Both actuarial exam-giving professional organizations are dramatically revamping their exam systems starting with the exams in spring 2000—thus the "Y2K exam" terminology. Detailed official information on the exams and the transition rules (for translating credit for current exams into credit for Y2K exams) is available from the SoA in its Associateship and Fellowship Catalog and on its Website at http://www.soa.org/eande/redsgn.html and from the CAS on its Website at http://www.casact.org/students/examsys.htm. This document that you are reading is an unofficial guide for UT-Austin actuarial students to the most relevant aspects of the exams..

Students that will not have completed M469K & L by May 1999 should refer to the 1998-1999 version of the Actuarial Studies Information, since that document discusses the classes and exams most relevant for them. Students that will have completed M469K & L by May 1999 may find the present document helpful.

Detailed official information on the exams and the transition rules (for translating credit for current exams into credit for Y2K exams) is available from the SoA in its Associateship and Fellowship Catalog and on its Website at http://www.soa.org/eande/redsgn.html and from the CAS on its Website at http://www.casact.org/students/examsys.htm.

Exams 1, 2, 3, and 4 are jointly administered by the SoA and the CAS and count in both the SoA and CAS exam systems. Since these are the exams most likely to be relevant to UT-Austin actuarial students, they are the only ones discussed further here. The joint SoA/CAS Exams 1 through 4 will be given here on the UT campus each May and November; it is not yet known whether Exam 1 will also be given each February. Later exams that are specifically for the SoA or the CAS are also given each Spring and Fall in Austin. Detailed information on the exam system is available from the SoA and the CAS; phone 847/706-3500 or 703/276-3100 respectively.

Y2K exam content

Exam content is described briefly as follows.

• Exam 1 will cover calculus and probability, with many problems set as word problems involving risk.
• Exam 2 will cover economics, finance, and interest .
• Exam 3 will cover "actuarial models", including contingent-payment models, survival models, frequency- and severity-of-loss models, compound distributions, stochastic processes, ruin theory, and simulation of random samples.
• Exam 4 will cover "actuarial modeling", including credibility theory, estimating and fitting survival models and frequency- and severity-of-loss models, regression, time series, and the statistics of simulation.

UT-Austin Classes for the Y2K Exams

Effective with the fall semester of 1999, UT-Austin's uniquely actuarial classes M469K & L and M369E & J will be replaced by four new classes also totaling 14 semester-credit-hours to account for the change to the Y2K exam system. Information on them can be found in the 1998-1999 version of the Actuarial Studies Information. Classes that will help students learn the material on the Y2K exams are as follows:

Exam 1. For calculus, M408C and M408D (not the business-calculus sequence M403K & L); for probability, M362K; for the risk setting of some word problems, individual study of an SoA/CAS study note.

Exam 2. For economics, ECO304K & L and 320K ; for finance, FIN357 (note its prerequisite ACC311-2); for interest theory, ACF309 taught by Mathematics each spring semester.

Exam 3. Fall-1999 new courses M339U (prerequisite M362K and recommended prerequisite ACF309) and M439J (prerequisite M362K) will be offered each fall and can be taken in the same semester; spring-2000 new course M439V (prerequisite M339U) will be offered each spring. These three classes together will cover the syllabus for Exam 3---and note the middle digit 3 in each course number.

Exam 4. Spring-2000 new course M349P (prerequisite M439J and either M378K or Math's new as-yet-unnumbered Applied Statistics course) will cover over 40% of the syllabus for Exam 4—primarily the loss distributions and credibility theory of special interest to the property and casualty community.

SoA and CAS Transition Rules

The relevant official transition rules are:

• Exam 1 joint credit can be obtained by having credit for either of two combinations of exams:
  1. SoA 100 (= CAS 1); or
  2. SoA 110 (= CAS 2).

  Passing both SoA 100 and 110 gives credit for Exam 1 plus 20 additional SoA credits.

• Exam 2 joint credit can be obtained by having credit for any of three combinations of exams:
  1. SoA 140 or 141 plus 20 unassigned SoA credits; or
  2. CAS 5A and 5B; or
  3. SoA 100 (= CAS 1) and SoA 110 (= CAS 2) and CAS 5B.

  NOTE that passing the three current Exams 100/1, 110/2, and 140 (or 5B) provides transition credit for both Y2K Exams 1 and 2.

• Exam 3 joint credit can be obtained by having credit for either of two combinations of exams:
  1. SoA 150 and SoA 151; or
  2. SoA 150 plus 30 unassigned SoA credits.

  In addition, credit from the CAS only can be obtained in two ways, having credit for: 1) SoA 110 (= CAS 2) and SoA 120 (= CAS 3A) and CAS 4A; or 2) SoA 110 (= CAS 2) and CAS 4A and CAS 5A.

• Exam 4 joint credit can be obtained by having credit for either of two combinations of exams:
  1. SoA 120 (= CAS 3A) and SoA 160 and CAS 4B; or
  2. any two of the three exams SoA 120 (= CAS 3A) and SoA 160 and CAS 4B, together with 20 unassigned SoA credits.

  In addition, credit from the CAS only can be obtained in three ways, having credit for: 1) CAS 4B and CAS 5A; or 2) CAS 4B and (if passed by Fall 1997) CAS 3C; or 3) CAS 3A and CAS 4B.

Transition Exam Considerations at UT-Austin

The following advice is intended to help advanced students plan their final classes and exams. Note that through the end of 1999 all basic actuarial exams will be given each May and each November, while the SoA/CAS Exam 100/1 on calculus & linear algebra and the SoA/CAS Exam 110/2 on probability & statistics will also be given in February 1999.

1. Anyone that completes M408C & D by August 1999 or earlier should make every effort to pass the SoA/CAS Exam 100/1 as soon as possible and by no later than November 1999. This will provide transition credit for Y2K Exam 1 with much less effort than taking Y2K Exam 1.
2. Anyone that completes M408C & D, M362K, M378K, and ACF309 by August 1999 or earlier should make every effort to pass the SoA/CAS Exam 100/1, the SoA/CAS Exam 110/2, and the SoA Exam 140 as soon as possible and by no later than November 1999. This will provide transition credit for both Y2K Exam 1 and Y2K Exam 2 with much less effort than taking Exams 1 and 2.
3. Anyone that completes M469K & L by May 1999 should make every effort to pass the SoA Exam 150 as soon as possible and by no later than November 1999. This will look extremely good to employers, will at worst provide unassigned credits for transition, and can help provide transition credit for Exam 3. Such students still at UT-Austin in Fall 1999 should consider taking the new M439J class then, since: a) M439J will cover about 75% of current SoA Exam 151 to be given that November (credit for both SoA 150 and 151 provides credit for Exam 3); and b) M439J together with the current M469K & L covers over 90% of the syllabus of Exam 3 for those that actually have to take that exam rather than receive transition credit.
4. Anyone that completes M369E or 369J by December 1998 should make every effort to pass the SoA Exam 120 or CAS Exam 4B as soon as possible and by no later than November 1999. This will look good to employers, will at worst provide unassigned credits for transition, and can help provide transition credit for Exam 3 or 4. (Note that passing both SoA 120 and CAS 4B provides the 30 credits to add to SoA 150 for credit for Exam 3.)