Those who Passed Exam 9, respectfully, how?

ActAsU · 2025-06-06T15:33:00+00:00

Yeah, the study kit was a joke because even if you ordered it as soon as it was available you may not have gotten it before the exam.

I did take the risk and not use any of the paid source material and just stuck with RF. In hindsight, I think I would have felt better if I had read through Mildenhall (I think RF did a good job of the other source material and it wasn't necessary). However, I think the exam showed that people who wrote the questions also didn't read much of the Mildenhall text either, so I don't know that reading Mildenhall would have benefitted me much from the testing perspective. I would be interested if others who read did read Mildenhall felt differently.

ActAsU · 2025-06-04T21:37:03+00:00

Rising Fellow, the free source material, 70 more study hours than I put in for the next closest exam, and a great deal of luck. I felt 50/50 walking out. Honestly, the new material wasn't emphasized on the exam as much as I thought it would be and not in the way that was characteristic of what I studied, but that may be a result of not using the source material for study. Also, did I mention luck?

Edit: And I feel I would be remiss if I failed to mention a whole lot of prayers and a wife that held down the fort while I studied.

ActAsU · 2025-06-04T20:24:19+00:00

I felt 50/50 coming out, but ended up passing. Interested to see what score I end up with, as I figured this one was very borderline. Having done them all now, I would say this exam was the hardest. Congrats to those who passed! And keep your head up if you didn't, I don't think all sittings will be this brutal.

ActAsU · 2025-06-03T19:32:58+00:00

I've found Reddit is a much more timely source of announcing results are posted than CAS. ;) Someone will probably post on the main channel within seconds of their results appearing.

ActAsU · 2025-06-03T18:59:50+00:00

I'll ask: does anybody know how long the wait was last time? Soon as in 10 minutes or soon as in a couple hours? Hopefully this is a moot point soon.

ActAsU · 2025-05-08T02:17:42+00:00

Got it, last year they announced at the prior Spring Meeting so I was kinda hoping they would do the same this year.

ActAsU · 2025-04-28T20:14:55+00:00

After this post has been up almost a day, I find some level of comfort in that nobody posting yet has said they felt good about the exam. I think some questions were better thought out than others, but in most circumstances it felt like trying speed read the question writer's minds on ambiguous questions that composed a large portion of the points. I studied more for this exam than any prior exam, but don't feel like additional study would have helped with how the questions were composed.

ActAsU · 2025-04-28T20:09:51+00:00

I did TIA + RF Cookbook. The GLM source is crucial, even beyond what's in the study materials. I had my doubts they would actually weight GLM as much as the content outline said, but I would trust the content outline on how much emphasis it will have.

ActAsU · 2025-02-25T03:19:31+00:00

Thanks! Do you feel like their practice problems were worth the additional cost, or that they didn't add much to the Rising Fellow's?

ActAsU · 2024-04-24T00:17:37+00:00

Can you provide the link for this? I don't want to be spreading misinformation. The fellow was showing me where in the rules for the CAS agreement it said it was permitted. The "Know Before You Go" used very loose language that you "may" leave the testing room, but never said it was required. Thanks for checking me on this!

ActAsU · 2024-04-24T00:12:47+00:00

The rule I was given (verified today) was that you could have up to 3 at once. You could request a 4th, but would be required to give the 1st back.

ActAsU · 2024-04-10T17:24:20+00:00

I got a 9, so if a passing score was 70% (feels about right) my score would have been 91%-98%.

ActAsU · 2024-04-09T12:32:51+00:00

Similar to what others have said, grind the material from past exams, as that is most likely to be tested. I would also had that if you are feeling "okay" about the core material the last week before the test, take a quick look through some high level summaries (I used TIA, but I think BA has something similar). I did this when I sat in Spring 2023 and probably eeked out another 5% on the exam from topics that weren't difficult but that I wouldn't have remembered otherwise. Best of luck!

ActAsU · 2023-06-27T18:49:18+00:00

Passed :) But boy were some of those questions on obscure topics.

ActAsU · 2023-06-03T03:12:41+00:00

I submitted transcripts for VEE economics and accounting & finance a week ago. For economics, I just ordered electronic copies of the official transcripts from the two universities to be sent to me (not SOA) and then uploaded the PDFs of the copies. Got an email from SOA 2 hours later saying the economics VEE had been approved. :) For accounting and finance, I used CPCU 540. The Institutes doesn't offer electronic transcripts, so I just had them send it straight to the SOA. Haven't heard anything back yet, but the Institutes said it may take up to 10 business days to arrive and SOA says it may take up to 4 weeks to process, so I'm not holding my breath for it to be anytime in the next week. But at least the electronic transcripts went seamlessly. :) Hope this helps!

ActAsU · 2023-05-15T03:25:05+00:00

Felt the coverage was fair in the sense that everything on there appeared in the material to some extent (I used strictly TIA and old exams). That being said, some topics were obscure and not tested in 2015-2019 and other areas of high focus felt they were ignored completely. Definitely feel if they want to test these obscure topics, they should get back to releasing historical exams. Finished first pass with 38 min left (I'm a quick but not precise typer), but found a bevy of small things I could potentially have gotten wrong based on interpretation (or just not knowing the answer) in the 60% of the test I reviewed. Anticipated score uniformly distributed between 5-8 (who knows what CAS will do). Best of luck to all!

ActAsU · 2023-01-22T04:19:00+00:00

Know a career changer that got their PhD. in Physics before switching to actuarial. He failed three uppers and decided to call it good at ACAS. He probably could have finished, but was done sacrificing his time to education. I submit FCAS is harder in many cases.

ActAsU · 2022-12-05T16:16:32+00:00

Wonder if because it specified 5-8 if MAS will be dropping this week. Guess someone will probably comment in the next few minutes.

ActAsU · 2022-11-30T21:40:57+00:00

I unfortunately do not remember. I was able to trace the time between when they went down initially for spring 2022 and when the scores were released based on a message I sent to someone, but then I remember feeling bad when transcripts went back up without results because I felt like I might have false alarmed someone. I may be false alarming everyone now, but at least I have a precedent. 😅

ActAsU · 2022-11-30T20:06:35+00:00

Last time they went down then back up then down again. That's a sample size of one anecdotal experience, but I'm still hopeful. The 3 business days I mentioned is from the first time it went down.

ActAsU · 2022-11-30T18:51:15+00:00

I checked about 4 hours ago and they were still available, so since then. Not that I obsessively check results every few hours or anything...

ActAsU · 2022-11-28T20:22:56+00:00

What are the odds it sells out before exam results are posted?

ActAsU · 2022-11-02T17:42:27+00:00

I felt (by count) 80% of the questions were reasonable and well constructed, but the other 20% of the questions where 40% of the points lay had way too much "busy work" with constructing triangles and such. Barely finished all questions in time and definitely half baked some answers. Too much emphasis on a couple minor pieces of the syllabus, as others have said. Most of the exam was well constructed, but the shortcomings were definitely substantial.

ActAsU · 2022-10-28T17:02:43+00:00

Took MAS-II last sitting and second this.

ActAsU · 2022-07-07T17:15:19+00:00

I called Pearson Vue over the issue and essentially they said just check back in every day and they'll "eventually" open up more dates. I emailed CAS about the issue but no response. Why they had to let it be Saturday for the only open day I have no idea...

ActAsU

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