CB3 Business Management Study Guide for IAI Actuarial

How to prepare Business Management

1. Map the 17 chapters into three groups: the actuary's role and the IAI, strategy and management, and law and professionalism. Give each group a fixed share of your weekly time and revisit all three every week.
2. Build one-page summary sheets per chapter: key terms, the framework, one example and the typical exam angle. Use them for daily revision on your phone.
3. Learn the strategy frameworks by applying them, not by memorising lists. For each one (such as PEST analysis, competitive forces and the industry value chain), practise on a company you know, then on a case from the study material.
4. For law chapters, learn each rule in plain words with its conditions. Practise short scenarios: Is the contract valid? Is a term implied? Is there negligence? Who is liable, the agent or the principal? Do not quote a section number or case unless you are certain of it.
5. Study professionalism with the Actuaries' Code and the Actuaries Act, 2006 side by side. For each ethics case, identify the issue, the principle at stake, the options and what a professional actuary should do.
6. Complete the business game and the seven exercises seriously. They train the exact skills the written questions test: using data, deciding under uncertainty and communicating a recommendation.
7. Practise MCQs in timed sets of 15, then review every wrong answer and note which chapter it came from. Fix those chapters before taking the next set.
8. In the last two weeks, write full case-study answers under timed conditions in 1 hour 30 minutes conditions. Compare each answer with the marking points in past papers and examiner reports, and rewrite the weakest one.

Time management in the exam

• →The paper is 1 hour 30 minutes for 100 marks, so you have roughly one minute per mark. Use this as your base rule and check your pace at set points.
• →Spend about a minute per MCQ if the paper opens with 15 questions of 2 marks. If one stumps you, mark your best guess, move on and return if time remains.
• →Read each case study once for the story, then again for the question. Underline the facts you will use. This takes two to three minutes and saves you from generic answers.
• →Give each written question time in proportion to its marks. Do not spend 25 minutes on a 10-mark part while a 25-mark part waits.
• →Plan before you write: jot three or four headings (framework, application, recommendation, risks). A short plan keeps the answer structured and prevents rambling.
• →Keep the last five minutes to check that every part is answered and that each recommendation is stated clearly. Partial answers to all parts usually score better than one perfect answer and gaps elsewhere.