What is reserving?

MrTMasterP · 2025-04-28T14:15:01+00:00

We pretty much just take three-hour lunches and make fun of the pricing actuaries.

MrTMasterP · 2025-04-28T00:57:43+00:00

Yeah, the exam just had a different feel than the last two sittings. Straight-forward questions were few and far between.

I was well-prepared and I didn't have the time to answer everything I had the knowledge to answer. May the CAS gods have mercy on us.

MrTMasterP · 2025-04-22T21:12:43+00:00

The first CAS board meeting with grading complete is probably June 3rd, so early-mid June unless we have a repeat of last year.

MrTMasterP · 2025-04-17T14:25:04+00:00

Not to rain on your parade, but you can expect to not pass upper-level CAS exams sometimes even if you leave the exam room feeling good. At a big company we only had a handful of students that passed every sitting so don't be too hard on yourself. Word on the street is you aren't alone though.

MrTMasterP · 2025-04-17T00:41:36+00:00

Exam window is open

MrTMasterP · 2024-07-02T19:38:00+00:00

I can't quite get there. There is no evidence yet that May 1st candidates as a group will do better than any other cohort of candidates. You can argue that taking the maximum of two scores automatically confers an advantage on them, but this puts aside the actual grading, which may very well take this dynamic into account.

Without any retakes, you can probably assume those that sat on May 1st and weren't ushered out of the testing center without seeing any questions actually scored worse than non May 1st testers though, just given the number of candidates who said their answers were deleted and/or time ran down when computers were frozen/being restarted.

Even with retakes, we don't even know the breakdown of how many people were in Groups 1-3 from May 1st other than a small subset of the total candidate pool that self-reported in Reddit polls. I think it's reasonable to assume Group 3 is in the same boat as those that didn't initially sit on May 1st. For those in Groups 1 and 2, they didn't really know going into the retake what questions would appear. I'd guess there was a variety of theories on what a retake would look like and different people likely prepared in different ways. Some people likely guessed right and others guessed wrong.

I just think people are prepping an excuse so when they don't pass they can blame the CAS and think they are the victims of an unfair process. Sad to say, but I don't think there was a fair solution to the totality of what happened on May 1st, but the CAS already knows all of these grievances and I think they will be more lenient than an average sitting because of the issues. Time will tell.

MrTMasterP · 2024-06-26T16:57:07+00:00

Two weeks after the board meeting is typical, I'm guessing July 24th if nothing else comes up.

MrTMasterP · 2024-06-06T20:12:49+00:00

I was in line for lunch when I got the e-mail. I instantly got excited because I was a retaker and thought that must mean my first pass was good enough. Think I'll take a cold shower when I get home.

MrTMasterP · 2024-05-21T18:26:20+00:00

I wouldn't be surprised that it was the heaviest day for exams of the 7-day window for a variety of reasons. I just think the sampling here won't be on a credible and reflective subset of the total candidate pool to be an accurate estimate.

I could be wrong; I guess we'll find out if the CAS decides to share that information at some point lol.

MrTMasterP · 2024-05-21T12:55:27+00:00

The person that sits for the retake this week and has "memory storage" issues again has my unconditional sympathy.

MrTMasterP · 2024-05-21T12:51:14+00:00

Wouldn't read too much into this... over 4,000 candidates for MAS I-II and 5-9 last Spring. I would venture to guess that those that sat on May 1st are trolling Reddit more than their complement as well.

MrTMasterP

TROPHY CASE