Update to Prometric folder format

If you are registered with the SOA to take a spring 2021 FSA exam, you should have gotten an email from the SOA recently about an update to the way file folders on Prometric workstations will be named (PDF link). These instructions seem to be coming directly from Prometric and are slightly different from the Prometric video posted on the SOA’s YouTube channel earlier this month. However, the changes seem to be only cosmetic—nothing too major.

My advice is to pay attention to the name of the folder where your working files are stored on the computer. These files should already be pre-loaded when you start the exam. As long as you know the location of these files, it should not be hard to find them when uploading. Fortunately, there is an entire 5-minute section dedicated to uploading files at the end, so hopefully it will all be very straightforward.

SOA releases updated Prometric video

Today, the SOA released an updated video covering the Prometric setup for the spring 2021 exams. Please make some time to watch this video before you take the exam.

The key change for spring is that the SOA has created a new, distinct 5-minute session for you to use solely for submitting your exam files (Word and Excel file). This is in addition to the time provided for taking the exam. The time allotted for taking the exam is identical to before: 5 hours, 15 minutes for LPM and LFM; 4 hours, 15 minutes for ERM; and 2 hours, 15 minutes for LAM. In other words, you’ll have an additional 5 minutes on top of these times to use just for submitting your files. This is good news and likely intended to alleviate some of the issues that happened last fall when people ran out of time before they were able to submit their files (although it seems the SOA was able to recover those files anyway).

Excel feature availability in Prometric

I’ve gotten an uptick in email in recent days asking which features will be available in Excel in Prometric. Each exam page on the SOA’s site links to the most recent information on this (PDF here). In particular, several people have asked me if Goal Seek will be available. The answer is yes. However, Solver is not available (as noted in the PDF). But to be absolutely clear, you will have access to Goal Seek, which can be useful for IRR-type calculations.

Errata for SVILAC Ch. 24 (revised version) and other SVILAC chapters

Today, the authors of the SVILAC book posted updated errata for the revised version of Ch. 24 covering the updated version of VM-21. These errata address some of the issues that we point out in our course material with respect to the examples in the book. All VM-21 material in our course was based on the correct approach from the beginning, so everything you’ve been using in our course is correct.

You can also download errata for volumes I and II of the SVILAC book through the Actex website:

 

Supplemental Excel files for Section A.1

Today we added supporting Excel files for various lessons in Section A.1. These are posted in a single zip file in the course near the other Section A handouts. We will add files for A.2 to this zip file soon and continue adding more Excel files in other sections of the course. We don’t have a specific timeline for when these will all be loaded but plan to continue adding over the next few weeks.

These Excel files are intended to supplement the numerical examples in various lessons by showing you how the calculations can be carried out in Excel. The calculations in Excel are fairly straightforward (as Excel calculations go), but we recommend keeping things simple in Excel on the exam as well. Most of the value in these additional Excel files is showing you how the calculations discussed in the lessons can be carried out in Excel. In some cases, it can be useful to use Excel to change inputs and see how the values change as well.

Miscellaneous edits to calculation-based lessons

This sitting I’m doing an “audit” of a lot of the audio in various lessons. This is mostly to edit miscellaneous comments I’ve made in the past about using Excel vs. an SOA calculator and to throw in perspective on Excel-based calculations here and there. So you may notice that various videos will show that they’ve been updated in the course layout. In the event that there is a correction or a change to something on an actual slide, we will also note that in the Revision History and Scheduled Updates spreadsheet.

We’re also in the process of adding more supporting Excel files for many of the calculations you’ll encounter in the lessons. These Excel files will be placed near the consolidated handout files in each section. 

This work is just part of our ongoing effort to iterate over the course and polish it by adding more supporting materials. You can just continue proceeding through the course at your planned rate, but if you have any questions, let us know! 

Thoughts on the Prometric CBT exam experience

I recently joined two of our other instructors, Zak Fischer and Derek Brace, on a recorded Zoom call to talk about the Prometric exam experience so far as well as other topics listed below. You can check it out on YouTube. Let us know if there are other topics or questions you’d like us to talk about sometime!

  • Overall thoughts on the first sitting of FSA Prometric Exams
  • Special characters in file names / upload problems
  • “Reading period” / “break” / time available for exam / different time slots 
  • Overview of existing resources available to help prepare for CBT exams
  • Key takeaways from the TIA survey
  • How does the change to CBT exams impact time management?
  • Role of Excel
  • Typing formulas in Word
  • Looking towards future sittings: how might the Prometric FSA experience evolve over time
  • How FSA exams are different from preliminary exams

CBT practice exam updates

Today we posted 2 CBT practice exams in the Supplementary and Review Material section.

The first exam is a “CBT-ized” version of the actual spring 2020 exam given by the SOA in July 2020. This was the last exam given under the previous handwritten format, but we converted it to a CBT version in Word and Excel and also combined the morning and afternoon sessions into a single session so that it functions exactly like the new CBT format. We also replaced a few question parts related to material that was dropped from 2020 syllabus so that the exam remains 100% on syllabus for practice this year.

The 2nd practice exam is a TIA-unique exam that is also in the CBT format.

We strongly recommend saving these exams to work after you’ve covered the entire syllabus thoroughly. We are also working on adding more CBT practice exam resources later this sitting, including solutions to the fall 2020 LFMU exam given by the SOA.