.  How frustrating!  I spent a lot of time on that question towards the end of my exam (after I was already confident on the 20 questions) knowing I knew how to do it.  I DID know how to do it, but was making a silly mistake in the process of solving it.  Oh well!  Regarding the other question I really thought I should have been able to figure out, I don’t remember all the factors or the answer choices, so I can’t go back and figure it out on my own.  Hopefully they will release the exam and I’ll be able to take a look at it.

Given those results, I am pretty confident of passing MLC, and will be finishing a VEE in the summer and then taking my first FSA exam in the fall!  Oh yeah, I should have my ASA in the fall as well.  It is a little crazy to think 3 years ago I was studying for P and starting this blog, and now I am done with the prelims!
 
I’ll keep this blog updated with my progress for the fall, but it might be pretty quiet for a while.  I have two “guide” type posts brewing in my head, one for prelim exams in general and one for FAP modules.  I want to write them before the ideas and start to fade, so hopefully they will be up pretty soon!

Good luck on your exams!

T minus 2 to MLC, FAP Modules update

As seems to often happen in the blogging world, it has been a long time since my last update!  While I often thought of updating, finding the time has been pretty hard recently.

Let's get up to date:  While I was studying for MLC last summer, I was also doing the FAP Modules.  I passed all the modules, the IA and the FA on the first attempt, and got a 4 on MLC.  I was not surprised to fail MLC, the time divided between Modules and MLC made it tough to get fully prepared for that exam.

Hopefully I can make some time to do a post on strategy for the FAP Modules.  I have some opinions on how to best approach them that are, while seemingly entirely logical, different than what I find on the Actuarial Outpost.  Very short version: read everything, take detailed notes, don't try to rush, actually try to learn something, and you will be fine.

As for MLC last fall, I never got fully prepared.  I was able to do some questions from a first principles basis, but for questions that required knowledge of specific formulas, I hadn't gotten to the point in my study where I was able to recall those formulas.  On one hand, I tried to do too much last summer and fall.  On the other hand, I did that on purpose, knowing I would probably sacrifice a good shot at MLC, but at least having a good familiarity with the material to set myself up for the Spring.

So, where are we now??  As you may have seen in previous posts, I am a big believer in buying multiple study manuals.  Between fall and spring I have purchased Actex, ASM, BPP and the TIA seminar.  Each has their strengths and weaknesses.  I love the ability to watch someone talk through problems in the TIA videos, but I need material to read as well.  The ASM manual probably rates as the most comprehensive, but sometimes it is so dense and it tends to avoid using plain english to explain anything.  The BPP manual actually uses plain english, and has pretty good answers for their practice problems (they don't skip as many steps as other manuals, which can be confusing).  I have also gone back to my Actex manual a few times over the months as a review.  It is a little shorter and is presented somewhat differently, which is good to get a different look at the material.

As with any exam, studying this sitting has been tough.  There have been times of hopelessness and times where ideas have come together.  One thing I am finding different about MLC is that I know 95% of the formulas pretty well, but still have a hard time with some questions.  Whereas with MFE if you knew the formulas most of the questions weren't too bad, with MLC I find even if you know the formulas the questions are rather tricky.

I was originally using BPP as my practice question set, but switched to TIA a while back.  I made it above 65% in the TIA practice questions, which is about where I have been with the other exams I have passed.  I then focused on the TIA practice exams and the Fall and Spring 2012 exams in order to review the material. The TIA practice exams are very difficult, I am getting maybe 50% of the questions on those.  The Fall and Spring 2012 exams seem fair at this point.  I can answer 60-70% of the questions.  I have never really been above 50% on practice exams in the past, so based on my style of self grading (I don't count guesses, if the question takes me too long I don't count it), this puts me at about par with previous exams sittings where I have passed.

So, the exam is in 2 days, and I feel like I could have any result from passing by a mile to failing by a little bit.  Hopefully I can fall in the middle there and pass by at least a little bit!

As for my chances of passing, I'd put it at about 8 out of 10.

8/14/12 - T minus 84 to MLC

I’ve changed strategy since developing my original study schedule.  While I had planned to get through one topic a week, I found that getting through the foundational topics of this exam (Survival Rates, Insurance, and Annuities) very tough to do.  I have decided to keep focusing on those until I had a pretty strong comfort level with them, as the rest of the topics build on those.

This is quite different from my usual strategy of going through the entire course a few times before really getting a comfort level, but I feel it is the best one given that the material in this exam builds on itself going forward.  I will admit to being a little nervous about this strategy, as by now I usually have been through the material and at least have a slight level of comfort with the concepts and terms.

Given that I have found the first few sections difficult, it has shaken my confidence in passing in November a little bit.  I am used to this feeling by now, and I am never confident towards the beginning of an exam, but this feels like it is lasting longer, and I am on a shorter timeframe.

I am also doing something else I have never done before – I am creating my own flashcards.  I sometimes buy the pre printed flashcards, but I didn’t this time around.  I am finding creating the cards myself helps me remember the topics I specifically want to work on that day, and also helps me to structure the cards in a way that helps me learn.

I am glad to see I can be flexible in my approach and make the decisions to change strategy if things aren’t working.  As I get to upper level exams, I imagine the ability to be flexible will help me pass those exams.  For now, we will focus on MLC!

It is tough to assess my chances of passing at this point.  Last week I would have said 0, today I will say 4 (out of 10).

Passed C, starting MLC!

I passed C!  Yay!

I thought the exam was pretty tough, but fair.  I was able to answer 24 confidently, make a somewhat confident guess on 5, and I made pure guesses on 7.  Yes, I know that adds up to 36 questions, I must have double counted one in there!

I have been starting to study for MLC in the fall.  The spring sitting was super tough, only about 30% passing.  I'm not sure what that means for fall - I could see the SOA both leaving it at the same level, but also I can see them dialing down the difficultly a little bit.  I just have to prepare for the high difficulty level!

One thing I did learn from C (and MFE as well) is that you really have to prepare for the second tier of exams (MFE, MLC and C) so much more than you had to for P and FM.  I plan to put in the same level of dedication I put into C, but I am a little short on time this time (4 months), so hopefully I can get to the point I need to be at in time!

After reviewing the samples available for various study material, I decided to purchase the Actex book, the ASM book, and the TIA seminar.  While that might seem like a lot of material, I have really found having multiple sources to be a big value add.  Being able to refer to another source when you are having difficulty with a concept really helped me with C.  In retrospect, I wish I had done this for MFE as well.  The $200 extra cost for another study manual is small compared to the value of time saved studying and increased chances of passing.

I am currently on TIA section B, and plan to do about one section per week (the sections are A-J) through the week of Sept 8, leaving the next 2 months for intense problem working and solidifying the concepts.  While I always start with the intention of doing problems as I first review the material, I know at some point I will want to rush through all the material so I can get to purely problem working.  We'll see how that goes!

It will be awesome to be done with the prelims, assuming I pass of course.  I am looking forward to taking the FSA exams and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!

My current MLC schedule (according the the TIA sections) looks like this:

Section	Week Ending
A. Prerequisite Review	7/7/2012
B. Survival Models and Life Tables	7/14/2012
C. Insurance Benefits	7/21/2012
D. Life Annuities	7/28/2012
E. Premium Calculation	8/4/2012
F. Reserves	8/11/2012
G. Markov Chains	8/18/2012
H. Multiple-Decrement Models	8/25/2012
I. Multiple-Life Models	9/1/2012
J. Other Topics	9/8/2012

T minus 1!

Wow, this has been a trip.  Actually a trip isn’t nearly the best word, as that makes it sound fun.  A challenge?  An obstacle?

I can definitely say I’ve never worked this hard for this long at anything before, and it has been a tremendous challenge.  I worked really hard in Feb and March in anticipation of being ready a few weeks early, and it is a good thing I did so, because this exam required a lot more work than I anticipated.  Even at this point, I’m not overly confident of passing.  I think I have a good shot, but there are still a lot of questions I know I can’t answer.  I know I’m never going to be able to answer 100% of questions on any exam, so we’ll just have to see how it shakes out tomorrow.

The road to this point has been very challenging.  I don’t know that I could ever tell someone to try to prepare for this exam without giving them a lot of caveats.  Although each piece of the material by itself isn’t too hard, there is a TON of it, and for much of the material you have to know a few alternate ways to approach things, exceptions, etc.  As I have been taking practice exams, I have rarely been able to score above 50%.  I have been learning from the things I missed, but it is really discouraging to put in over 400 hours of study and still have a ton of trouble with a practice exam!

I’m not exaggerating when I say over 400 hours.  Since I took MFE, I have studied approximately 5 out of every 6 nights for 2 hours or more.  That doesn’t include some extra long sessions I got in, entire days I took off to study, time I spent during lunch, study time at work, etc.  After the exam, I will have to look back and think about whether all the time I spent was effective.  I plan to write a post exam post outlining the schedule I followed and my thoughts on it.

As for my overall confidence, I really don’t know what to think.  I know I know a TON of the material.  I am pretty well versed in almost every topic, I know almost every formula, and I have been through every type of available practice question.  That being said, there are still approaches I struggle with, and certain questions that just stump me.  I have to keep in mind I don’t need to know 100% of everything, but that being true is part of the reason I never feel that comfortable going in to an exam.  If I had to rate my chances of passing on a 1-10, I’d want to say a 7, but I’d bump it down a little bit to 6.5.  Realistically, it could be as high as 8 and as low as 3.  That is part of the fun of this process!

T minus 25 to Exam C

Progress is being made!  In fact, I have now studied more hours for this sitting than I have for any previous sitting, and I still have 25 days left to go.  I haven’t been keeping an exact count, but I am sure I am over 300 hours at this point.  I have studied almost every night since taking MFE, with a little bit of time off around the holidays.

I plan to do a post specifically about preparing for this exam once I am done, but it really boils down to two things: hours and persistence.  I have spent so much time on this exam really expecting to be almost 100% of the way there by now, but really I am only 60-70% of the way there.  There is a TON of material in this exam, and while by themselves most of the chapters aren’t overly complicated (surely some are, but most aren’t), taken as a whole this is a huge exam.  It just takes a commitment that will challenge you and push you beyond what you think your limits are.  I have been 100% focused on this exam for 5 months, will be for another month, and I’m still not totally confident of passing.  I think I will when the time comes, but there is still so much left for me to grasp.

I have been using the TIA 240 block of questions as my practice question block, and recently re-watched every TIA video and took careful notes.  While I found the videos a little tough to grasp the first time through, now that I am pretty familiar with the material, the videos were great to watch the concepts in action and fill in a lot of the blanks.  Just like every other exam, it takes multiple passes through the material before everything starts to click.  After multiple bouts of frustration at trying to grasp this material, things have been clicking well recently and hopefully they will continue to.

That does bring up a good point – this exam is really a test of will and determination.  At this risk of making it sound overly dramatic, it really is a true test of your commitment and dedication.  I’ll have more to say on this in the future, but I really believe this exam is a challenge for all but the serious math genius types.
At this point, I would rate my chances of passing as a 7.5 out of 10.  I feel like if I can keep up this pace another 25 days, I should be in good shape, but I don’t think I will ever reach the point of being truly confident.  Which is a good thing, because I need that little kernel of panic to keep me studying!

MFE results and T minus 87 to Exam C!

I passed MFE! I got a 7 on the exam. At first I was a little disappointed with the score, but after seeing that the passmark was 72%, and assuming 5 pilot questions, that means 18 or 19 correct of the remaining 25 would have scored a 6, and 20 or 21 correct would have scored a 7. I can feel pretty good about getting 20 or 21 out of the 25 that counted. I'm sure I made a mistake or two somewhere along the line!

I have been chugging along on Exam C material. I have been pretty highly motivated since the beginning of the year, and have only taken days off from studying on the weekends or when I have been sick. I have used Mahler's manual as my primary learning material, and have been using TIA's 240 review questions as my practice question bank. I set a goal to achieve a certain amount of progress per week on the practice questions, and have already exceeded my goal for this week. I expect my progress will slow after I get through the material I am already comfortable with, so I won't get too confident about being ahead of pace!

My confidence in passing C in May is at about 8 right now. I really feel if I can keep up the hours I have been putting in I should be able to pass.

MFE Wrap up and Exam C begins!

I feel pretty good about the exam. I answered 25 questions with a high degree of confidence, I’d say 22 were 100% confidence and 3 were 80-90%. I didn’t have time to really narrow the 100% confidence v the slightly less, but that should be about right. There were 2 questions I was 50-50 on. One was a guess where I was able to eliminate 3 of the answers, and one was a question where it could have been either answer depending on exactly what the question was asking. On the question I was able to eliminate 3 answers, opinion online seems to be my guess was correct (I have seen others discussing the question and the answer with enough detail that I know it is the same question), and on the other I thought depending on how you read the question you could have thought they were asking for two different things, and both answers were options. In general terms, the name of the thing they were asking for was different than what they described in the question. I have seen practice questions where even though they are asking for an interest rate put you calculate it as a call (because the price goes up as rate goes down), but this was slightly different.

I made pure guesses on 3 questions, but instead of just picking a random answer I went with answers that seemed familiar based on practice questions I had done. I can only remember two off the top of my head. One was a topic that was in my study material but unlikely to be tested and pretty difficult, so I only got a passing familiarity with it. The other was a question I knew how to do in theory, but the answer choice were pretty complex and in variable form. I tried to start it and got nowhere quickly, so just decided to punt as I didn’t think my time was best spent on that one.

I had at least one question I had on my previous exam, maybe two. The one I had for sure I knew I got wrong last time, so even though I knew the answer as soon as I looked at it this time I did calculate it out and double check it.

There were a couple of topics I studied hard for and expected to get at least one question on, but did not. That was disappointing in a way, as I was really prepared for them!

All in all, I think I would have passed this version of the exam had I taken it in the spring (I failed in the spring with the version I took), but there isn’t anything I can do about that of course. I’m pretty confident of having passed, but you never really know until you see the result. I left this exam about as confident as I was after taking FM, which I got a 9 on. I don’t expect a 9 this time, I’m more mentioning that to give some perspective. I was definitely more confident than I was with P or my previous MFE try, which I got a 6 and 4 on respectively.

I have started studying for C. I took one night off, but within 24 hours I was knee deep in C material! I am leaning towards making a first attempt at C in February, with the expectation of taking it again in May and passing then. That being said, the fact of taking it in February will lead me to do everything in my power to pass in February. The studying would be more like my studying for P and FM, just an intense short period of trying to absorb as much as I can to pass.

For C study material, I have the Mahler manual (which I still love) and TIA. I have been using the Mahler manual for my initial review, and listening to TIA in the car. My plan right now is to finish a first pass (reading, highlighting and taking notes, not working problems) in Mahler by Dec 7 and then to start working a problem set. Right now I intend to work the TIA 240 set of problems, as they have video solutions that I think I will learn well from. I have read good things about Mahler’s practice exams, so I may end up using those as a practice question bank as well. I don’t generally take sample exams under exam conditions, I tend to use them as question banks to practice, so doing so a little earlier than normal won’t be all that unusual. Overall, I don’t know that I will have time for much more than 240 questions, and the TIA bank and the practice exams both total to about that number. As I start looking at the questions more closely I will get a feel for what will best prepare me in a short time.

I’m sure the ideas will change as I go along, but that is the plan as of now!