TIA’s Exam 4/C Blog

I just sent out an email to the online seminar students who had access for the Spring 2008 sitting. If you did not receive the email, please email me at marypat.campbell@gmail.com.

The most important part is for those who didn’t pass on this sitting. We will extend your access for the online seminar for free, but you need to contact us about that so we can make sure your access is updated. 

Important to me, as well, is any feedback you’d like to share about the online or live seminar. Feel free to leave comments on this post, or email me. Thanks! 

I emailed those who are current on my mailing list for the seminar with a spreadsheet organizing the problems from the SOA sample problems released for this sitting. 

It’s one month til the exam, so contact me (Mary Pat Campbell) if you’re having trouble or if you didn’t get the email. Some of the emails bounced back to me, so I’m guessing I don’t have an up-to-date email on file for you if that’s the case.

I will be sporadically available until April 2. I will be in McLean, Virginia for the TIA Live Seminars, and I’ll be seeing some of y’all soon!

There are new problems posted in section F.P on the lessons page. 

See the errata page for details. The sample variance for policy Z was miscalculated. Corrected figures are on the errata page.

As noted on the errata page, the answer for problem number 2 in the F.2.2 practice problems is not complete. The number given is the credibility estimate for a single ball from the bin. To get the total estimate for 15 balls, multiply by 15 to get 6.08.

For those coming to or considering coming to the live seminar in McLean, Virginia (i.e., Tysons Corner near DC), just a few quick facts:

• Classtime starts at 9am on Friday, March 28.
• Classtime will end by 1pm on Tuesday, April 1.
• There will be no official classtime on the morning of Sunday, March 30, but I will be available to take individual questions.
•  If you have not booked a hotel room, our group rates at the Ritz-Carlton have expired. There are many hotels in the area, if you are seeking better rates.

There are new problem sets for empirical and parametric models, sections D.P and E.P.  

The Kaplan-Meier estimator is widely used in survival studies, and there’s lots of resources online explaining its use, and even online calculators.  Here’s a good resource: Vassar Stats explanation and interactive demo — not only will it give the estimator, but also a 95% confidence interval. Try out different situations, to see if you understand the concept.

Here’s an example where the Kaplan-Meier estimator was applied to cancer survival data. Though this is not important for the exam itself, you may find these resources helpful if you want to do survival studies for your own work or research.

Some more links: Java Applet demonstration, another explanation of the Kaplan-Meier estimator, and the Wikipedia article.

Please check out the errata page for details. There was a miscalculation in the practice problem solutions.