Review of the New CAS Module 2

Starting in 2011, the Casualty Actuarial Society made significant changes to its examination structure. One of the major changes was to shorten some of the upper exams and add two online courses to cover the resulting gap in material. This setup more closely mimics that of the Society of Actuaries, which added an “e-learning” component some time ago. The two courses are Online Course 1 – Risk Management and Insurance Operations and Online Course 2 – Insurance Accounting, Coverage Analysis, Insurance Law, and Insurance Regulation.

Since these courses are new, many candidates are wondering what they are like: how time-consuming, how difficult, and how best to approach them. I recently completed Online Course 2, and this is my assessment of it. I personally like to know exactly what to expect when going into something like this, so I’ve included an unreasonable amount of detail. I hope other candidates find at least some of it helpful.

I completed Online Course 2 on August 22, 2011. I elected to tackle Course 2 before Course 1 because the CAS sort of half-heartedly recommends taking Course 2 prior to sitting for Exam 6 – Regulation and Financial Reporting. As the numbering of the online courses is arbitrary, there is no advantage or disadvantage to taking them in either order; nothing in Course 2 depends upon knowledge gleaned in Course 1 or vice versa.

My overall assessment is that this online course is time consuming, but easy. Since the online courses are new and most people don’t yet know how they work, I’ll explain the process in detail. Both modules consist of an online course and a 75-question, computer-based, multiple-choice test. The online courses are provided through The Institutes, the same organization that coordinates the certification process for underwriters (CPCU Exams).

The CAS website will direct you to The Institutes site where you can enroll in the online course. When enrolling, you must select a testing window. Although you will have access to the online course materials for a year, you can only sit for the exam during the 2-month window you select when signing up. The first such testing window was April 15 to June 15. I signed up for the second, July 15 to September 15.

At minimum, when you enroll, you must purchase access to the online course. For $525 this includes one attempt at the exam. You can also purchase a variety of study aids, which all together cost $265. As I had no way of knowing whether these study aids would be useful or necessary, I purchased them. I ended up not using a single one of them when working through the online course or preparing for the exam. In my opinion, the study aids are entirely superfluous. They are certainly much, much longer and more involved than they should be for this course. My advice is not to use them as they do little more than increase anxiety over the amount of material to cover.

Since everything you need for the course is online, you can get started on the course immediately upon purchase. The way to access the course is not very intuitive, however there will be instructions in one of the emails you receive. Select the “keep me logged in on this computer” option and bookmark the actual course page so you can quickly jump back to it later. After that, you just start plugging away. The course is divided into 16 assignments of varying lengths. Each assignment contains from four to thirteen modules. Each module consists of a slide show similar to Powerpoint and a multiple choice quiz.

The slide shows can be difficult to use as they often have unnecessary graphics and animations that can take a long time to appear on the slide. A number of times, I had already finished reading a slide and clicked to the next before the silly graphic (which usually contains the bulk of the important information for the module) loaded, thus missing a significant piece of the content. I wouldn’t realize I had missed anything until I’d attempt the quiz. The best solution I found for this was to click to the next slide and then click back again if I suspected there might have been a slow-loading graphic. When moving backward through the deck, the graphics tend to appear instantly. There are also at times a variety of other things to click on. Unless you do not know the meaning of a term, don’t bother clicking on any hyperlinks; you won’t be specifically tested on those definitions. I also gave up on clicking footnotes as 90% of the time they just provided a citation (also not testable.)

The first slide of each module gives an estimate of the time to complete the module. Aside from lag issues, these estimates are likely accurate for the average user. The total hours to complete the course, by these estimates, are 33.58. Unfortunately there is no way to tell how long a module is until you load it; I’ve put a chart with this information together and will post it soon, which might be helpful for planning out study time. These time estimates do not include time spent on the quizzes or practice tests.

After each module, there’s a simple quiz, typically two to five multiple-choice questions. In most cases, you must score 70% or above on a quiz to have passed it. This often means you must ace the quiz since many are three questions long; however you can attempt each quiz as many times as you like; only your highest score will be counted. You must pass all quizzes for the course to show up as “passed” on the site; however “passing the course” in this sense is not required by the CAS; only passing the final exam is required. I decided to take each quiz until I scored 100%, because that seemed like a good way to study. Since some of the actual exam questions ended up coming from the quiz questions, I think this is a sound strategy.

After working through each module and scoring 100% once on each quiz, I scheduled my exam. Even though my testing window was halfway over by the time I went to schedule my sitting, plenty of time slots were available. Although sittings can be cancelled and rescheduled with 48 hours notice to Prometric (the company that runs the computer-based tests for the SOA and CAS), The Institutes recommends you wait to schedule your exam until you’re sure you’ll be ready in order to avoid excessive cancellations; I think this is a sound policy.

Actually scheduling the exam is a bit of a process. You have to call The Institutes and give them your CAS number (you can find this under your account on the CAS website) so they can activate your account. You will then get an email that provides instructions on registering for the exam on Prometric’s website. If you’ve never taken a computer-based exam before, just remember that anything you bring to the exam center aside from your ID and an approved calculator has to be put in a locker while you take the exam. Other than that, the experience is fairly pleasant: the rooms aren’t too warm or too cold, it’s very quiet, and it’s easy to focus.

One practice test is provided on the course website. I took this test twice before the exam. It mostly consists of questions you’ve already seen on the quizzes, unfortunately, and I felt the wording of the questions was not very similar to the wording used in the actual exam. You are given two hours for the exam; I needed about twenty minutes for the practice test and an hour for the real exam. At the end of the real exam, I felt that I would have liked to have been more prepared. The key to that for me would have been to memorize more of the names of specific coverages for the various forms discussed in the course (PAP, HO-3, BPP, ISO CGL, and others.) Otherwise I felt my preparation was adequate.

Prior to taking the exam, I had been told that I would get immediate results, as is usual for the computer-based tests. However I was instead given a paper confirming I had taken the exam that said I would be emailed within ten days of the close of the testing window to let me know that my grade had been posted to The Institutes' website. As yet I have not received my grade. I called The Institutes to inquire. The person I spoke to was also under the impression that I should have received my grade immediately, so for now I’m waiting for The Institutes to sort things out. The moral, I think, is to make sure you get your grade at Prometric; otherwise you may have a very long wait.

Several major things about this process are unclear from the syllabus provided by the CAS. Firstly is working through the course actually a requirement, or do you just need to pass the test? Secondly what is the pass mark for the test? Finally what happens if you don’t pass the test? I contacted The Institutes to find out the answers and here they are:

1. Only the exam is required to pass the course. The online course is merely provided as a study tool.
2. 70% is required to pass the exam.
3. If you do not pass, you can register for another attempt either in the same testing window or in a later one. The cost of this is $295.

I can’t say yet how useful my advice is since I don’t know if I passed or failed, but there it is. I’d love to hear about anyone else’s experience with this or with Course 1, which I’ll be taking soon, and of course I’ll be sure to update this when I receive my grade. Now, on to Exam 6! Good luck to all the exam-takers out there.