The SOA's Sample Questions and Solutions set for ALTAM has 56 written-answer items (April 2025 version), and FreeFellow has all 56 free in a simulator. You work each sub-part, type your answer, then compare it with the SOA reference solution with the rubric weights showing. There are also 899 original practice questions for drilling the concepts.
ALTAM (Advanced Long-Term Actuarial Mathematics) is a written-answer exam. You don't bubble a letter. You derive reserves and probabilities, justify the method and write the result in a form a grader scores against a point-weighted rubric, so the math only gets you part of the way.
Start practicing the 56 ALTAM sample items
What the 56 items cover
The set spans all seven syllabus topics, with 234 graded sub-parts in total:
Scroll horizontally to view all columns.
| Topic area | Items | What you write |
|---|---|---|
| Survival Models for Contingent Cash Flows | 9 | Multi-state probabilities, Kolmogorov forward equations, transition-intensity work |
| Premium and Policy Valuation | 9 | Gross premiums, reserves, modified reserves, expense recognition |
| Joint Life Insurance and Annuities | 9 | Joint-life and last-survivor functions, reversionary annuities, dependent lifetimes |
| Profit Analysis | 10 | Profit vectors, profit signatures, NPV and IRR of product cash flows |
| Pension Plans and Retirement Benefits | 12 | DB accrued benefits, actuarial liabilities, normal cost under accrual methods |
| Universal Life Insurance | 5 | Account-value rollforwards, corridor requirements, secondary guarantees |
| Embedded Options | 2 | GMxB-style guarantees and option-cost reasoning in life products |
Pension and profit testing carry the most weight in the set, which matches where candidates say the exam puts its hardest multi-part items.
On a multiple-choice exam, a near miss scores zero. On ALTAM, a sub-part has points for the setup, the intermediate values and the conclusion stated in the right form. Practice without rubrics and you'll lose points you never knew were there: an unlabeled reserve, a probability without its time index, a method used correctly but never named. The simulator shows the weights for each sub-part, so write the answer, then read the reference solution the way a grader would.
Pairing the samples with concept drilling
Fifty-six items is a training set for format and for combining topics, not for learning the material the first time. Here's the order I'd use:
- Learn and drill by topic with the 899 free original multiple-choice questions, which cover the same seven topics with step-by-step solutions.
- Move to the simulator once a topic holds up in multiple-choice drilling, and write full answers against the rubric.
- Finish with mixed, timed items, since the exam mixes topics inside single questions the way the sample set does.
The FAM samples lead into ALTAM, the ASTAM samples cover the short-term sibling, and the free actuarial prep roundup maps the whole path.