Why CA2 pass rate tends to be low?

[Prosper Matiashe]

Hi Guys,

I need your opinion on what causes the pass rate for CA2 to be low. I have been fairly practicing the past exam papers and have done pretty well but here in Zimbabwe, people talk of trying four times before passing. And the pass rates seem not to good globally. Would appreciated if someone can detail where most people go wrong or what needs to be done to pass the exam. I will be making my first CA2 attempt next week.

Thank you in advance.

 

[bystander]

It's often because people don't take it seriously enough and think they do modelling work every day and that's good enough. But it's more about being able to build complex models - in fact simplicity is far easier to explain. You need a model which is easy to follow and to write a good audit trail, being aware and stating limitations of that model, and any assumptions that you've used or data issues encountered. Build in appropriate validation so too, and reasonableness checks. What do you mean by pretty well? You don't say well so this suggests you know you have weaknesses. What are they? You still have time to work on your issues rather than worry about other candidates, who, frankly, aren't well prepared and as I say, are complacent. Some will run out of time spending too long on modelling and not the trail and summary. Some will misread the question. The errors vary a lot. Keep practising and good luck.

 

[Prosper Matiashe]

Thank you very much for the insight. by saying pretty well I mean my answers have been close to those given in the examiners' report. But my answers haven't been as excellent as those in the examiners' reports so I am still looking for ways to improve.

I need to improve on my time management so that I have a few minutes to do some rough proof reading.

Any other comments are greatly appreciated.