Hopefully, everyone has seen the CAS Admissions Transformation Plan (ATP), which details CAS plans for the future of admissions. If not, please check out casact.org/atp. The ATP has a wealth of details and milestones on what changes you can expect in the next few years as CAS Admissions evolves, but there’s also a lot of words in there that have specific meanings to the CAS. In our ongoing series, we will be highlighting a few terms each issue to make sure Future Fellows are as informed as possible about what the ATP really means.

Domains — Principal areas of responsibility that actuaries perform.

Tasks — What a person performs to be successful within a domain.

Criticality — One of the areas that is considered when determining the weight of a topic covered on an exam. Subject matter experts (SMEs) are asked to rate domains and tasks as to the degree to which the inability to understand and perform them would cause harm (physical, emotional, financial) to the people with whom actuaries work.

Frequency — One of the areas that is considered when determining the weight of a topic covered on an exam. SMEs are asked to rate how often actuaries work within a domain or perform a task.