100+ Free ACIA Capstone Practice Questions

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2026 Statistics

Key Facts: ACIA Capstone Exam

6 Hours

Total exam time across two days

CIA Education Syllabus, January 19, 2026

4 + 2 Hours

Common section then specialized section

CIA ACIA modules and Capstone Exam page

$1,400 CAD

Spring 2026 exam fee (plus taxes)

CIA fees for education programs, April 1, 2026

Open Book

Online, secure-proctored format

CIA Education Syllabus, January 19, 2026

12 Weeks

Typical results release window

CIA ACIA modules and Capstone Exam page

2 Sittings

Offered each spring and fall, in English and French

CIA courses and exams listing

The ACIA Capstone Exam is the Canadian Institute of Actuaries' final assessment for the ACIA designation: six hours of open-book, online proctored work across two days (a 4-hour common section plus a 2-hour long-term or short-term specialized section), offered in English and French each spring and fall for $1,400 CAD, with results typically released within 12 weeks. The real exam is graded on written analysis rather than multiple choice, so these 100 free questions are an English-language MCQ study aid covering the official syllabus areas — probability and financial mathematics, derivatives and option pricing, long-term and short-term actuarial mathematics, predictive analytics, and the ACIA module material on the actuarial environment, communication and professionalism.

Sample ACIA Capstone Practice Questions

Try these sample questions to test your ACIA Capstone exam readiness. Each question includes a detailed explanation. Start the interactive quiz above for the full 100+ question experience with AI tutoring.

1Under Rule 1 (Professional Integrity) of the CIA Rules of Professional Conduct, what is the primary overarching duty of an actuary?

A.To act honestly, with integrity and competence, fulfilling the profession's responsibility to the public and upholding the reputation of the actuarial profession

B.To maximize shareholder value and policyholder dividends for the employing organization

C.To minimize the employer's regulatory capital requirement wherever the standards allow a choice

D.To give the client's stated commercial objective priority when it conflicts with the actuary's own judgment

Explanation: Rule 1 states that a member shall act honestly, with integrity and competence, and in a manner to fulfil the profession's responsibility to the public and to uphold the reputation of the actuarial profession. Annotation 1-1 adds that the member shall perform professional services with skill and care, and Annotation 1-2 that the member must not be associated with anything the member knows or should know is false or misleading. The duty to the public sits above the interests of the client or employer.

2According to CIA Rule 2 (Qualification Standards), under what condition may an actuary undertake a professional assignment in Canada?

A.Only when the member is qualified to do so and meets the applicable professional continuing qualification standards

B.Whenever the member's supervisor approves the assignment, regardless of the member's own background

C.Whenever the member holds any recognized actuarial designation, since designations are not practice-specific

D.Whenever the member delegates the technical modelling to a colleague who is qualified in that area

Explanation: Rule 2 reads: 'A member shall perform professional services only when the member is qualified to do so and meets applicable professional continuing qualification standards.' Annotation 2-1 makes it the member's own responsibility to observe the continuing qualification standards promulgated for the jurisdiction where the services are rendered and to stay current with changes to them; Annotation 2-2 points to the CIA standards defined in Bylaw 2.25.

3Which independent body is responsible for establishing and promulgating the Standards of Practice applicable to actuaries practicing in Canada?

A.The Actuarial Standards Board (ASB) of Canada

B.The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI)

C.The Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators (CCIR)

D.The International Actuarial Association (IAA)

Explanation: In Canada, the Actuarial Standards Board (ASB) is an independent body that adopts and promulgates Standards of Practice for the actuarial profession in Canada, covering pensions, insurance, and general actuarial practice.

4Under Part 1000 of the CIA General Standards of Practice, how is 'materiality' determined in the context of an actuarial assignment?

A.An omission, understatement or overstatement is material if the actuary expects it to affect the user's decision-making or the user's reasonable expectations

B.Materiality is whatever threshold the external auditor sets for the financial statements, which the actuary then adopts

C.Materiality is a fixed percentage of the liability being valued, prescribed so that different actuaries reach the same answer

D.Materiality is determined after the work is complete, by measuring the difference between the actuary's estimate and the eventual experience

Explanation: Materiality in the CIA standards is defined from the user's perspective: an omission, understatement or overstatement is material if the actuary expects it to affect the user's decision-making or the user's reasonable expectations. That makes it a matter of professional judgment shaped by the purpose of the work and who will rely on it, so the same dollar amount can be material in one assignment and immaterial in another.

5A CIA member becomes aware of an apparent material noncompliance with the Rules or the standards of practice by another member. Which rule governs the response, and what does it require?

A.Rule 13 — attempt to discuss the situation with the other member and resolve it, and failing discussion and resolution, report the apparent noncompliance to the Professional Conduct Board

B.Rule 11 — disclose the apparent noncompliance to the CIA at the member's next annual membership renewal

C.Rule 8 — raise the matter with the other member as a matter of courtesy, with no obligation to report it further

D.Rule 3 — restate the affected work in compliance with the standards of practice and take no further action

Explanation: Rule 13 is one of the Collateral Obligations rules and covers apparent material noncompliance with the Rules or the standards of practice. It requires the member to attempt to discuss the situation with the other member and resolve it; in the absence of such discussion and resolution, the member shall report the apparent noncompliance to the Professional Conduct Board. Rule 13 carves out reporting that would be contrary to law and, while the member is acting in an adversarial environment, for the duration of that environment.

6Under the CIA General Standards of Practice (Part 1000), what standard must actuarial documentation and work files satisfy?

A.Another qualified actuary must be able to understand the work and evaluate whether the results and opinions are reasonable

B.The actuary who did the work must be able to reconstruct it, since the actuary is the person accountable for the conclusions

C.The documentation must be detailed enough for a non-actuarial reviewer such as an auditor to reproduce the calculations unaided

D.The final report itself is sufficient documentation, because it already sets out the methods, assumptions and results relied on

Explanation: The standard is framed around another qualified actuary, not the author. Documentation must be sufficient for a different actuary of appropriate qualification to understand the data, assumptions, methods and calculations and to judge whether the results and opinions are reasonable. That test is what makes peer review, succession and after-the-fact scrutiny possible, and it is closely tied to the ACIA module material on the importance of checking work and considering peer review.

7A manufacturer faces a low-frequency, high-severity risk of fire destroying a warehouse. It buys property insurance that responds to losses above a $250,000 CAD per-event retention. In risk-management terms, how is this arrangement best described?

A.Partial risk transfer — the layer above the retention is ceded to the insurer while the first $250,000 CAD of each loss is retained

B.Full risk transfer, because the existence of an insurance contract moves the entire exposure to the insurer

C.Risk avoidance, because insuring the warehouse removes the possibility of a fire loss affecting the manufacturer

D.Risk reduction, because the retention lowers the probability that a fire will occur

Explanation: Risk management runs through identification, quantification and mitigation, and mitigation itself splits into avoidance, reduction, retention and transfer. Insurance is a transfer mechanism, but a retention makes the transfer partial: the manufacturer keeps losses up to $250,000 CAD per event and cedes the excess layer. The same retained-versus-ceded split underlies hedging, reinsurance and specialized markets such as catastrophe bonds.

8Under CIA Rule 5 (Conflict of Interest), an actuary may only provide professional services where an actual or potential conflict of interest exists if which condition is met?

A.All three of: the member's ability to act fairly is unimpaired, there has been full and timely disclosure of the conflict to all known present and prospective direct users, and all of those direct users have expressly agreed to the member performing the services

B.The member's ability to act fairly is unimpaired, which alone makes disclosure of the conflict unnecessary

C.The conflict has been disclosed in full and in time for each direct user to make an informed decision, whether or not those users then agree to the member acting

D.The member discloses the conflict to the direct user who is paying the fee and obtains that user's agreement

Explanation: Rule 5 bars a member from performing professional services involving an actual or potential conflict of interest unless all three conditions are met: (a) the member's ability to act fairly is unimpaired, (b) there has been full and timely disclosure of the conflict to all known present and prospective direct users, and (c) all of those direct users have expressly agreed to the member performing the services. Annotation 5-1 defines full and timely disclosure as covering all material facts about the conflict, given early enough for an informed and independent decision, and says it should be in writing.

9When actuaries analyse climate change as an emerging risk, what is the essential distinction between physical risk and transition risk?

A.Physical risk arises from the hazards themselves — acute events such as floods and wildfires and chronic shifts such as sea-level rise — while transition risk arises from the move to a lower-carbon economy through policy, technology, market and reputational change

B.Physical risk affects property and casualty insurers while transition risk affects only life insurers and pension plans

C.Physical risk is measurable from historical experience while transition risk is by definition unquantifiable and therefore excluded from actuarial models

D.Physical risk describes damage to the insurer's own premises while transition risk describes changes in its reinsurance programme

Explanation: The standard emerging-risk framing splits climate exposure in two. Physical risk is the direct effect of the hazard: acute events such as flood, wildfire and severe convective storm, and chronic trends such as sea-level rise, heat and drought. Transition risk is the effect of moving to a lower-carbon economy — carbon pricing and other policy change, technology displacement, shifting consumer and investor preferences, and litigation or reputational consequences. The two often move in opposite directions, which is why a single climate scenario is rarely enough.

10Within a financial system, what is the defining economic function performed by a financial intermediary such as a life insurer, bank or pension fund?

A.Transforming the size, maturity, liquidity and risk characteristics of claims between surplus and deficit units, so that savers and users of capital need not match each other directly

B.Setting the level of interest rates in the economy, which the central bank then implements through the money supply

C.Eliminating risk from the financial system by pooling enough independent exposures that aggregate outcomes become certain

D.Guaranteeing that every saver receives a positive real return, which is the condition regulators impose in exchange for a licence

Explanation: Intermediaries sit between surplus units (savers) and deficit units (borrowers and firms) and perform transformation: size transformation aggregates many small deposits or premiums into large loans or investments; maturity transformation funds long assets with shorter liabilities; liquidity transformation offers redeemable claims against illiquid assets; and risk transformation pools and diversifies exposures. Understanding which transformation an institution performs is what makes its risk profile — and the actuarial work it needs — predictable.

About the ACIA Capstone Exam

The ACIA Capstone Exam is the CIA's summative assessment for the Associate of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries designation. It is an open-book, online, proctored exam of six hours across two days — a four-hour mandatory common section and a two-hour specialized long-term or short-term section — in which candidates analyse a problem in Excel and R and submit written responses. Our free practice questions are an English-language multiple-choice study aid built from the official CIA education syllabus; they are not an official CIA product and do not simulate the exam's written-response format.

Assessment

Part 1: mandatory common section, four hours, day 1. Part 2: specialized section, two hours, day 2 — Part 2a long-term or Part 2b short-term, selected at registration. Delivered online through the CIA learning management system with secure proctoring; Microsoft Excel and RStudio required.

Time Limit

6 hours in total — 4 hours (common) on day 1 and 2 hours (specialized) on day 2

Passing Score

Pass/fail — no scaled score is published; graded by the CIA on technical accuracy and communication quality

Exam Fee

$1,400 CAD (spring 2026) / $1,430 CAD (fall 2026), plus applicable taxes (Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) / Institut canadien des actuaires (ICA))

ACIA Capstone Exam Content Outline

4 of 6 exam hours

Part 1 — Common section

A3.9–A3.13 derivatives and option pricing; A4.1–A4.4 long-term coverages, survival models, present-value random variables and premiums; A4.7–A4.14 severity, frequency and aggregate models, coverage modifications, risk measures, model selection, credibility and reinsurance; A5 predictive analytics except A5.3–A5.5.

2 of 6 exam hours (choose one)

Part 2a — Specialized long-term

A4.5 long-term insurance reserves and profit measures, and A4.6 pension plans and retirement benefits, including projected and traditional unit credit cost methods and early-retirement reduction factors.

2 of 6 exam hours (choose one)

Part 2b — Specialized short-term

A4.15 pricing and reserving for short-term coverages — rating factors and exposure, experience rating, chain ladder, average cost per claim and Bornhuetter–Ferguson, pure premium and loss ratio methods — plus A5.3–A5.4 extended linear and linear mixed models.

Not published as a percentage

ACIA module knowledge (A–E)

Actuarial communications and audiences; the actuarial environment, financial systems, external forces, risk management and transfer, emerging risks and regulation; the actuarial control cycle, decision-making, ethics and professionalism; and predictive analytics problem definition, data governance, model validation and visualization.

Assumed knowledge

Prerequisite background

A1 probability, A2 financial mathematics and A3.1–A3.8 business, economics and finance, assumed from a CIA-accredited degree or recognized associate-level education rather than examined as separate sections.

How to Pass the ACIA Capstone Exam

What You Need to Know

Passing score: Pass/fail — no scaled score is published; graded by the CIA on technical accuracy and communication quality
Assessment: Part 1: mandatory common section, four hours, day 1. Part 2: specialized section, two hours, day 2 — Part 2a long-term or Part 2b short-term, selected at registration. Delivered online through the CIA learning management system with secure proctoring; Microsoft Excel and RStudio required.
Time limit: 6 hours in total — 4 hours (common) on day 1 and 2 hours (specialized) on day 2
Exam fee: $1,400 CAD (spring 2026) / $1,430 CAD (fall 2026), plus applicable taxes

Keys to Passing

Work through all 100 available questions
Review every answer and explanation
Track weak areas and revisit them
Use our AI tutor for tough concepts

ACIA Capstone Study Tips from Top Performers

1Treat the common section as the centre of gravity: it is four of the six exam hours and explicitly covers derivatives and option pricing (A3.9–A3.13), long-term actuarial mathematics (A4.1–A4.4), loss models and credibility (A4.7–A4.14) and predictive analytics.

2Choose your specialized section early. Long-term (2a) adds reserves and pension valuation; short-term (2b) adds short-term pricing and reserving plus extended linear and linear mixed models — the reading lists diverge sharply.

3Practise in the actual tools. The exam requires Microsoft Excel and RStudio, and the CIA says it rewards documented, commented code, so rehearse building and annotating a model under time pressure rather than only reading theory.

4Rehearse the deliverables, not just the mathematics. Half of the published grading principles concern communication: writing an executive summary, email or report excerpt that addresses the mandate for a specific audience.

5Open book does not mean light. Build an indexed reference set — formula sheets, R snippets, worked templates — because six hours is not enough time to look things up from scratch.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the ACIA Capstone Exam?

It is the Canadian Institute of Actuaries' summative assessment for the Associate of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (ACIA) designation. The CIA describes its goal as preparing participants for entry-level actuarial roles by asking them to integrate actuarial concepts and communicate results, building on a CIA-accredited degree and the ACIA modules.

What is the format and duration of the ACIA Capstone Exam?

It is an open-book exam of six hours split across two days: a four-hour mandatory common section on day 1 and a two-hour specialized section on day 2, where candidates choose the long-term or short-term option at registration. It is delivered online through the CIA learning management system with secure proctoring, and candidates need Microsoft Excel and RStudio. There is no published question count — candidates write responses to a small number of assignments.

Is the ACIA Capstone Exam a multiple-choice exam, and what language is it offered in?

No. The official exam is written-response: candidates analyse a problem and submit written deliverables such as executive summaries, emails, report excerpts, worksheets and commented code. The CIA offers it bilingually, in English and French. Our 100 practice questions are an English-language multiple-choice study aid drawn from the official CIA education syllabus — they help you rehearse the underlying knowledge, but they are not an official CIA product and do not simulate the written-response format.

How much does the ACIA Capstone Exam cost?

The CIA fee schedule last updated April 1, 2026 lists $1,400 CAD for the spring 2026 sitting and $1,430 CAD for fall 2026, plus applicable taxes. Cancelling a Capstone registration carries a $200 CAD administrative fee, and an examination appeal costs a non-refundable $300 CAD.

What do I need to complete before sitting the ACIA Capstone Exam?

You must be an active CIA Student or Candidate member and hold a CIA-accredited actuarial science degree including the mandatory courses (Pathway 1), or a designation from an IAA member organization not recognized by the CIA (Pathway 2). ACIA Module 1 and Module 2 supply knowledge the exam assumes. The CIA Professionalism Workshop is a separate ACIA requirement with no exemptions.

How is the ACIA Capstone Exam graded and when are results released?

The CIA evaluates the overall quality of the technical work — the accuracy of methods, code, formulas and results, and the relevance and coherence of the analyses — together with the overall quality of communication to the targeted audience. Results are typically released within 12 weeks of the exam.

When is the ACIA Capstone Exam offered?

Twice a year, in spring and fall. The CIA has published fall 2026 dates of September 22 (common) and September 24 (specialized), and 2027 dates of March 22 and 24 and September 21 and 23.