Are you completely new to the actuarial world? No idea why everyone keeps talking about studying? Wondering why multiple-choice questions are so hard? Ask here. There are no stupid questions in this thread! Note that you may be able to get an answer quickly through the wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/actuary/wiki/index This is an automatic post. It will stay up for two weeks until the next one is posted. Please check back here frequently, and consider sorting by "new"!

I need to create a loss triangle for a task, but I'm unsure which software to use. I have a small data sheet in Excel that I can work with.

Ok so I will be sitting for FAM in just over 3 weeks… I have gone through all the material and feel fairly okay with the FAML questions but I’m just starting the FAMS practice problems… Do you think I can pull thru and land a pass 😅

Any tips for last-minute things to study? or formulas that aren't on the coaching actuaries' formula sheet?

Kindly appreciated, thank you

In terms of putting minimal focus/effort on the quantitative calculations part of the exam, i.e., trying to memorize those tedious formulas, how much can you get away with for a grade of 6 (assuming a solid understanding of the theory portion).

We're past the one week mark and I don't see any threads so posting this here. What did we think? And what's the pass mark for these things? These tests are the most insane things I've ever taken

After an agonizing wait, I just found out that I passed exam ATPA! However, I fully believe that I made my life a lot harder by not approaching PA and ATPA as a package deal. The new version of PA doesn't require you to actually code anything at the testing center, so I only focused on being able to answer questions about the different models and model output. I passed PA, but when I got to the ATPA material, I found that I was expected to know how to do the coding from PA in R already, and the ATPA material didn't explain the models from PA again at all. On top of that, the Coaching Actuaries materials I used for PA had expired, so I didn't have a good place to go to catch up. Sure, I still had the textbooks, but it would've been extremely helpful if I had already had neat, detailed notes from PA to go off of instead of a bunch of practice tests and flashcards with content I memorized for PA. For anyone with PA and ATPA in front of them, I highly recommend practicing coding while studying for PA, or at least keeping detailed, organized notes about everything taught in PA before you lose whatever resources you're using for PA. It should make the jump to ATPA a lot less painful.

Hi All,

One piece of advice I've always heard since joining the actuarial field is to stay away from pensions, likely due to longer hours and lower average pay. After working in a valuation life role for my first two years in the industry, I was rotated into a PRT Modeling position, even though it wasn't one of my top choices at the time. Should I be trying to exit this type of actuarial work as quickly as possible so that I don't end up in pensions for my entire career? Or is it good modeling experience that I should be grateful for? Just looking for some perspective on this...

Thanks!

Finally done！

What does it mean to get an 11 for ATPA on my transcript? I thought I did extremely well but then it said you can’t earn an 11 on an exam. Why wouldn’t it be pass/fail if that’s the case?

This sitting is super difficult and there is only two options might happen 1.passing mark is low 2.passing rate is low 🤣🤣

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Now that it’s been 7 days since the exam, wanted to see how people felt about the CFESDM exam?

I recently started a new role in pricing and this is my first pricing job. I’ve been working in other functions during the past few years but pricing is new to me. After a couple of months, I feel like the pace is so fast that I’m on the brink of burnout. For example, the scope of my work can change within a couple of hours, I’m always asked to change priorities, and leadership is always expecting one-day answer. I’m exhausted every day after work. I’ve been working in hedging before. I’d say pricing is crazier than hedging, which is completely unexpected. My boss keeps telling me pricing is always like this. Is that true? Any fellow pricing actuaries please, is this really true?

Hi, as I’m coming up on taking exam 5 I feel really great about the reserving section but only decent on the pricing section. Do you have to pass both sections in order to pass? Assuming the pass mark is 70%, if I got a 65% on the pricing and 90% on the reserving for example, would I still pass?

Something something education level and habits.

Just kidding… i am curious, who hear naps and who doesn’t.

I pretty much nap 4 out 5 days M-F for about 30/40 min.

I feel like If i could not nap I could not function. My brain gets dull around 12/1.

I am not trolling- i really want to know.

Sorry the ordering on the questions could be better, i cannot edit it.

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Apologies for the second ALTAM writing-utensil post of the day, but here we are…

I sat for ALTAM this past Tuesday, and at Prometric, I was provided solely with 2 pencils as my writing instrument for the exam, and was instructed by the proctor to use these in both the answer booklet and my scrap paper. Given that circumstance, it didn’t remotely cross my mind that this could be an issue until I saw this post that "a pen must be used" a few hours ago.

I realize there may not be much I can do at this point, but I fear my written answers may be “thrown out” given this. Has anyone here been in this situation? Would it be advised to try to take this up with either SOA or Prometric?

I’m writing ATPA end on November, and was wondering if people could give their opinions/advice on the exam now that results were released.

Was it easier/harder than expected? I’ve been studying based off ACTEX and it looks relatively straightforward, but not sure if I’m feeling overtly confident.

Any tips you would suggest? I’ve put in some effort into adding comments to my R code and a cheat sheet on R functions.

I hope we can all pass! This is my last requirement for the ASA! Arrrrgh!

I took ALTAM last week, and at my prometric center, the proctor told me the new rule for ALTAM is that I had to write my answers in pen. At first she didn't want to give me pencils at all, but she decided to so that I could write in pencil in the booklet that is for scratch paper. This didn't seem right, but I was so worried that if I wrote in pencil my exam wouldn't count, so I decided to listen to her and write in pen. This was frustrating bc when I found an error of mine that affected 3 parts of a question, I had to cross out the incorrect numbers and rewrite the correct answers next to it. It made my writing look messy.

This exam is already hard to finish on time, so there is definitely no way for anyone to do the exam in pencil on the scratch paper, and then rewrite everything in the official answer booklet in pen. Not sure want the SOA wants us to do.

TLDR: Did your prometric center make you write the october ALTAM sitting in pen? Is this correct, or was my prometric proctor wrong?

So I know this has been asked a thousand times and everyone says they prefer actex over CA for the PA exam. (I did however use CA for SRM and got a passing score so maybe it works for me?) I’ve just done CA for everything and I am super comfortable with the set up and how it works. Is Actex similar or is it really user friendly? I just worry about getting it and then becoming frustrated because it doesn’t fit my learning style or is difficult to move around. In an ideal world my company would allow me to get both but I don’t think that would happen haha.

Any information would be greatly appreciated!!

I mostly came here to rant. I passed my first FSA exam on the first try and sat for GHVRU yesterday. I studied for 530 hours and felt very confident going into it, like I knew a lot and I had done everything I could do to prepare. But walked out of it feeling miserable. I’m just feeling completely defeated and don’t know if the FSA track is worth it. I also know if I failed there’s an even lower likelihood I’d pass it in the spring because it’s cutting into busy season where I typically work 50-60 hour weeks. At what point is enough enough? I’m not a quiter and I don’t know if I can actually give up. However, I have spent years missing out on family and friend get togethers and honestly just missing out on life for these exams. I’m sick of postponing my life. I don’t think it would be quite as bad if I didn’t have to work 60 hour weeks for 3 months straight in the spring. It just sucks feeling like all I did this year was work and study. Feeling so defeated and burnt out.

Hi friends, does anyone know about the transition rule for ILALFMU? If somebody passes that one in the spring 2025 sitting, does he/she have to take the special certification exam in order to sign the naic reports? Thank you!

How we feeling?

Just ready to be done with notecards 🤮. For once feeling pretty good. Hope you guys are feeling the same.

Anyone got anything yet?

Edit I passed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How do the Tia practice exams for mas1 compare to the actual exams?

For those who passed ILA LFMU, what was your experience during the real exam? I have been studying hard (or I thought so) but still feel not too great. I relied mostly on TIA videos for understanding and detailed study manual for details. I did decent on flash cards and somewhat decent on Excel drills. Is it enough to pass? Past exams have a lot of outdated content so when I bombed a question (especially qualitative ones), I don't know if it's because I missed some material or the question is just irrelevant now...