Roy and I were recently invited to speak at a “How to Pass Actuarial Exams” webinar, hosted by the Actuarial Students National Association (ASNA).
It’s been a slow summer posting new articles, so we were excited to share our advice that hasn’t yet made it into writing.
And in case you’re tired of hearing from us, we were joined by Stephen Camilli, President of ACTEX Learning, to offer unique study advice from his years of passing exams and leading an actuarial education company.
See the notes below for a list of topics/questions addressed in the webinar – skip around to ones that interest you.
We’ve also included links to resources mentioned throughout the webinar (online courses, articles, books, apps).
LISTEN TO THE FULL WEBINAR HERE: ASNA Webinar – How to Pass Actuarial Exams (Must have Adobe Connect installed to listen – just hit “enter” if it asks for username and password)
Webinar Notes
Here are the topics (with timestamps) discussed during the webinar:
- Introduction and housekeeping items [00:00]
- Background info on Roy, Mike, and Stephen – hometown, college, work, hobbies [02:04]
- Topics for webinar – Effectiveness, Efficiency, Study Schedule, Motivation, Specific Exams [07:03]
- Effectiveness – don’t work hard at the wrong things, focus on understanding over memorization [07:26]
- Biggest mistakes and adjustments made during the study process [09:55]
- What advice would you give to someone just starting off with exams? I failed P; I read it carefully, but the exam was different than past exams. What do I do? [13:20]
- Recommended resources (outside of the actuarial world) to “learn how to learn” [18:49]
- Efficiency – breaking out of the “100 hour rule” [20:20]
- A new way to track study hours [21:30]
- I keep getting distracted – how do you hone your mental focus as you were studying? [24:25]
- Which medium is most effective to study (paper vs. electronic) [29:19]
- Developing a study schedule [31:00]
- Can you describe your process for how to get started on a new exam? [34:40]
- I heard that studying right before bed helps the material stick. Is this true? [38:45]
- Motivation – “start with why”, what motivates you to pass exams? [41:55]
- Did you ever hate the material, or did you ever get discouraged with the process? [47:53]
- Specific exams – prelim exams, fellowship exams, predictive analytics exam, integrative questions on CAS exams, and moving up Bloom’s taxonomy [51:35]
- For fellowship level exams, do you have advice for memorizing lists and making it interesting? Is it possible not to memorize lists and pass? (initial response from Roy: “I don’t think I got a single list question correct on any fellowship exams”) [53:12]
- What advice do you have for the new SOA predictive analytics exam? [56:13]
- Do you think the exams get easier as you pass them? [58:00]
- What advice do you have landing a job without previous working experience? [1:00:35]
Links from the Webinar
- Learning resources (“learning how to learn”)
- Feynman Technique (Study Technique)
- Coursera – Learning How to Learn (Free online course)
- A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley (Affiliate link)
- Study Hacks Blog by Cal Newport
- Deep Work by Cal Newport – two mentions in webinar: honing focus, and improving learning (Affiliate link)
- So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport – best career advice (Affiliate link)
- Actuarial Exam Tactics: Learn More, Study Less
- Meditation apps (honing your focus)