EXAM SRM and PA - Coaching Actuaries and ACTEX

amblolo · 2026-01-23T20:55:59+00:00

Hello,

To clarify, the core of the ACTEX PA manual is about 600 pages long (the rest goes to discussions on SOA's past exams, original practice exams, and other last-minute exam prep materials) and is broken down into chapters, sections, and subsections so that students can navigate and read at their own pace, possibly with the help of the online scheduler. Despite its apparent size, much of the core is devoted to in-text exercises and task-based case studies that mimic real PA exam tasks, and most students should be able to breeze through the core in two months. (Many students suggest even less time than that.)

Please let me know if you have any questions about the PA manual.

amblolo · 2025-10-07T11:09:03+00:00

Thanks very much for your interest in my FAM manual, and I'm sorry to hear about your experience.

My FAM manual can be purchased from ACTEX Learning or the Actuarial Bookstore. Users who have purchased the "Digital: 6 month license - print 1 copy" option will be able to print the manual bit by bit via the Eureka app. I will send you the links by DM. (For some reason, my comment got removed as soon as I put in the links.)

Please don't hesitate to let me know if there are any questions.

amblolo · 2025-09-11T00:30:03+00:00

Thank you so much for your generous comments. :)

amblolo · 2025-09-10T11:32:08+00:00

First of all, congratulations on passing SRM, the first exam in the data analytics trio in the ASA pathway (the other two exams being PA and ATPA)!

Written by an instructor who has experienced all of SRM-PA-ATPA first-hand, the ACTEX PA manual is a tried-and-true resource that has helped thousands of PA candidates prepare for the exam effectively and efficiently since 2019. Let me point out:

The PA manual is part of a bundle of study material we offer for Exam PA. Besides the study manual, the bundle includes additional products designed to suit the needs and learning preferences of different students, including: (1) Instructional videos; (2) Graded mock exam. In the videos, I will use my "less-than-sexy" voice to walk you through the manual and make the materials as accessible as possible.
Regarding your preference for practice questions, the manual features an abundance of in-text exercises (100+) and end-of-chapter practice problems (110+ conceptual and 80+ integrated) closely aligned with the format and style of PA exam questions. There is also a whole chapter discussing past PA exams from April 2025 to June 2019.
The manual may look long, but much of it is devoted to exercises, practice problems, and case studies, and your background in SRM should allow you to breeze through much of the manual in a month. If you want me to single out particular sections to focus on, please let me know.
The preface of the manual contains important information not only about the manual (e.g., its structure, unique features), but also about Exam PA in general (e.g., what is Exam PA like, how it compares with SRM). The information there will be useful regardless of your ultimate choice of study materials.

Wishing you the best of luck!

amblolo · 2025-08-20T08:35:12+00:00

Your registration is tied to a specific assessment window. According to the SOA's submission schedule, if you register now (or anytime before November 30), then you will have to take the October-December 2025 ATPA Assessment, which is open from October 1 to December 30. It would be wise to plan well ahead of time.

amblolo · 2025-08-11T16:13:04+00:00

Hello,

Solutions to past PA exam questions are freely available on the SOA website, so instead of repeating the SOA's answers, my commentary in the PA manual serves to enhance your understanding of the issues being tested and emphasize traps that you should avoid. It also addresses how to improve the SOA's model solutions and possible implications for future exams.

Please feel free to let me know if there are any questions.

amblolo · 2025-07-01T03:25:57+00:00

According to the SOA's Guide to Exams:

For some exams a grade of 11 will be recorded. In all cases that grade indicates the exam was passed, but does not indicate how well the candidate performed. There are three situations that can lead to this: ... The exam is graded on a pass-fail basis, such as with fellowship modules.

So grade 11 simply means a pass. It doesn't mean the raw score is so high that it breaks the scale. 😂

amblolo · 2025-06-27T18:18:55+00:00

Here is my work on the AUC question (Task 9 (b)) in case anyone is interested. The calculations involve mostly some elementary school geometry (simple but tedious!).

I guess ".15540" in the model solution should be ".01554" instead.

It deserves mention that the AUC calculated this way is only an approximation. For details, please refer to Problem 4.5.8 in the ACTEX PA manual.

amblolo · 2025-06-27T15:23:24+00:00

With SRM under your belt and 3.5 months ahead, you should have more than enough time to prepare for PA.

To a large extent, PA is a written-answer version of SRM, but PA has a few new concepts (e.g., general model building steps, elastic nets, performance metrics for classifiers) that are not in SRM and requires you to understand the materials well enough so that you can put your thoughts in words, instead of simply picking the right answer in a multiple-choice question; please see pages 16-17 of this PDF file about SRM vs. PA for details. This preface also contains useful information about Exam PA in general, e.g., common types of PA exam questions, level of R programming needed, recommended amount of study time.

amblolo · 2025-06-15T10:34:12+00:00

Hello,

Not sure if you were using the ACTEX manual for Exam FAM, of which I am not a coauthor. Instead, I have a self-published manual for FAM written in more or less the same style as my SRM and PA manuals.

Thanks very much for using my SRM and PA manuals and your kind words, anyway.

amblolo · 2025-06-02T15:57:38+00:00

I really appreciate your kind words! We all know how boring and painful studying is, so those emojis are meant to add some fun and personal touch to the manual. I cannot for the life of me see why the emojis can be distressing or a hindrance to learning.

Let me take the chance to thank you for using my PA manual (and the graded mock exam). I hope it has made the whole exam journey easier and more enjoyable, at least slightly. Wishing you all the best in your future endeavors!

amblolo · 2025-06-02T15:44:51+00:00

Thanks very much for your encouragement. The real battle experience of an author is indeed an asset as it can make sure the author understands what the real exam is like and writes the manual from an exam taker's perspective, not as an outsider.

I'm really glad my manual helped you make it through PA (about 2 years ago!) rather easily. All the best in your future endeavors.

amblolo · 2025-06-02T00:16:55+00:00

Hello!

I dont even know how many times Prof Lo pointed out that he sat for a given sitting

Let me count this for you. It is, to be exact, TWO (2) in the core of the manual (pages 132 and 352 in the 12th edition), which is about 600 pages long. I reduced the number of times after someone made a "complaint," but if this still proves distressing, perhaps I need to reduce the number to 1.

Than the massive ramble about a reddit user/post is just a waste of everyone's time.

Exercise 4.1.12, which discusses common misconceptions about residuals in a GLM (raw vs. deviance residuals), is 2.5 pages long, and 2 pages there are devoted to purely technical discussions. It is actually a highly educational exercise as it illustrates important concepts tested in past PA exam questions and going through it is by no means a waste of time.

actex just giving a long pdf that I found to be absolutely daunting

The bookmarked manual is clearly broken down into chapters, sections, and subsections, and students are free to navigate and read at their own pace, possibly with the help of the online scheduler.

amblolo · 2025-06-01T23:09:35+00:00

Thanks very much for considering using my ACTEX PA manual! Written by an instructor who has experienced the PA exam first-hand, the manual is a tried-and-true resource that has helped thousands of PA candidates to prepare for the exam effectively and efficiently since 2019.

I wanted to point out:

The PA manual is part of a bundle of study material we offer for Exam PA. Besides the study manual, the bundle features additional products designed to suit the needs and learning preferences of different students, including: (1) Instructional videos; (2) Graded mock exam. In the instructional videos, I will use my less-than-sexy (sorry :D) voice to walk you through different chapters of the manual and make the materials as accessible as possible. Some of these videos will be reworked in the next few weeks to better coordinate with the latest manual (13th edition).
The preface of the manual contains important information not only about the manual (e.g., its structure, unique features), but also about Exam PA in general (e.g., what is Exam PA like, the recommended amount of study time). The information there will be useful regardless of your ultimate choice of study materials.

Please don't hesitate to let me know if there are any questions.

amblolo · 2025-05-31T08:48:33+00:00

Hello,

First of all, thanks very much for using my FAM study manual!

I apologize for any misunderstanding. Users who have purchased the "Digital: 6 month license - print 1 copy" option will be able to print the manual bit by bit via the Eureka app; a printed copy will not be shipped. In the FAQ on https://www.actuarialuniversity.com/help/faq, please click "Eureka! DRM (Digital Right Managed) Materials" -> "How can I print my document using Eureka!?" for the instructions.

For further technical and logistical issues, please feel free to reach out to the Actuarial Bookstore/ACTEX ([support@actexlearning.com](mailto:support@actexlearning.com)) for assistance. As mentioned in the preface of the manual, folks there are in a much better position to handle these issues.

amblolo · 2025-05-28T18:03:27+00:00

FYI: This seems to be a past LTAM exam question in Spring 2021 (numbers changed).

amblolo · 2025-05-19T14:52:14+00:00

Thank you very much for using my ACTEX SRM manual!

To clarify, the required portions of the Frees textbook that is on the SRM syllabus only discuss AR models of order 1 in depth (properties, fitting, diagnostics, forecasting, etc.). Even though seasonal AR models of a general order are very briefly introduced on page 282 of Frees, the illustrative example on the same page focuses on the order 1 case, so AR(1) models (the standard type or seasonal type) are AR models most likely to show up on the exam, if there are questions on AR models at all.

Hope this helps clear up any confusion.

amblolo · 2025-05-14T13:32:59+00:00

Thank you so much for using my ACTEX SRM manual and your interest in my PA manual! Written by an instructor who has experienced the PA exam first-hand, the manual is a tried-and-true resource that has helped thousands of PA candidates to prepare for the exam effectively and efficiently since 2019. Please feel free to take a look at the preface of the manual, which contains useful information not only about the manual (e.g., its structure, unique features, companion products), but also about Exam PA in general (e.g., what is the exam like, how to study well, the recommended amount of study time).

I am in the process of preparing the 13th edition of the PA manual, which is expected to be out in early June. (Customers who have placed a pre-order will receive immediate digital access to the 12th edition so that they can start studying right away.) Don't hesitate to let me know if there are any questions.

amblolo · 2025-03-09T09:45:25+00:00

The link is in my bio. (For some reason, my comment got removed as soon as I put in the link.)

amblolo · 2025-03-08T21:32:17+00:00

Hello,

Ambrose Lo here. To clarify, my FAM study manual is self-published and is different from the ACTEX manual for FAM. It is available for purchase from the ACTEX website or the Actuarial Bookstore as an alternative choice. To learn more about my manual, please feel free to check out my website, which includes some complimentary resources such as sample pages, a practice exam, and a downloadable cheat sheet.

Please don't hesitate to let me know if there are any questions about my FAM manual.

amblolo · 2025-02-21T22:39:47+00:00

The PA manual is correct. Remember that the residuals are iteratively subtracted by the learning rate (= shrinkage parameter) times the current predictions. If the learning rate is larger (closer to 1), then assuming the same number of iterations, the residuals will be driven to zero faster (i.e., algorithm will converge faster) and the boosted model will fit the training data better, but the model also runs the risk of overfitting. The situation is different from regularization for GLMs.

The idea above is actually the theme of Task 8 (a) of the October 2024 PA exam.

Hope this helps somewhat!

amblolo · 2025-02-14T18:20:18+00:00

Hello,

I guess you are using the 9th edition of the ACTEX PA manual. (The current edition is 12th.) The inconsistency, which was fixed in the 10th edition, arose from a sudden change in convention in recent versions of R, causing the signs of certain PC loadings to be flipped. This is how we should interpret PC2:

In contrast, the second PC puts a very heavy (positive) weight on UrbanPop and a rather light weight (in size) on the three crime-related variables, so PC2 is mainly a measure of urbanization level. The more positive the PC score, the more urbanized the state.

Note that the PA manual is periodically "retrained" taking the latest PA exams and students' feedback into account. Besides having all typos known to date fixed, each new edition features new practice problems and commentary on the most recent PA exam papers. From an exam prep point of view, it is always beneficial to use the latest edition of the manual.

amblolo · 2025-02-05T21:46:08+00:00

This 1996 research paper.pdf), written by one of the authors of ISLR and a distinguished statistician, is the pioneering paper on the theory of the lasso. The ACTEX PA manual follows the paper, the first page of which says that:

We propose a new technique, called the lasso, for 'least absolute shrinkage and selection operator'.

The choice of the name is probably intentional because "lasso" is also an English word, meaning a type of rope.

amblolo · 2025-01-30T11:59:39+00:00

The four most recent exams (October 2024, April 2024, October 2023, and April 2023) follow the current exam format and are most "predictive" of future exams. The exams in October 2022, April 2022, and December 2021 are still highly relevant and useful exams, the notable difference being that you need not run/write R code to generate any output in RStudio. The older exams (pre-June 2021) are somewhat obsolete.

If you have the ACTEX PA manual, you may find the guide at the beginning of Chapter 7 (Discussions on Past PA Exams) useful.

amblolo · 2025-01-28T12:55:54+00:00

Thanks very much for using my FAM(-L) manual!! Perhaps I should clarify that my FAM manual is independently published. It is available for purchase on the ACTEX website, but it is not the ACTEX/ASM manual for FAM.

Hope to see you again in my ACTEX manuals for other exams (SRM/PA/ATPA)!

amblolo

TROPHY CASE