Advice for using the CBT Environment
BattleActs has spent a considerable amount of time getting to know the Pearson VUE environment so we can share the following tips without violating the CAS exam policy. Please feel free to add your own observations while keeping the exam policy in mind.
The Basics
• At the bottom of the following page you'll find the sample Exams 5-9 Demo Exam and the Sample Spreadsheet :https://home.pearsonvue.com/cas
• If you want to know whether an Excel function is available in the Pearson environment you can see if it's in the following list: https://home.pearsonvue.com/Clients/Casualty-Actuarial-Society-(CAS)/Spreadsheet-Function-List.aspx
Exam 5-9 Demo
• Look at all of the sample exam questions to see how the CAS presents the solutions (more on this later).
• Use the Navigator button to see information about the questions. The level of detail provided varies from exam to exam with some exams giving the reading and point value while others give more insight about the type of question within the reading as well. It's worth looking when you start your exam to see what additional information you can glean.
• At the bottom left is the "Tables" button. Use this to view any needed Tables but beware - what you see in the sample environment is not guaranteed on exam day. For example, you may need to know formulas for the Excel normal distribution rather than receiving a normal distribution table.
• The NCCI (Circular) Table in the demo is an extract (not the full text as the CAS says they will provide in Fall 2022...) and hasn't been updated to the tables in the latest study kit. There's no search feature in the tables so get used to carefully zooming and scrolling.
• The ISO manual is the complete manual but not the version in the latest study kit.
• Question 4 is an example of the short response environment - nothing fancy but worth briefly checking out.
• Question 6 has some model output accessible via a button at the top left - get used to using/moving these popups (you can type underneath while it's up). If you're focused on the question you might miss a pop up for model output or formulas.
• Notice you can delete the question text by mistake so be careful!
• The CAS has apparently gotten better at laying out the questions in Excel so you can refer to values by clicking on a cell. This isn't guaranteed though. Be prepared to set up helper cells to extract information from the question text.
Sample Spreadsheet
• There's no F2 functionality. To audit a formula you need to click in the formula bar.
• There's no F4 functionality. You have to manually add dollar signs ($).
• If you have a formula with dollar signs and you click in the formula bar to audit, then use the mouse to drag the cell reference to the new cell you lose the dollar signs :(
• There is currently no sort functionality. You need build a new sorted table using RANK and INDEX functions.
• There's approximately a 2-3 second delay each time you go to a new question. Use the navigator to reduce this if you want to skip around.
• There doesn't appear to be any way to create graphs. At worst we think the CAS could ask you to make a table of values which could be used to make a graph. Remember you can always sketch graphs in your laminated notebook to help you solve problems though.
• You might want to copy then paste as values. To do this, use Ctrl-C to copy the cell(s). Then select the destination and use the Edit menu to select Paste Special. Then select values and press ok. We've not found a keyboard shortcut.
Advice on Excel Functions
Here are some Excel functions that we think you should know about.
• NORM.S.DIST - know how to apply it, i.e. finding the cumulative value or not.
• F.DIST - know how to apply it in case you're not given tables for the F-distribution.
• CORREL - use this to quickly calculate the correlation between two ranges.
• COMBIN - know how to use this to calculate "N choose k"
• VAR.S - realize this calculates the mean value of the range given to it. If all classes have equal weight then you can use this in an efficiency test but if you have varying weights you need to calculate the variance by hand.
Final Thoughts
• As the CAS makes problems more realistic/favorable to the Excel environment, you may need to repeat a lot of calculations. This poses a dilemma when showing your work. Question 7 of the demo shows how the CAS could accept a solution. A way around this is to set up inputs for your calculations then show the calculation(s) once, along with a table of pasted values which show the output resulting from iterating through the various inputs.
Please let us know if you find these tips helpful.
Comments
Thanks this is helpful!
On the below, there is no match function on the pearson list so I couldn't figure out how to do the below without match. They do seem to have vlookup though.
• There is currently no sort functionality. You need build a new sorted table using RANK and INDEX fuctions.
This is an example which shows the list of functions is incomplete. If you go into the sample spreadsheet and type =Match( then you can start using a match function as you would in Excel.
Try the sorting the following using an index match. Column A: a, b, c, d, e
Column B: 5, 2, 3, 1, 4
Sort according to Column B. Then, replace the integers with any fixed numbers of your choice and try using RANK to sort.
Another pet peeve we have with the Pearson environment that becomes clear when you try doing this type of calculation is the xlEndDown feature doesn't work. Pressing Ctrl-Down selects to the end of the spreadsheet rather than the end of the range you want :(
Thanks!
Will there be an appendix provided with moment formulas (or mean excess loss) for common distributions?
To be honest we're not sure. The limited information released by the CAS makes us think you're not guaranteed to have such an appendix. However, if they want you to work with something more complicated than the exponential distribution then they usually give you some formulas to help.