The test time for CAS Exams 8 and 9 has been extended from three hours to four hours on a permanent basis. The change was recently approved by the CAS Executive Council (EC). In approving the change, the EC agreed that increasing the time available to sit for these exams would allow candidates to better demonstrate their mastery of the learning objectives. The increase in test time does not reflect an increase of material or an expansion of the exams – there are no substantive planned changes to the syllabus for either Exams 8 or 9. The EC’s decision to increase the test time was made specifically to allow candidates more time to complete these exams in light of the anticipated increase in the percent of test items at higher cognitive levels. The EC’s decision endorsed the position of the CAS Education Policy Committee and Syllabus Committee, which both voted to recommend that Exams 8 and 9 have test times of four hours.

Access of Web sites on smart phones, tablets, and other mobile devices is exploding. Consider this:

• As of February 2012, nearly half (46%) of American adults are smartphone owners, an increase of 11 percentage points over the 35% of Americans who owned a smartphone in May 2011 (Pew Internet).
  
• The number of iPad users in the United States will rise by over 90% in 2012 (eMarketer).
  
• In the United States, 25% of Internet users only use their mobile device to access the Web (mobithinking.com).
  
• At the end of 2011, there were 6 billion mobile subscriptions, which is equivalent to 87% of the world population (The International Telecommunication Union).