Secret tips for passing actuarial exams

Typing speed

Now that exams are online (for now) it is important to practice typing, especially for mathematical exams where you are required to type out maths using symbols and unusual notation. In the later exams the questions are a lot more wordy and it means you have to type out a lot of words. In certain exams, making enough distinct points is a challenge and being able to type faster allows more thinking time.

You can improve your typing skills by learning to touch type which requires a lot of time investment or you can simply use typing speed checkers and do this several times a day. I used to do this 3 times a day and tracked my average typing speed. Over the course of 12-18 months I improved from ~60 words per minute to ~75 words per minute. A small gain per minute but when aggregated over a 3 hour exam it is quite substantial.

Understanding of the material

I covered this in depth in my previous blog post so feel free to read that back. In short, I believe that understanding the material will substantially help when answering application and higher order questions. It will also help to provide a strong foundation for later exams especially if you are sitting the earlier exams right now.

Application to real life

Taking something you learnt and then applying this to real life is a great way to commit knowledge to memory. Not only that, it also helps to strengthen the understanding when you have to use that knowledge for yourself on a project. This is best done when working, whereby you have covered a topic in the notes that can be used in the workplace. For example, reserving triangles, GLM for pricing, insurance accounting and so on. You can also try explaining a topic to colleagues or family members and if you can do this well you have learnt the material well.

Reading the news

Naturally you should be aware of the news through your workplace but it also helps to read the financial times, insurance insider and others. This gives you a more rounded, in tune with real life, viewpoint when reading notes and answering questions. It also helps directly with the exams as you can use the news to generate examples. You should always be incorporating examples in your answers especially for higher mark wordy questions.

I like to make it an active point to read the news every Monday or every Friday and just note down the pertinent articles in a word document, including headline, graphics and a few bullet points. I rarely look back on this but it helps me to remember articles from a few months ago.

Condense the notes in one document

Again this is something I have covered in the previous blog post. But in summary this is where you collate your notes from the core reading, tutorials, etc in one document. But instead of including all the points you summarise the topics you know well into just a few bullet points and for topics you don’t know as well you note down more bullet points. But the idea is that this becomes you main go to source for notes which is a shorter version of the core reading.

Checklist for questions

When you are faced with a question what do you do? This is a checklist that answers that question and goes through a step by step thought process if you are struggling to answer the exam question. You don’t have to cover all the points for all questions so it is just meant as a guide. But if you get writer’s block you can think of the checklist.

As an example, this is what my checklist looks like:

• Read the question twice

• Which chapters does it refer to

• Plan / structure – break the question down into categories/pros and cons

• Give definitions

• State the obvious

• Tailor answer to the specific question

• Give examples

Your checklist might look a little different but this is something that helps me to answer the higher mark questions. It also presents an opportunity to pause for a moment and review your answer, and to ask yourself: have you covered the checklist?

Timing

There are typically 100 marks available in the exam. Each exam is typically 3 hours and 20 minutes long, i.e., 200 minutes. So how many minutes should you spend per mark? 2 minutes seems reasonable, 2 times 100 is 200 after all. But this is the very upper limit you should spend per mark. You always want to be ahead of this measure. For example, if you are halfway through the paper in terms of marks, you need to be under 100 minutes in terms of time. If you are not under 100 minutes then you are definitely behind on time.

The way I monitor this is actually per question, once I complete the question I look at how many marks the question was and the time I spent on that question. This is probably not the best use of my time but I find it easy to calculate and it calms me down knowing whether I am on track to complete the paper or not. The uncertainty is what gives me anxiety, not whether or not I am behind on time. It goes without saying that if you are behind on time and struggling to come up with points for a question, you need to move on ASAP. The time you take to generate a couple more points is not worth it, you would be better off finishing the paper and making sure you generate easier points for later questions. This is because the easier points are much more likely to score marks than any points you have thought of after thinking for some period of time – i.e., the quality of points (and thus chance of scoring) decreases for every additional point you think of. This is just a concept I thought about, feel free to disagree.

Command verbs (IFoA specific)

This is less of a secret and more of an underrated exam technique. You should know the command verbs inside out but it gives you a structure and method for answer the question. I will not go through all the command verbs one by one, but I will give an example of where it can help.

State is different from Describe – these are both knowledge based command verbs but State means to give details and facts without elaborating whereas Describe means to give details and facts with elaboration. A subtle difference but fundamentally changes how you answer the question. State means you need to come up with enough distinct items whereas describe means you need to go more in depth rather than being broad. Similarly for Outline vs Explain. These are more application based command verbs but the concept is the same. Outline is to give without detailed explanation whereas Explain means to give with detailed explanation.

Healthy body, healthy mind

Now we are getting into the really small edges but eating well and staying fit allows your mind to work optimally. In the run up to exams you need to make sure you are eating breakfast, lunch and dinner on time and that too it needs to be well balanced. None of that takeaway unhealthy stuff. Also, at least 2 litres of water a day. Once your diet is sorted make sure you are exercising regularly. This includes walking, jogging, running, gym or other sports. Trust me, once you diet and exercise well you will feel like you are on top of your game and your mind will be clear.

On exam day you need to have breakfast prior to the paper. Anything will help, but a simple toast will suffice. Then in the exam (if allowed) eat a banana about an hour in and you can have a chocolate or biscuit two hours in. The banana will give slow release of energy and the sugar rush will give you the energy needed to finish the paper. Make sure you drink plenty of water before and during the exam. A dehydration headache is worse than having to go to the toilet twice.

Sleep well

Finally, this should be a no brainer but sleep well. This means no all nighter on the day of the exam. Make sure to sleep and wake up on time getting into a routine. Ideally you wake up at least 2 hours before your exam giving you time to eat breakfast, warm up and get ready. A final point is that when attempting past papers try to sit the past paper in exam conditions around the same time you will do the actual exam. This will get the brain used to being in exam mode at that particular time of the exam.

I hope these tips help and good luck for the rest of your actuarial exams! If you want Exam coaching 1 to 1 then send me a message and we can sort something out.