Please tell me the best way to prepare for the 2 first actuary exams.
Do i really need to go to university or can I just study for the 2 first exams?
I don't have a background in mathematics , but I'm pretty good.
The last thing I did in mathematics is Calculus 2.
And if I can just study for the 2 first exams what's the best material to study?
2007-01-13 19:21:09 · 4 answers · asked by Venom 5 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Mathematics
Argh. I took exam P once and bombed. It is pretty rigorous on the "basics" of probability!
I assume by exam 1 and 2 you mean P and FM (you can take the first 4 in any order, if you didn't know).
check out www.soa.org
spring exam catalog, "Examination and Other Requirement Details". under that, you can get specific information on what the exam covers. in general, it is very honest about what type of material will be tested. my experience with exam P is that there is a big emphasis on 3 things:
1) poisson distribution
2) bayes law (you must remember this VERY well)
3) mean/variance calculation.
also, you are expected to memorize the expected value and variance expressions for each distribution type (they DO test X^2 and normal distribution, but i didn't see anything weird like Weibull)
I used the book "A First Course in Probability". It was the same book that I had for my first stats class, so it came to hand easily. I think the only reason I failed was that I was very shaky on the basics and just didn't study enough (too much effort put into memorizing, didn't do enough examples)
for FM... tough to prepare for! If you can check out classes at community college for accounting or money management, they fit the bill. It's very little math, mostly just interest calculation and stuff. You will need to know some accounting jargon though, and that is pretty tough to wing on your own. Like I said, getting into any kind of accounting class is best.
Don't forget that at the bottom of the webpages are exams that you can download! Also, if you check out the listed bookstores, they also have crash courses for the exams, which help a ton.
In any case, good luck!
2007-01-13 19:44:04 · answer #1 · answered by John C 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Contact the Society of Actuaries, located in Schaumberg, Illinois. They are the national headquarters for actuarial science here in the U.S. I would be willing to bet they have a website. I know I have seen practice exams on the web. Just do a search to find them.
2007-01-13 19:41:06 · answer #2 · answered by MathBioMajor 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Find out what is in the syllabus and concentrate on that.
Get hold of past exam papers and do them again and again, until you can understand how you can get 100%.
Then study some more.
2007-01-13 20:09:50 · answer #3 · answered by crazy_tentacle 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Any book that helps you prepare for the CFA exam should do, too.
2016-05-23 23:33:27 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋