Time allocation in exam day

[Quang]

I attempted a past paper and ran out of time. I think I spent too much time with the model and tinkering the audit trail.

In your experience, how would you allocate your time in the exam day between:
1. the morning and afternoon session (when the new piece of information comes out);
2. the model, the audit trail, and the summary?

Is it possible to complete the model, plus a draft version of the audit trail and the summary in the morning session? Then the afternoon will be entirely for incorporating the new information and finalising the audit and summary.

I will be grateful for your suggestions.

Regards.
Quang

 

[bystander]

I would have thought you create an audit trail as you go along building the model.

I would think that unless you suitably annotate your modelling you haven't got a chance of having a good audit trail.

Controversial I know but.....

 

[mattt78]

ca2

I failed the first time i did CA2 becuase i ran out of time, but passed the second time because i managed the time a bit better.

From what we were told, it doesn't really matter too much if you're model is particularly good, or even correct or complete. Almost all the marks are for the audit trail and summary, so you need to make sure you get these done, almost regardless of what state your model is in.

So my advice would be to work backwards in allocating your time - if you know how long its likely to take to do the audit trail and summary, you know how much time you have to work on the model itself. So get it in the best shape you can in that time, then force yourself to put it down and start the writing up of the audit trail and summary.

(From what I remember, for me this meant working on the model until the lunch break, (while making just a few notes for the audit trail and summary so I didn't forget things), then working on the written stuff for the whole afternoon - about 3 hours I think. But alot of the explanation stuff can be copied and pasted in both the summary and audit trail, to avoid duplicating effort).

 

[Quang]

Thank you both!

 

[calibre2001]

But alot of the explanation stuff can be copied and pasted in both the summary and audit trail, to avoid duplicating effort.

I second this 'cause I did exactly the same thing & got through.
I'm a pedantic person come writing. Doing this saved me alot of time in the end.

 

[Quang]

I had my exam last week. I managed to complete the model and a good part of the audit before the lunch break. The summary took me over 2 hours. Thanks all for your help!

 

[kratos]

I failed the first time i did CA2 becuase i ran out of time, but passed the second time because i managed the time a bit better.

From what we were told, it doesn't really matter too much if you're model is particularly good, or even correct or complete. Almost all the marks are for the audit trail and summary, so you need to make sure you get these done, almost regardless of what state your model is in.

So my advice would be to work backwards in allocating your time - if you know how long its likely to take to do the audit trail and summary, you know how much time you have to work on the model itself. So get it in the best shape you can in that time, then force yourself to put it down and start the writing up of the audit trail and summary.

(From what I remember, for me this meant working on the model until the lunch break, (while making just a few notes for the audit trail and summary so I didn't forget things), then working on the written stuff for the whole afternoon - about 3 hours I think. But alot of the explanation stuff can be copied and pasted in both the summary and audit trail, to avoid duplicating effort).

This is what I believed but now I am very unsure. On my first attempt, I remember attempting to allocate time accordingly and did the audit trail alongside the modelling. However, things were taking longer than expected and I could not incorporate the additional information because I spent the remainder of the afternoon doing the summary and audit trail.
So I felt I had a good audit trail and summary but the modelling did not contain the additional info.
I got an FB in the end but I'm still not sure how I would go about passing this course because I feel yet again I am going to be slow in the modelling stage and not complete it. I did not think this would be a problem as long as my audit trail and summary were thorough.

 

[calibre2001]

Sorry if I'm rambling below. Just thought I should share my disorganised thoughts.

As I recall my problem was similar to yours - the model. I was still working on during the afternoon, so my time management wasn't good.

On modelling, I think it helps to just get that help from the invigilator because it saves valuable time.

If the problem is modelling something in the fanciest,neatest way, I suggest a more 'primitive', manual approach to save time. The emphasis is on how easy it is to follow the model.

I think the key is to have a complete and consistent (between report and audit) answer as much as possible compared to the other candidates.

If you analyse the answers of the past year papers and marking schemes, you'll see they always want the same things [same type of checks, signposting, same type of next steps, conclusions etc]. This should help your focus and time management.

To also save time on the audit and report, I copied and pasted duplicate points instead of rewriting. It saved alot of time.

 

[Sarah Byrne]

Just to add a slight word of warning. Be a bit careful copying and pasting sections between the audit trail and summary report. It might be appropriate but remember that they are intended for different audiences (the audit trail for a fellow student and senior actuary, the summary report for a senior actuary).

Sarah