To Sleep, Perchance to Pass: Disadvantages for Late-Risers in the Actuarial Exam Process

Come October, it's hard for an aspiring actuary to think about anything other than exams. Between wrapping up CAS Online Course 2, preparing for Exam 6, and gearing up for my new role as part of the CAS Examination Committee, my brain is constantly preoccupied with exams and exam-related issues. This is to say: I hope you'll forgive yet another post about exams this month. I promise to move on to more substantive matters soon.

In the past, my focus has only been on how to approach/survive the exam process as it stands. Now I'm also contemplating how to improve it. Every system contains inequities. Some are hidden, some are obvious, some are intended, and some are accidental. The actuarial exam process is certainly no exception. The very idea of a timed test favors candidates with specific skills not necessarily related to actuarial ability. I'm sure every candidate can come up with an example of how "unfair" the system is.

I am no exception. My personal objection, not only to the exam process, but American culture in general, is that it encourages a warped perspective on sleep. Americans not only don't sleep enough, we don't even sleep when and how we should*. The end result for society overall is lowered productivity [1], eroding health [2], possibly Alzheimer's [3], and increased mortality [4]. Within the more limited context of actuarial exams, it means significant advantages for people with certain sleep patterns, i.e. "morning people."

"Partial sleep deprivation" refers to the state of getting some, but not all, of your required sleep in a particular night. The negative effects of even one night of partial sleep deprivation are measurable and well documented for both cognitive and motor tasks [5]. Prolonged or chronic partial sleep deprivation has even more severe consequences as "sleep debt" accumulates, however this is a long-term habitual issue and not directly related to inequities caused by testing procedures.

Say you're sitting for an upper-level actuarial exam. The exams require candidates to arrive at the testing site no later than 8am on the day of the test. For me, given that I have to travel to the exam site, spend an hour reviewing notes and mentally preparing, and want to give myself a little extra time just in case something goes horribly wrong, like I go to the wrong exam site or something (as I once did), I need to be up no later than 6am on exam day. If you typically wake up much later than this, say 7am or 8am, then you are partially sleep-deprived while sitting for a 4 hour exam with a 30-40% pass rate. Needless to say, this is not to your advantage.

Based on my (admittedly brief) survey of the literature, it seems reasonable to project that candidates who have to wake up 1 to 3 hours earlier than their regular time on exam day suffer decreased performance to a degree that often makes the difference between passing and failing. The "freshness" that comes from adequate sleep improves learning [6], fact retrieval [7], the ability to abstract and conceptualize [8], and even insight [9]. In one test of factual learning, subjects who took just a one-hour nap before being tested on word pairs they had memorized earlier scored 15% better than their counterparts who had no nap [10].

While I don't think the early exam times cost late-sleepers such as myself 15% on every exam, it certainly costs us something. Exactly quantifying how often that "something" is the difference between passing and failing is beyond my expertise. However one could take a queue from the movement to delay start times in public schools and the improved test scores that resulted [11]. Shifting school start times even by just an hour makes a significant difference, in large part because adolescent brains are wired to wake up later, regardless of enforced habits like school start times [12]. I’m not aware of specific data on the ages of exam takers, but assuming that most of us start taking exams around age 20 and continue until age 25-30, we are generally past the peak of this chemical influence. However the need for sleep declines with age, so young adults would still require more than the average working person.

Part of the inflexibility surrounding sleep in our culture comes from the mistaken view that the need for sleep or sleep habits are a matter of choice or dedication. Yes, many things are within a person's control, but not everything. At least given the current level of our understanding, your sleep needs and patterns mostly are what they are; the best thing you can do for your health and performance is to go with your natural needs. It's hard to stand up and say this in our anti-sleep world, but if more people do, over time we can change the culture. I’ll be the first to say it: I don’t function as well when I wake up before 8am, I do my best work from 9pm to midnight, and I need more than 7 hours of sleep per night. I am a "night person" and that's just how it is.

Luckily, the evolving actuarial exam process is already moving in a direction that addresses the “morning person” versus "night person" issue. The multiple choice exams now being offered at computer-based testing facilities allow candidates to select not only different days, but different times to sit. Having this choice levels the playing field between candidates with varying sleep needs and habits. I encourage those sitting for such exams to take full advantage. Figure out when you test best and schedule accordingly. And of course, get plenty of sleep! It may not feel like an hour of sleep is worth more than an hour of studying, but it is**.

For those of us subject to the more rigid structure of the upper exams, unless you’re going to permanently alter your sleep habits to suit the two days a year that you sit for exams, there isn’t much you can do. The negative effects of losing those 1 to 3 hours can be partially offset by stimulants such as caffeine. However such stimulants can only replace sleep for about an hour before performance deteriorates [13]. The best thing to do is eradicate your sleep debt before the exam (before even studying for the exam, if you can) so you can better tolerate one day of sub-optimal sleep.

I’m off to take my own advice now. Good night and good luck with all your exams!

*For a thorough, and very concerning, assessment of the importance of sleep and how to get it, check out Pascal's Pensees: http://pensees.pascallisch.net/?p=1116

**In fact your brain is quite good at deluding itself when it comes to your need for sleep. 24 hours without sleep is the equivalent of being legally too drunk to drive, and it's been demonstrated that at 19 hours without sleep (when your head feels like it's filled with sand), that's actually happening because large chunks of your neurons are turning off like they do when you're asleep. You don't know this is happening and you can't stop it. [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v472/n7344/full/nature10009.html]

Endnotes:
[1] "Sleep deprivation and its effects on cognitive performance," by Jillian Dorrian and David F. Dinges, Wiley-Liss 2006 
[2] For example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20371664
[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19779148
[4] http://www.journalsleep.org/viewabstract.aspx?pid=27780
[5] http://www.med.upenn.edu/uep/user_documents/DurmerandDinges--NeurocognitiveConsequences--SEM.NEUROL.2005.pdf and http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1997-07865-006
[6] http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=brainbriefings_sleepandlearning
[7] (and [10]) Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, vol 86, p 241
[8] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v425/n6958/abs/nature01951.html?lang=en
[9] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14737168
[10] Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, vol 86, p 241
[11] http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleepless-in-america/201102/do-later-school-start-times-really-help-high-school-students
[12] http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleepless-in-america/200904/sleep-and-teenagers
[13] http://www.jneurosci.org/content/22/13/5581.short

Inside-Man

I'm excited to report that I was recently selected to serve as a Candidate Representative on the CAS Candidate Liaison Committee. This is a dual-purpose role. First, it will be my job to represent those taking CAS exams to the Committee. Second, I will work as an editor for the Future Fellows newsletter, which is sent to all CAS candidates quarterly. In other words, I'm your inside-man at the CAS!

Since my job is to represent CAS candidates (i.e. you), I'd love to hear your thoughts on any CAS topic. In particular:
-What do you think of the recent revamp of the upper exam structure?
-How do you feel about the exam process at this point in your progress?
-What services and support should the CAS make available to candidates?
-What works particularly well with exams and the CAS in general? What doesn't?

I'll also be creating articles for Future Fellows, so please let me know what you'd like to read about in future issues. Please share any thoughts you have in the comments section. I'll be attending my first Candidate Liaison Committee meeting on December 1st, 2011. I look forward to hearing your ideas and communicating them in December!

Update #2 on CAS Online Course 2

Official grades were finally released by The Institutes today. I'm happy to report that I passed! 70% or higher is required to pass; I scored in the 80-89% bracket (only ranges are given for your score, not a particular percentage.) Therefore it would seem the advice I've been giving is sound. Focus on the online slides and the quizzes, don't worry about the supplemental materials, and don't stress. The online courses are meant to test general familiarity, not expertise, in broad insurance topics.


Good luck to all the test-takers out there!

Update on CAS Online Course 2

This brief update is for anyone who, like myself, is still waiting for results for the July 15 - September 15 testing window for CAS Online Course 2. I learned from the IS folks at The Institutes that the posting of results to their website, which represents the official grades, has been delayed. Results were supposed to be up by September 25 but will instead be available sometime next week (September 26 - September 30).


In case you missed it, the most recent edition of Future Fellows showed the results for the first sitting, which was April 15 - June 15. The pass rate was a whopping 94.2% with no test-takers below the 50% mark. This seems to support my opinion that the online courses test topics that practicing actuarial analysts should already be fairly familiar with. Hopefully this bodes well for those of us in the second sitting!

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.

The Actuary and the Scorpion

In the fable “The Frog and the Scorpion,” a scorpion persuades a frog to carry it across a river by arguing that the scorpion must refrain from stinging the frog since that would cause both of them to drown. Halfway across the river, however, the scorpion stings the frog and laments: “I’m sorry- it’s my nature.”

Some sort of fatalistic message was no doubt intended by the author of this story, but what I take away from it is that there is an important difference between what people say, even what they most deeply believe, and what is actually true, and that that difference makes all the difference in the world. In other words, what people say and what they do are not always the same thing. Actions speak louder than words, and it is actions that really matter. It is actions that can be analyzed and aggregated over time to make useful predictions of the future.

This is the job of the actuary, and this is why, if you recast the frog as an actuary, the story would have ended with the scorpion stuck on the riverbank and the actuary as far away from the scorpion as she could possibly get. That is my purpose, both here and in life: to identify the scorpions, especially the ones everyone “knows” are safe, and control, mitigate or eliminate them. Hopefully, when I’m done, we’ll understand a little bit more of the universe and be able to do something about it.