CIMA exam strategy

E2 Brutus?

Yes, I'm shaky. And hoping I'll blossom like a wildflower during the exam, blazing guns and hitting the target without any shooting practice, not even the specimen paper, and a good part of revision process still underway with only four hours till I have to make the march to the exam hall.

But from all I've read so far, I need to remember:

- to take it as it comes:

It's not all about the black and white I've had to drink in the last few (I mean xerox powder). As long as I'm making commercial sense and can draw on some of the material I've read, I can probably score, so I shouldn't be intimidated by a what's-that how's-that. Just give the man some good advice that someone like a boss or a client or such would be able to really use in practical life. That is the essence of CIMA exams and that should work out just fine.

In fact, like formalized strategy formulation, I don't want to let the syllabus put me in a box. I'm sure I got a decent percentage in E1 because I wasn't afraid to bring in some good business sense to my answers, regardless of whether it was in the syllabus.

For E3 (or E2 revisit in case I don't make it this time), I need to keep a secondary-grade science-book scrap book for each part of the syllabus (with one side of the book blank for diagrams and such), in which I can write in neat handwriting and sketch pretty charts and make it fun and structured too, with cutouts and foldouts and pullouts and all that, with a page dedicated to each component and plenty of interactive stuff for revision, finishing off with an outline summary for final revision. A separate workbook with fill-in-the's and draw-the's and q&as with some serious work and rework done on them would truly compact this information.

This kind of preparation would have made E2 a breeze and a no-stress paper.

But coming back to the present, I need to finish revision, read through the specimen paper, check some business articles and E2 articles on the website including exam tips. And going by my current rate of learning, I need to move fast.

Two tablespoons of P2 before bedtime each night...

Scoring possibly 30% on the specimen paper is not good. But it could have been worse, since I didn't really think it would be so tough.

Those guys weren't kidding when they said everything will be tested, and anything too, all the way from C01 to P1 and P2 as well. Now you don't just get by making calculations, you need to know the deeper logic, rationale and mathematical, logarithmic inner workings of all the concepts you've ever come across by now.

You need stamina to go through the whole wringing process but the good part is that if you're some kind of management accounting guru by now you can simply:

1) quickly and comprehensively grasp the specific requirements of each question

2) analyze the scenario sharply and observantly, with a reasonable depth of understanding

3) use your vast management accounting and commercial sense to recognize what the problem is and what the appropriate solution is

4) rattle off relevant principles, theory and argumentation to supplement your answers

5) work mechanically at doing all those workings you can do in your sleep by now

The best way to have prepared for P2 would probably have been to eat, sleep and drink P2 at least four months previously and have had enough batting practice, and diligently + regularly too, to score a century, to be sure to at least get half way.

Since that is not the case, I can depend on hope and some hard work.

Exam Paper strategy for P2:

1. Move fast, be highly conscious of time-ups

2. Make sure you read everything in 20 minutes, then go on to the closer examination, starting with the most technical questions worth the most marks

3. Understand your role in each question and what you need to do

4. Don't be worried if you can't remember the jargon, use sound commercial reasoning at every step and keep moving

5. Know the following topics inside out with plenty practice:

- fundamental principles such as relevant costs and sharp analytical skills in ratio analysis, getting down to business immediately recognizing problems and likely explanations

- standard costing, ABC and marginal costing/ absorption costing like the back of your hand

- optimization, learning curves, major pricing strategies with their applicability in the product life cycle and everything to know about variances as easily calculated as taking a deep breath

- transfer pricing methods, calculation, together with divisional performance measures, budgeting behavior and common problems and likely solutions any time of the day

- knowledge of all concepts and linkages with enough argumentation to support a discussion within 2 seconds of being asked

One area of consolation is that once you have somehow entered the 'zone', P2 is not much different from that English language test you took earlier: it's basically a test of your comprehension of detailed complicated information you need to provide an analytical answer for - reading sharply and being poignant in your answers.

Questions are very rarely straight forward so care should be taken to read carefully, absorb the material and apply yourself brilliantly.

I'm going to need a whole of praying to get through this one too. As luck has it, the paper is on Eid Gadir and I don't think I can manage to fast on the day of the exam and be open grilled on a spit at the same time.

F2 Last Chance Preparation

As dusk approaches and the last day of (Bohra) Eid-ul-adha disappears into the sunset, I am finally getting set to begin my final preparation for P2 and E2 after almost a four-day stretch of preparing for my weakest paper (F2).

Having taken a look over the May 2010 paper (another touch-and-go proposition), there is not much change in the existing strategy, though the pressing need for additional preparation continues to haunt me.

The final preparation list is as follows, which will probably take place once I have given in the P2 paper on the final eve and day-time hours before the paper, hopefully armed with the revision kit and some clarified concepts:

For the main bulk of the paper:

1. Understand clearly the requirements for subsidiaries, associates and joint ventures: when to consolidate fully/ partially and use equity accounting for consolidation of financial statements including SOCI, CSCIE, CSOFP and CCFS with crystal clear concepts relating to extent of ownership based on ownership of equity and entitled share of income between parent and NCI, as well as Comprehensive Income

2. Be particularly comfortable with goodwill calculation, fair value adjustments, intra-group trading and unrealized profit adjustments, sale of asset with corresponding effect on income statement, assets/ liabilities, Retained Earnings and NCI, and elimination of internal dividends and other transactions. The examiner's guide to passing F2 mentions 'the big three - goodwill, non-controlling interest and group retained earnings'.

3. Expect correction of entries relating to acquisition and disposal of investments such as disposal of subsidiary and accounting for retained investment as associate (e.g. May 2010 Part B Q6). Understand also the terms AFS, HFT and their implications on the SOFP

4. Be clear on how to use accounting ratios to critically evaluate business performance in terms of profitability (margins, their relations with each other and interpretation in context of horizontal/vertical comparisons), working capital management (turnover, changes over time), leverage (debt to equity ratios, interest cover).

Ascertain fundamentals of the business such as cash position, effective interest rates of financing and extent of using debt to equity, asset values etc. and make adjustments in the figures used for ratio analyses to capture the reality of the business. Reporting style using appropriate narrative and mentioning further opportunities for investigation should flow nicely. The examiner's guide mentions a key 'skill being tested is your ability to identify the big issues and select the ratios relevant to those issues' and always remember to use the word 'because':

"If your sentences include the word ‘because’, it means you must be identifying the issue or the solution and explaining why it is an issue or solution. That is what’s going to earn you marks."

Also, for potential lifesaving:

1. Understand how sub-subsidiaries are accounted for and piecemeal acquisitions (understanding the basic concept may be pivotal to a not-so-difficult 10 mark question or even a long answer question)

2. Understand the limitation of analysis of financial statements, defects in conventional accounting, especially with rising price levels, international differences and across markets, using different accounting policies etc.

3. Expect a question relating to foreign subsidiaries and the application of exchange rates (given that the specimen paper and May 2010 seem to 'forget' this part of the syllabus, so do anticipate the bombshell)

2. Be confident in EPS calculations including comparative, effect of dilution and their effect on investor confidence

4. Pay close attention to the 10% part of the syllabus for easy scoring theoretical questions: substance over form with examples, latest developments regarding IFRS convergence with US GAAP (mentioning shift of approach, Norwalk agreement, Roadmap, short and long term projects, dropping of recon and the most recent developments such as completion of first phase of conceptual framework and examples of technical areas where convergence was acheived), environmental and social reporting, voluntary disclosures and managerial reviews, and importantly, capital maintenance concepts

5. Form a basic understanding of share based payments and pension plans

6. While I have decidedly ignored the Financial Instruments part of the syllabus, basic knowledge of accounting entries with a feel for the substance over form should help

So that's a lot of work cut out for the 20 hours or so between exams (minus, say, two hours for commuting and five to six hours for resting and answering urgent calls from nature, leaving me with two or three 3-hour sessions or one or two long 4-hour sessions at best) in my last chance at preparing to clear the F2.

Please keep in mind that anyone who wants to get a high score on F2 should NOT use this advice. ALL the coverage mentioned above can help me scrape through to inch a mark or two past the 50 per cent mark.

There's also an online FOC session for F2 preparation intimated by email this Sunday 5:30 to 7 pm. I missed the email two days ago which required a response by the next day, so I'm a day late in responding. But with the media chosen as internet and preparation for the other exams starting so late, it may or may not be feasible anyway. In case it is, I don't want to miss it.

Learn to fly

I decided to keep this post separate from the earlier one to avoid cluttering ideas.

Having attempted the F2 specimen paper, here are my learnings from the simulation:

F2 Exam Strategy

Using 20 minutes effectively:

1) Spend two minutes briefly taking a look at each question and determine its main requirements, underlining key words (please keep the highlight for when attempting to make sure that ALL the given facts, including irrelevant ones, are NOT highlighted)

2) Re-read through the further analyze requirements, correcting any earlier misconceptions, as if you are just ready plunge in to the answering - 5 minutes for part A, or up to 1 minute to fully appreciate the main requirements of part A questions, and up to a max of 2-3 minutes each to absorb the critical details of requirements for each question in part B that will determine the subject areas to elaborate or avoid in answering.

3) Use any remaining time to jot down keywords to elaborate on for theory questions, beginning with the questions with the greatest marks, and/ or to mark accounting entries next to the figure that needs adjustment in the question paper.

One night stands vs. long-term relationships

Unfortunately, not everyone has the luxury of time.

Sometimes, time is spent planning and procrastinating as well, and then every hour is worth approximately an average of 40 times as much just before an examination.

The 40 times calculation is obviously a result of my now-more-analytical mindset, after going through the physics of cost accounting examinations.

You see, it took me an average of 6 to 8 hours for a single chapter at the beginning of my study schedule – this soon became an average of 6 to 8 chapters in a single hour by the end of it.

And that’s just the theory part of it. Not practicing is a recipe for disaster – practice is usually the main ingredient of a successful study program, which is why there was a lot of time spent improvising during the examination.

Maybe I should wait till mid-July when the results are out to blog about it, but I need to note some important lessons from the three nights and days of the exam - specifically, the CIMA Operational Level papers: E1 Enterprise Operations, P1 Performance Operations and F1 Financial Operations on May 26-28, 2010.


E1 Commentary: 

I played a gamble by putting off 50% of the studies the day before the examination as I needed to spend more time on the more technical subjects that didn’t necessarily have more than one answer or would be unlikely to attempt without a strong conceptual understanding.

Apparently the gamble paid off as I finished my reading in time, and with a few hours sleep to freshen up, though somewhere in the middle I had lost hope that I would finish.

What probably saved me that I was woken up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep. I went back and took a closer look at the specimen paper and revised the syllabus enough to be able to answer questions from all across the syllabus with some confidence.

I was able to write as much as possible for most of the questions without falling too short of time, and even managed an urgent call of nature during the exam. This put me slightly at ease for the next paper – though I was to find out that there was to be no easiness till it was over.

E1 Lesson learned: 

1. Revision is very important.
2. An analytical understanding of the components of topics should be taken into the exam, and mind maps of essentials should be memorized, e.g. Porter’s theories and how they can be applied to different situations.

The essentials are quite intuitively identified and usually relate to more relevant topics circulating in CIMA magazines, business columns such as the Economist etc. This helped me talk confidently about most of the topics, though some topics like recent developments in supply chain management were slightly outside the circumference of my preparations.

The paper also seemed to have a central ‘theme’ that was distinctly more prevalent than other topics – in this case it was Information Technology (a close second might be HR). Lucky for me, the 50% remaining syllabus that I covered the day before and was fresh in my mind was IT and HR!


P1 Commentary:

Somewhat baked then left on the window sill to cool, I decided that I just needed to relax for P1. I had covered the syllabus in my study schedule and just needed some revision. So I made a formula sheet and took another look at the covered material, deciding that should suffice for my performance management toolkit. However, I was still a little nervous and continued revising until just before walking into the exam hall, which kind of screwed me.

Faced with a difficult question paper with plenty of material to make you itch your scalp and overload your circuits, there were two types of questions: the juicy ones and the sour bitter ones. Having come late(r than I should have) into the hall, I forgot about time management and took too much time on the smiley faces I had marked on the question paper, while the sad faces looked even sadder as time was running out like a leaking fuel tank.

Unfortunately, I attempted only 70 marks of the question paper (mostly due to shortage of time, rather than inability to solve). My lack of practice was a major reason - even with proper time management I would have been unable to attempt 10 to 20 marks as I was out of touch with those areas.

P1 lessons learned:

1. Always allow at least 15 minutes before the paper to de-stress before the exam. With the examination starting at 9:20, and 10 minutes to fill out candidate information before that, you should aim to enter the hall by 8:50 to find your desk, settle down comfortably and invoke some prayer to start on the right note.

2. A clear exam strategy beforehand is very important.

In the present exam format, the 20 marks for multiple choice questions in Section A should take not more than 10 minutes or so (with a head start in the 20 minutes reading time). Section B, with six five-mark questions for 30 marks should be completed within the hour, which amounts to about 8 minutes per answer. All the rush is so that you have a whole hour dedicated to each of the 25-mark Section C answers, which need cool, methodical work trough to attempt successfully. Try not to go over the time limit and instead make an attempt to solve the paper completely to increase the number of marks you can possibly earn.

3. The 20 minutes reading time makes it much easier to breathe during the exam and rev up your engines. I took up all of my reading time in Section A and B, assuming that an hour was good to include reading for Section C answers, but a look over the requirements would probably have been beneficial.

A good strategy is probably to quickly start on the MCQs, marking off answers or identifying the approach necessary to solve when you come back after the reading time. A good thorough reading of Section B questions with a definite understanding of requirements is very lucrative in easily progressing through the questions when you come back.

Finally, a skim through of Section C questions and careful evaluation of requirements in the last 5 minutes of reading time may help build up to these long and involved answers.

Underlining/ highlighting action verbs and key points definitely helped in digesting the information presented. Never take more than the allotted time or it will be impossible to complete the paper.


F1 Commentary:

Taking heed from my experience in P1, I knew I had to balance full coverage of the syllabus with being relaxed during the exam. I decided to throw my worries about being well-rested and fresh during the paper out the window, and spend the remaining hours up to the exam in revision (with only powernaps to keep me alive). I even remember my right hand having woken up before the rest of my body parts and my left arm being the last to come out of the sleep paralysis in one part of the night.

I covered most of the syllabus, and had started the revision program by solving the specimen paper. This paid of richly as Section C was very similar to that of the specimen, and a good part of the paper was theory, so about the only question I couldn’t attempt was the long-term contracts question for five marks. F1 was the best paper, though it was expected to be the worst. Of course, I had no problem staying awake during the paper, since a mixture of hopefulness and desperation kept me wide awake.

Thank God it wasn’t helplessness – then I would have surely fallen asleep.

I used good planning and strategy during the exam, learning from the P1 fiasco. My family’s prayers were with me that day.

F1 Lessons learned:

Remember this is a long-term relationship you’re entering into. To make sure you impress, you need enough practice to know the right moves – the night of the big day should be spent remembering all the good times rather than worrying about doing it right the first time.

Though you can never be sure if that’s really good advice.


CIMAstudy.com is a God-send. It would have been so much dryer studying kilos of photocopied text with a big red stripe down the middle of each page. CIMAstudy.com is interactive and incorporates a good amount of learning psychology for a better learning ability. Not to mention a big discount with a little bit of internet search was available on http://www.iib.com.ua

The results will be the real look in the mirror, though. For now I need to focus where it’s needed. Hopefully, in the next exam I can start my studies early enough so that I don’t need to traumatize myself during the exams.


God bless my family for all their patience. Thank you, Lord for your mercy.


For now, I need to:

1. Gear up for the next exam digest (have information regarding my options ready)
2. Make sure I start studying early and get plenty of practice