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 - 2011 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)
