These PAST CAS essay question tests are completely self-graded due to the amount of subjectivity in evaluating answers.  However, candidates are encouraged to take these tests for three key reasons:

First, essay-based questions represent a significant percentage of the questions appearing on the actual CAS exams. This is particularly true for CAS Exam 7. 

Secondly, CAS candidates typically are not adept at answering essay based questions.  Lower level CAS/SOA exams do not provide candidates with an opportunity to demonstrate their skill set at answering essay questions 

Finally,  candidates taking these essay based exams have the ability to compare for themselves their answers to our model solutions and to the CAS model solutions. 

This self comparison of solutions to essay type questions allows candidates to determine to what degree their response would warrant full credit. 

Otherwise, how would a candidate know how well they would perform when answering essay based questions?