“Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.”
~Alan Dundes
On a serious note, let’s learn the exam booking process for IFoA.
Exam booking is the process when you inform IFOA that you wish to appear for exam(s) and hence pay the exam fees. We will cover:
• Important dates
• Exam fees and ways to pay
• Procedure to book an IFOA exam if you have or have not got an ARN
• What combinations you can choose for exam booking
Important dates
Exam booking will open on 12th July for members & 19th July for non members. It will close on 30th July for all. Dates for the various exams are given here https://www.actuaries.org.uk/studying/my-exams/exam-dates
Exam fees
Exam fees depends on which exam you are giving. A detailed exam fees document is linked here
You can pay for exams using one of the following ways:
• Bank Transfer
• Credit card or Debit card with allowance for international transaction
• Paypal (fastest)
• American express company
• Cheque (if you are in UK)
Exam Booking process
If you don’t have an ARN, you can proceed with following steps:
• Create a username and enter your personal details. Click the “create new account” button.
• Open email sent by education.services@actuaries.org.uk and validate your email.
• Click the link contained in email and then type ARN & password provided.
• Create a new password and type it twice. Then click save. Note down this password somewhere for your future use.
• Provide your personal details , employment details (if any) and education details
• Confirm your annual income is below 7230 pounds and apply for reduced rate exam entry in the personal details section of the online form
• Agree to terms and conditions
Once you are done with the above steps or if you already had an ARN, you can proceed with following steps:
• Login to the IFOA site using your ARN & password
• Click on “My account” button in top right corner.
• Scroll down and click on “My exams” button
• Click on Book an exam
• If you are booking CP2/CP3/CB3, choose that specific option. If you are booking any other exam, click “Book April/September exams”.
• Select your exam session : If you are booking for CB/CM/CS series choose first option with “core principles” mentioned and click continue. Otherwise choose second option.
• Choose subject and click continue. You can only choose 1 subject at a time, so if you will be appearing for multiple papers, do the whole process separately for each paper.
• Choose your exam slot and click continue. It is recommended to choose 8:30 slot. In the latter period of exam booking 8:30 slot might get full. Please note that the time slot mentioned is as per UK time. So it is 1pm as per indian time.
• You need to gather bank details. It will be written on the card through which you are paying. Bank details that you need to collect in advance are Card number, full name as on the card, CVV, expiry date etc. You can choose the type of card for eg, Visa, mastercard, visa debit, visa platinum etc. Then click continue
• Type in the bank details you gathered and then click next. Security code means CVV as per UK.
• You will get an OTP via SMS on the mobile number that is registered with bank. Type in that OTP.
• You will get an email confirming your exam booking
What combinations to choose?
After clearing either CS1 or CM1 as a non member, you can appear for more than one paper in one exam diet. There are two exam diets every year – April & September. Usually, CB series papers & CP3 are manageable to be prepared with other papers. CB series means CB1 (Business Finance), CB2 (Business Economics) and CB3 (Business Management). If you are choosing a combination of exams, make sure they have sufficient gap between them so that you don’t need to rush with revision during the exam month.
In the upcoming article we will discuss which exam you should give first CS1 or CM1… Stay tuned!