Achieving Excellence: Semester 1 Results

Students are taught using a range of ever-evolving techniques, explanatory live and recorded videos, and education material that ensures well-prepared students can demonstrate desired outcomes. We always involve a broad range of invited guest speakers who provide contemporary context.  

The blend of practical actuarial experience and continuous improvement to our teaching has helped many candidates become sufficiently well-prepared to provide well-argued answers to assessment questions.   

The Institute is pleased to announce that our Semester 1, 2024 results are in line with previous semesters. Students are putting in the hard work necessary to progress towards becoming a credentialled actuary. The extensive involvement of Fellows in marking, scrutineering, suggesting improvements to the curriculum and providing contextualisation of industry issues in tutorials, demonstrates the strength of the profession in educating the next generation of actuaries and ensures we keep our important quality benchmark. 

Pass rates and the number of candidates who sat each subject for the last three semesters are shown below. This semester 98 students became eligible for Fellowship.  

View the Members eligible for Fellowship – Semester 1, 2024.

Semester 1, 2024 pass rates

Semester 1, 2024 prize winners 

Congratulations to our Semester 1 prize winners who have demonstrated academic excellence, sound critical thinking and communication skills.   

View the Actuary Program results for Semester 1, 2024. 

View the Fellowship Subject results for Semester 1,  2024. 

Continuous improvement  

About 25% of students complete an end-of-semester survey that provide us with critical feedback on our performance. Students are generally positive, with over 80% satisfied with their learning experience. A slightly higher percentage (85%) rated the teaching as at least good. 

The key strengths of the program, according to the feedback, is distilled into three themes: 

• Industry relevance and practical applications are highlighted through the real-world scenarios in the course content, including insights, examples, and the applicability of skills development to various domains. 

• Teaching quality is reflected in the educators’ dedication in providing additional materials and the ability to connect theoretical knowledge with practical applications, as well as the valuable insights from the guest speakers. 

• Subject materials and structure underscored the breadth and depth of content, the thorough exploration of key component, and a blend of theoretical knowledge with practical assignments. 

It is pleasing that many respondents act professionally by providing practical suggestions to improve the experience of future students. Some examples from the previous two semesters include:  

• Bring forward the ethics and professionalism components within Communication, Modelling and Professionalism (CMP) to allow a deeper understanding of professional obligations. This occurred this semester, and the mid-semester assignment had a deep examination of the Code of Conduct.   

• ChatGPT is a ubiquitous tool and students, who are aware that this tool is not available in examinations, have asked for guidance. Julia Lessing (CMP) and Georgina Hemmings (Life Insurance Applications) incorporated the tool in assignments and students were asked to critique ChatGPT responses. Chris Dolman kindly tutored CMP students on how to use these models. Of course, our main advice is for students to practice being clear, precise, and complete when explaining ideas in whatever format is required.   

• Data Science Applications (DSA) students consistently record a high workload in a short period that is also very close to the exam date. Whilst we are not reducing the workload, the assignment will be released earlier in Semester 2 and the due date will be brought forward. 

• 76% of Fellowship candidates report a development in their written communication skills but independent markers suggested that more teaching is required on improving reports. This semester, we will be creating a set of videos covering report writing at Fellowship level. 

Asset Liability Management subject 

One of the questions on this semester’s exam was almost identical to a previous exam question. This was unintentional and arose through a failure in one of our processes.  

We want to reassure you that extensive additional work was undertaken during the marking process to consider the effects on all candidates. Detailed discussions on mitigating actions occurred during the formal exam results meeting.   

The governing Education Strategy Committee is satisfied that the resolution to the issue has ensured equity and fair treatment between the students of 2023 and 2024. Those students in 2024 who were well prepared and had reviewed the prior exam paper also scored extremely highly in the other examination questions.

We confirm the process has been amended for future semesters to prevent any recurrence. 

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