OPAT or Online Professional Awareness Test is a mandated exam conducted by IFOA. This exam must be cleared before appearing for CB3 Paper. This exam tests your knowledge of the Actuaries’ code and what you would do in certain situations.
OPAT exam by IFOA would soon be dropped by IFOA and would be replaced by Professional Skills Training (PST) on 29th June 2020. The new training is chargeable. So we suggest if you don’t want to spend money on this, appear for it now. It doesn’t really take up much preparation.
Structure of OPAT Exam
It is a 90 minute exam.
There are 5 questions in total, each containing 3 parts. The first part is of 5 marks asking a question directly based on the code. The second one of 10 marks, based upon a scenario and the third one again of 5 marks based on the same scenario.
All the questions are multiple choice. Parts 2 and 3 do not have a right or wrong answer and each choice carries a different score.
How to Enroll for OPAT Exam
To enroll for OPTo register for OPAT, fill this form online and mail it to education.services@actuaries.org.uk along with your ARN number. It usually takes 3-4 days to get approval and get the link of the exam.
Sample OPAT Form:
To check the boxes, just double click on them and a dialog box would appear from which you can check it.
Preparation for OPAT Exam by IFOA
Overall, the exam is quite easy. All you need to do is apply a little bit of common sense.
The most important document to be read here is the Actuaries’ code, which is just a 4-page document. As additional reading, you can once go through the Guidance to Actuaries’ code. It is a 46-page document explaining all the principles in details and with examples. This helps with the scenario-based questions.
You should also go through the instructions for OPAT by IFOA document for better understanding of the whole process. All of these documents are easily available on the website of IFoA. Still if you cannot find the documents do let us know.
Answering some frequently asked questions here-
- 90 minutes are more than enough for the examination.
- Everyone gets a different set of questions.
- The exam is pretty straightforward and easy, just follow the proper instructions.
*29th June 2020 is the last day to appear for the exam. So we suggest if you don’t want to spend money on this, appear for it now. It doesn’t really take up much preparation.
Hope this helps!!
This Article has been written by Tamanna Goel and originally posted at Actuarial Practicals. We would like to thank Tamanna for writing it and allowing us to post it here.
This article has been published by Arpit Surana.
References:
Download Actuaries’ code from here
Download OPAT form from here and mail it to education.services@actuaries.org.uk along with your ARN number.