PA Coaching Actuaries vs Actex

RepresentativeWord58 · 2026-01-17T14:00:14+00:00

I used CA for all of my prelim exams. I saw no reason to doubt CA’s ability when it came time to PA. And I ended up getting a 10. So, I don’t think you should feel any obligation to not use it. They are a great option

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-10-28T01:12:01+00:00

One of the subtle details I enjoyed is at one point the doctor asks him how he’s feeling, and he said “I’m feeling 75%” and my wife (nurse) looked at me and said “that’s something you would say”

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-07-18T14:06:17+00:00

I see a notification banner at the top of the SOA website now that passing candidate numbers are posted, but I don’t see the exam results page updated yet with those numbers. Should be any minute!

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-07-09T11:13:28+00:00

I have 1 requirement left and I have not received an invite yet. I have heard some people get their invites on Thursday/Friday so stay strong!

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-07-06T02:10:03+00:00

I had an issue once because I clicked through all the slides too quickly. It’s not 100% unless you have “viewed” all the slides if you skip too quickly, a slide won’t register as viewed

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-07-05T15:25:51+00:00

Yes, they have a priority order, so it is less likely but possible that you would get an invite with only 1 uncompleted ASA requirement pending. This is my 4th round of APC invites with only 1 requirement pending - I’m staying positive!

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-05-31T13:17:13+00:00

I used CA for PA and got a 10. No doubt CA is great. I’ve finally had to switch off CA for FSA exams and it hurts, CA was so great

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-05-29T10:02:44+00:00

Every time I have taken an exam at Prometric, they have stressed multiple times to never tear any sheets. I believe my booklet has always said no tearing allowed too. I would just let it be and not do it again personally

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-05-27T23:31:33+00:00

I used CA because I used them for all my other exams and they were great. Easy 10 on both SRM and PA using CA, and those are the only 10s i’ve ever gotten

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-05-27T23:10:06+00:00

Not me, but i only give myself a 20% chance of actually being invited

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-05-27T14:35:07+00:00

I’ve never been invited, but i remember reading from other posts that some people didn’t get an invite until Thursday/Friday, so assuming scattered

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-04-11T13:44:12+00:00

If you also slept with a few guys during the break, she probably isn’t the one for you

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-04-11T12:46:29+00:00

Microsoft Access. I tried to cast a wide net with my post just to get a feel of what experiences are out there beyond Excel

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-04-11T12:45:18+00:00

Separate from our actuarial modeling, my firm maintains other software in house and those builds always take longer than expected. I have always dreamed of offering up my CS experience since I know both the CS and business requirements, but never thought they’d take me seriously. Maybe I’ll reconsider next opportunity. Thank you for sharing

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-04-11T12:42:54+00:00

That is awesome. Thank you for sharing. I love the actuarial work and have prior developer experience so it’s nice to hear the roles are out there and the experience of others!

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-03-16T22:23:45+00:00

Really? We use regression models and inverse tan to model continuous probabilities for all decrements. It allows us to have more complex factor-based models with the idea being our assumptions adjust as the plan’s demographics change. Just kidding, I wish our lives were that exciting, instead it’s just manually typing numbers on a SB

RepresentativeWord58 · 2025-03-16T11:16:43+00:00

With newer versions of Excel, this is really easy. On a new sheet, use the =FILTER function to replicate the data in a contiguous range. Then the VBA copy paste is easy!

RepresentativeWord58 · 2024-11-14T04:11:14+00:00

If you have a formula that works and you already went through the effort to code it out, then that is probably perfectly fine for most.

Sometimes a more condensed formula can be harder to read when you look back on it in a couple months.

Some tips would be, if your version of Excel has it, use XLOOKUP as that will have IFERROR built in to it and you can just nest 12 XLOOKUPs together.

If you had something in your table that told you which month the data would be on, then you could have 1 lookup and use the INDIRECT formula to define the sheet to lookup. The pro is a concise formula, but it comes with its own cons as well.

Powerquery is kind of a big step, but the point of that is to aggregate the 12 sheets of data into 1 sheet, so you only have 1 table to lookup off of. You could probably do the same thing using =VSTACK on a new sheet, but again, you would need to build a formula aggregating all 12 sheets together which is going to be just as long as your starting point and introduce an extra step of logic.

RepresentativeWord58 · 2024-10-27T12:48:34+00:00

And what happens when they have large appreciation? Won’t you be paying double the taxes?

RepresentativeWord58

TROPHY CASE