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!

11/15/2011 - T minus 13 hours!

It has been a long time since my last update!

I have put in a ton of hours of quality study time on MFE since the last update. I have taken a handful of full days off from work over the past two months (one or two a week on slower work weeks), and spent those days at a local coffee shop with another student just studying and studying. Studying with someone else, even when you aren't discussing the topics, is a really good way to stay on track. I also credit a few of the things I have learned this go round to him explaining them to me!

That being said, I worked and worked and worked on the Actuarial Brew MFE practice questions until I either had a decent grasp on a topic, the topic was just too difficult, or the topic was too esoteric for me to focus on. I have gotten to well over 70% on this set of questions, I haven't checked the numbers in a while. I also started leaving questions I was competent on unchecked on my list simply because I wanted to do them again and again for practice. So in effect, I wasn't using my tracking list the same way in the last 2-3 weeks.

I also went back over the past 3 weeks and gave some real focus to the SOA sample questions. While I have previously said I felt the questions weren't very good, after spending some more time working on them and pairing them with the Actuarial Brew answers, I like them much better. They are definitely on the harder side in general, but I have gotten to a point where I feel I am competent in over 70% of them. The remaining questions are just questions that are a little out of my range of capability on this go round. I feel that the SOA sample questions are presented very poorly, and the answers provided aren't necessarily that helpful, but in the end I definitely learned some things from working on them.

With all that being said, I don't believe I have rated my chances of passing in quite a while. I really feel like my chances of passing tomorrow are near certain. While it feels wrong to say I am certain I will pass, I can say I am as prepared as I feel I can possibly be, and know the large majority of the material backwards and forwards. If I don't pass this time around, I don't know if I could possibly be any more prepared with another round of studying, so I will only worry about that problem if and when I have it.

I didn't keep track of my study hours for this sitting. Off the top of my head, I would say I put over 200 hours in, which combined with over 200 hours last time is a nice amount to put into an exam. I would not be surprised if I got over 500 hours in total on this one over the past 14 months. Heck, I might be surprised if I got less than 500!

Hopefully tomorrow is the last time I have to look at the MFE material! I have found I really don 't like the ASM manual for this exam, and will probably try to avoid Weishaus authored manuals in the future. I know this is a minority opinion in the internet community, but I really don't like his style or presentation. It goes beyond "not working" for me and gets to the point of annoying the heck out of me. If someone asked me what to use, I would definitely recommend the Actuarial Brew flashcards and practice problems based on my use of them. I am ambivalent on the TIA seminar - while I didn't hate it, it was not nearly as good as the TIA courses for P and FM. I don't know if that is because of the type of material or the instructor, but either way I would steer someone towards the Actuarial Brew online seminar even though I haven't used it. As for study manuals, I would say definitely look at all the sample chapters you can to get a taste for the style of the manual, and don't default to ASM because everyone else does. I might suggest a close look at the Mahler manual - I looked at a sample chapter after I was beginning to like his C manual, and I like his presentation better in general. That being said, I haven't seen the whole manual.

Given all the above, I did find the TIA practice exams to be excellent, and I liked most of the questions on the first 4 ASM practice exams. I didn't go beyond ASM exam 4 this time, and there were a few questions I would just throw out of those 4, but for the most part the exams were good.

So, between the 6 practice exams I was using, the SOA 76, the Brew 656 practice questions, and the ASM end of chapter questions, I have done far far far too many practice problems multiple times in the last 14 months. I don't even want to know how many individual problems I have done based on how many passes I made on the material. It has to be a ridiculously large number I don't even want to try to estimate!