SOA / CAS Preliminary Actuarial Exams — Exam Survival Guide

(Exam P, FM, and CAS 1/2/MAS I–II)

Window: Undergrads / early-career analysts | Format: CBT, mostly 30 MCQs in 2.5–3 hours, high fail rates if you guess the exam’s vibe wrong.

Must-do topics

Think in three lanes: Probability, Financial math, and Modern actuarial statistics.

SOA Exam P (Probability) – 30 MCQs, 3 hours.

Core probability: sample spaces, conditional probability, Bayes, independence.

Distributions: discrete/continuous, joint/conditional, mgfs, transformations.

Insurance flavour: losses, deductibles, limits, expected claim amounts.

SOA Exam FM (Financial Mathematics) – 30 MCQs, ~2.5 hours.

Time value of money, annuities, loans, amortisation, yield rates.

Bonds and duration/convexity; term structure basics.

Interest-rate swaps and basic immunisation ideas.

CAS / SOA modern exams (MAS I, MAS II, etc.)

Mathematical statistics: estimation, hypothesis tests, likelihood, intervals.

Applied stats: GLMs, credibility, time series, simulation.

Newer item types (multi-select, fill-in-the-blank, point-and-click) for CAS.

The underlying question:

“Can you do clean quantitative thinking under a clock and not lose track of risk/expectation logic?”

Top traps (avoid)

Treating these like college exams where 60% understanding and 40% partial credit will save you. (It won’t.)

Spending half your prep on obscure topics instead of bread-and-butter question types that appear every sitting.

Doing practice problems slowly and perfectly, then being surprised when the 3-hour clock crushes you.

On CAS prelims: ignoring the new item types and walking in having only practised simple MCQs.

Time split (per exam)

P: 30 questions / 180 minutes → aim for 2–3 minutes per question; some are 30-second freebies, some are 5-minute slogs.

FM: 30 questions / 150 minutes → similar pacing, but with more calculators and cash-flow tables.

CAS prelims (1, 2, MAS I & II): multiple-choice, similar time pressure; newer sittings include multi-select / other interactive types.

Last-48h checklist

One full timed mock per exam (or two long blocks) with strict timing.

For each exam, write a one-page “patterns sheet”:

P: classic setups (coins/dice, Poisson processes, conditional expectations, stop-loss).

FM: level annuities vs annuities-due, bonds, yields, duration.

MAS: GLM structures, credibility formulas, time-series archetypes.

No new textbooks. Only: formula sheet, error log, and a couple of nasty problems you kept dodging.

Quick frames

For each problem:

Identify the distribution / cash-flow type (don’t start grinding before you know what you’re holding).

Ask what the exam really wants: expectation? variance? price? probability? present value?

Reduce to a known template (e.g., compound Poisson, geometric series, Bayes table).

Do a quick order-of-magnitude check: does this answer pass the sniff test?

Speed tactics

Skip early any problem that looks like a 5-minute algebra swamp; tag it and come back.

On MCQs, quickly kill 2 absurd answers (negative probabilities, impossible yields, etc.).

Use the formula booklet as a tool, not a crutch: you should know where to look and why, not read it line-by-line mid-exam.

Day-of mini-plan

20–30 minutes of light warm-up: a handful of P/FM questions you’ve already solved before.

In the exam:

First pass = “harvest the easy fruit” + tag the monsters.

Second pass for the heavy ones, with an eye on time—never let one question steal 10 minutes.

Story in your head:

“This is just three hours of pattern recognition on material I’ve already drilled.”