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April 2019 Exam

E

Ester

Member
1. Acted notes recommended avoiding using passive voice in the exams. In the examiner report solutions for April 2019 I see all the introduction section is using passive voice. How can I know when is ok or not to use it?
2. I see also that the examiner report solutions uses Personal Pronouns such as "We"..I would expect this to be ok on a letter or an email, but not on a paper. Is there any rules regarding "paper" or "report" that this should be avoided?
3. Also, it the sample solutions started the introduction as "This paper has been prepared by Chris Actuary..". Is not replicate to have this in the introduction and also Chris signing the paper?

Thanks
 
Hi Ester

I would not think of a general rule for using personal pronouns and passive voice as it all depends on the scenario. In the April 2019 scenario, you have been asked to prepare a paper which will be used in the meeting from mistakes that originally come from your valuation. So, I guess it's natural that you are going to use personal pronoun when going through the paper. That is, we have checked the data, we have made a mistake in and so on...
As for the "this paper has been prepared.." this also depends on your format you are using. I don't think you would be penalised as only 1 mark is offered for "date and author".

Hope this helps.
 
Good answer Dar_Shan.

Ester, try not to focus on too many 'rules'. Communication will vary depending on the audience, the message you are trying to get across, the tone you are using, etc. Yes, passive voice is often not the best way of telling somebody something - but that assumes you are talking to the audience, about themselves, in which case active voice is nicer - and this is often the case in an exam. But the A2019 exam had a different context where passive voice would be fine. Also, don't forget that the solution given in the examiners' report is not meant to be a 'model solution', so alternative solutions would also score well. There are many 'right' answers in CP3. The sorts of things you are mentioning above are very minor. Focus on the key objectives. I know it feels uncomfortable, because as actuaries we have a natural urge to follow 'rules' - but for CP3 it's a very different game.

Hope that helps.
Ian
 
Thank you..
maybe the trauma of failing two exams because of one mark makes me wonder about these minor things..
 
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