Have you ever read War and Peace? It’s a huge book: 1440 pages long. According to one study, it takes people an average of about 33 hours to read War and Peace. It’s a long novel, but at least it’s a novel. It follows storyline start to finish, and it’s written entirely in a single voice.
The typical FSA syllabus is more than one and one third War and Peace‘s, and the readings are made up of a variety of authors, contain difficult technical concepts, different presentation styles, and varying degrees of editing.
I can very easily read 100 or more pages per day of a novel (especially if its good), but I will openly admit that even on my best day, I can’t process more than about 20 pages of technical actuarial literature analytically. It just takes too much brain power to absorb, synthesize, reconcile, translate, and simplify. If I “read” more than 20 pages, I’m not really reading it—I’m more of a zombie onlooker.
To read the source material word for word over the course of a month would be an impressive task in itself. But to truly read it analytically approaches impossibility for the typical person with the typical study time budget.
When you read the source material, if you find yourself zoning out and just watching the pages flip by, you are wasting very precious time.
When you go into the source material, you should have an “active” mindset. Make notes. Make connections. Answer questions you already had. Don’t just look at it.
The online seminar is already very comprehensive and intended to focus on the most testable topics (of which there are already many). The source material is still very useful, and I recommend that everyone have access to it. Use it to make your own connections and answer your own questions, but don’t let the enormity of the source reading page count create an unnecessary problem in your mind.
My main point is this: Fellowship exams are hard. Don’t make them harder. Don’t hold yourself to a higher standard than is necessary to get through this difficult process.
You don’t need to retain 100% of the source readings to score a 10. Not even close. You should view the source material as an asset to your overall study approach, not a liability to your sanity.