This online course is designed to meet the needs of students preparing
for the SOA / CAS Exam P / Exam 1. It will be like a regular academic course except that you won't have to travel and
you won't have to be at a certain place at a certain time to attend the class.
How does it work?
Every week I will send you a reading assignment, some explanatory
notes, a write-up summarizing the basic concepts, illustrative exercises, and a quiz. You may ask me questions at any time
and I will try to respond as promptly as I can. Also, I will put up discussions of common interest on the web site or send
them to you by e-mail. This interaction is the most important part of the course. There will be a forum page on this web site
through which you can hold discussions with other students.
There will be a week of very intensive review. Students
registered for this course will have access to 10 full length onlline practice exams.
During the course there will be three exams They will constitute
excellent practice for taking the SOA/CAS exam.
How will the exams be given?
I will send out the exam by e-mail and/or post it on the course
web site at 9 A.M. Central time. You take the allotted time and send me your answers. Then I will send you complete solutions
and we will discuss any questions you might have.
If something comes up and you are unable to take the exam at that
time, that will not cause any problem. You may take it later, but not earlier. The reason is that I keep refining
the exam until the last minute, based on the students' questions and performance in most recent quizzes.
PREREQUISITES:
A thorough grasp of Basics of Calculus
(as taught in a three semester sequence in Mathematics Departments) is an essential prerequisite for this course. Some familiarity
with the basic notions of Probability will help. Even though the SOA/CAS exam will not test Calculus directly, it will be
tested through Probability. You should be thoroughly conversant with the following topics:
- Absolute value function, exponential
logarithm functions
- Limits, one-sided
limits and continuity
- Product, Quotient and Chain rules
for differentiation
- Integration by substitution and
by parts
- Geometric and exponential series
- Double integrals, repeated integrals
- Basic notions of Probability, random variables, expected
value and variance.
Required Text for the Online
Course:
PROBABILITY : A Study Guide for SOA/CAS Exam P/ Exam
1, by G.V. Ramanathan - 2010 edition. (For description and sample pages please click here )
Right now this book is available only in a downloadable electronic edition in pdf format.
Cost: 75 dollars
Below is a sample assignment for the online course:
Registered students should complete this assignment preferably
before starting the course and definitely before attempting the first assignment in the course.
In order to read the files I post and send, you will need Adobe
Reader, which you can download from
Please make sure that you are able to read and print the test.
Schedule
(This is tentative. There may be minor
changes)
