Big News! Same like IFOA, SOA would be also be moving to computer-based testing (CBT) approach for all examinations beginning from the autumn 2020 written-answer exam administration. Candidates will need to take their exams at a Prometric testing facility.
NOTE: This change only impacts students giving exam in U.S.A where these exams used to happen in pen and paper format. This change does not impact students in India.
Prometric’s technology and testing platform will have the utilization of Excel and Word on written-answer exams as required. Candidates should even be familiar in Prometric’s scheduling processes. Similarly, existing processes will have the secure storage, retrieval and transfer of the candidate’s completed exam work to the SOA. Candidates without the access to a Prometric test center should e-mail SOA customer service to request for further assistance. These requests would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
SOA CBT Exam Experience at Prometric Centers
- Candidates will be using Word and Excel for the required SOA examto construct their responses and be restricted to working and submitting one Word document and one Excel file.
- All the material such as exam questions, case studies, formula sheets, tables and/or other material would be provided as PDF files.
- The exam questions woule be repeated within the Word document which would also hold the responses.
- The Excel file could also be pre-loaded with data.
- Candidates won’t be receiving hard copies of the exam questions.
- The Candidates are going to be given scratchpad for practice and any rough work ,* which can be handed into a Prometric center administrator and shredded.
- Each exam will have specific instructions for providing responses. for instance, an exam could instruct candidates to supply written explanations within the Word document and calculations within the Excel file.
- The Candidates will need to submit their completed Word and Excel files electronically via the Prometric submission portal.
- Additional information and details on the autumn administration, including a pre-exam tutorial video, are going to be made available within the coming weeks and months.
NOTE: *Some exams would require the utilization of a paper answer booklet at Prometric centers – see Exams with Special Arrangements for Fall 2020 below. For these exams, candidates are going to be given scratch pad within the solution booklet.
Exams with Special Arrangements for Fall 2020
Two exams are identified as exceptions needing special arrangements for the autumn 2020 administration thanks to infrastructure requirements to securely capture unique hand-written calculations, figures and graphs. it’s anticipated that an appropriate mechanism is often implemented by the Spring 2021 administration, except for the autumn 2020 administration the subsequent assessment methods are going to be used.
- The Long-Term Actuarial Mathematics (LTAM) Exam is going to be run as a normal paper and pencil exam at organized exam centres, not at Prometric locations.
- The QFI Quantitative Finance Exam is going to be happen at Prometric test centres, but candidates will need to submit hand-written answers to pick questions during a paper answer booklet to be collected by Prometric and enter answers electronically for other questions. Later this summer, additional updates on what to expect on testing dates are going to be published on the relevant exam page.
Earlier Registration:
Registration will open for the autumn exams in late June. This earlier opening date is planned to help SOA candidates in securing seats at Prometric testing centres.
Exam Syllabi: thanks to the transition to CBT for this fall, some exam syllabi which are normally stable between the Spring and Fall administrations, may even see some changes to accommodate the movement to CBT. Review the posted syllabus and frequently check the updates page for your exam on SOA.org.
Fall Exam Schedule for SOA CBT Exam:
In order to best accommodate our candidates across the worldwide network of Prometric centres, some Fall exam dates are shifted from those originally posted. The new schedule is posted below, and a politician updated schedule is going to be available soon on Education General Information page. Updates can also be made to the individual exam webpages as we meet up with to the exams.
Administered via Paper/Pencil at SOA centres:
• LTAM: Friday, October 23, 2020
CBT Exams Administered at Prometric Centers:
• All ERM Exams and QFIQF: Monday, October 26, 2020
• CFESDM: Tuesday, October 27, 2020
• GIFREU, QFIPM, RETDAC, RETDAU, CFEFD, RETFRC: Wednesday, October 28, 2020
• ILALAM, GHFVA: Thursday, October 29, 2020
• GHSPC, QFIIRM, RETRPIRM: Friday, October 30, 2020
• GHFVCC, GHFVCU: Monday, All Souls’ Day , 2020
• EA2F, GIADV, GHDPC: Tuesday, November 3, 2020
• ILALFMU, ILALFMC: Wednesday, November 4, 2020
• GIRR, ILALPM: Thursday, November 5 , 2020
• GHDPA: Friday, November 6, 2020
Please send any inquiries to customerservice@soa.org.
For more information read: https://www.soa.org/globalassets/assets/files/edu/2020/fall/soa-exams-cbt-announcement.pdf