CIMA case study exams checklist - Key things to know

CIMA case study exams checklist - Key things to know 

              


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 I'm going to talk to about all the things you need to do in order to pass the exam there's a whole sets of things it's like your checklist of items you can use that checklist in various ways you can use it to make sure you've covered all the important steps that it takes as part of your own self revision if you're preparing alone if you're going on a course you can make sure that the course you're about to buy has got all these key elements as part of it because it's what makes a great course as to whether they've got these things okay and I hope your you'll allow me this as well as what I'm gonna do is explain all these things to you and also then say well this is how we deal with it .

In our course as part of you know consideration of whether that might be something that is is right for you and of course we have our course which has got all these elements but what we also do is you can also buy all the things I'm about to describe individually you could just buy certain elements of it particular if you're on a tight budget but ideally what you're going to do is one way or the other through whatever means you're going to cover all of these things on the checklist I'm about to give you as part of your studies.

 Let's start with exam technique then so as part of this video series I've been showing you the exam technique that I use to help people to pass the exams what I learned when I got my markup from what was it 45 to 69 on the business strategy exam that's what I've been teaching ever since has made an enormous difference to people passing the exam so the first thing is is make sure you know what the exam technique leak is on our course I do a whole set of videos hours of videos and we've got a study text that gives exercises and gives a lot more detail now I've started us off in this video series here with what it takes as an technique-wise lots of great things to apply but I've got hours of that stuff showing you and giving exercises helping you on exam technique and that is as important as anything else if not the most important thing so.

 what's the next thing you need to do you need to analyze the case study in detail as you got through the levels it becomes more important as this is really really important that you know the case study you know the industry that is operating it within you are because that strategic you are acting like a director but you are going to advise the company on the businesses strategy and so you need to know the industry to say well this is what's happening out there in the industry and therefore this is what it means for us you need to understand what industry competitors are doing so you can go our Boeing if it was Airlines Boeing of just on this we should be following suit well they've done it but they failed we better not do that either you need to really understand the strategic you know the case study strategic all the e3 strategy models you need to understand those because that's what makes your answer really good strategy of management you still need to know it quite well operational you need to know reasonably well the operational exam is more theoretically based with some context so the relate always needs to be there.

You've relate as much as you can but you relate to the case study less operational because there's more Theory in there by the time you get to strategic you have to really know everything so it's still very useful operational another thing that's very useful from industry analysis is being able to use real-life industry examples they get credit or all levels even more useful a strategic quite useful at management but if you can use them operation it will get you credit if there's something related to your your area it's a little bit harder because it's more operational as lower level it's you probably won't have done all the detailed research at that level but still all levels knowing the industry and really knowing the case study absolutely vital ok so you can do your own research for the industry you can do your own analysis of the case study if you were going to use our material we have a strategic analysis where we understand this strategy of all of the companies we have an industry analysis hundred page analysis of the industry with supporting videos.

 I should say the strategic analysis has got supporting videos as well that helps you understand the industry and goes through specific industry examples to specific ones you can use so that we're tailoring them to what we thinks likely to be useful in the exam we do our top ten industry list I top 10 most likely issues list so we use our knowledge of the previous cases and look at that case to go okay first you could be pretty accurate from the case to see what is the exam and they're getting either putting Clues in basically all the way through I'm telling you this because I'm going to write a question on that and I'm telling you this because I'm going to write a question on this okay so we go through using that knowledge to say okay these are the most likely questions and normally that's pretty accurate those predictions across the five variants are ten top ten issues most of them come up somewhere when one of those variants because you can do it yourself because you can go through the case then you can go why are they telling me that okay that's probably because that's going to be a question and you can do that he'll stop it helps when you've seen lots and lots of course so come up with that the long short of it is you need to understand the case study we've got about six seven hours of video on the case study with masses of support hundreds of pages of supporting documents for you analyzing that case study next thing you need to be good at probably the most important thing is practicing doing exams it's really actually practicing the stuff in my previous videos practicing your exam technique practicing working quickly you can do that looking at past exams you can also do that by looking at pre-prepared questions.


we have for management level and operation and strategic level we have competency packs with while they'll be across the for competency about 40 different practice questions that you can do the based on past exam questions in a kind of short half-hour practice you can go okay I've got only got half an hour practice something on the business competency and I can practice something on the technical competency based on past exams so you could practice those or you can practice past exams okay but most important is your practicing the things that are coming up in your case this is where mock exams come in your answering based on your scenario based on your business strategy analysis as important as doing the mock is getting feedback and if you were just gonna buy one thing you know because your budget was limited I would say get a mock a couple of mocks and get feedback on that having someone that is marked hundreds of mocks actually go through your script and saying you're making this mistake in this mistake you're doing this kind of thing right and this kind of thing right next time around do this more do this less we have a six to seven page a long effect checklist that we go through getting all our markers yeah they're doing this they're doing this that they're not doing that we're not doing that they give you guidance specifically on that but they also in addition to that is they will go through each paragraph that program is worth a mock that one's not and it's not because of this don't do that again so it's really advising you on your exam technique and how to approach our reserves better it's incredibly useful if you've attempted past cases and failed and you haven't have feedback that's the thing you should have two or three lots of feedback and guidance from someone so it doesn't have to be from us find it from someone that will will give you that feedback okay because it's so so important but that's all included as part of our our courses of the mocks and the feedback home knows

what's the most important question that if you're going to prepare for one thing for your exam one topic that comes up in at least half of all variants across all three levels that topic is ethics ethics is something that goes throughout the CIMA case studies it's vital for CIMA that they're producing qualified accountants who produce superb and sorry who are completely ethical in the way they operate and so they will ingrain that in you all the way through with questions throughout all the levels on ethics yet my experience of what is it now fifteen years of teaching CIMA case study is that people are not very good at answering ethics questions because they don't know why something is ethical they know something is unethical but they can't explain why well they're afraid to explain why we're treating a member of staff unfairly okay that's unethical why is it unethical and what we've got is an ethics we have an ethics pack where she's got lots of ethics practice questions but also it's my video and guidance on how you get to the heart of why that's unethical and how you write on also that really gets in there you don't just goes we're treating them fairly that's unethical we shouldn't do that we should do this instead the problem is that that's a ten mark question it's not going to get you ten marks so why is that one fair isn't this a strategy basically theories of ethics that you can go through we're saying this unethical because of this element of the theory and this element theory in this element of the theory and so you've got like a structured approach to dealing with ethics questions so the ethics pack really you know vital was it's the most important question that comes up and again whatever you do go through past exam papers or whatever you do and practice ethics questions or all levels because they are so important people really struggle to write them and of course

If you come on of course you get our support we've got online forums you can ask those questions whenever you want about think about anything actually also the your marker will work with you very very closely they'll give you an analysis but also they'll aren't if you email them back they will answer questions based on what you're doing well I'm not so well so you've got our expert tutors plus your marker or supporting you on different elements and so you know that's absolutely vital that we're there for you then you've got someone that book again you can do that yourself go onto online forums and Facebook groups some and and asked people on their so you can get that in other ways as well but they're nice to get it all incorporated in one course so of course is all-encompassing is everything that I've learned over the years that it takes to pass there's an we've incorporated all those things in into that into those courses so my hope is that your you'll come on one of our courses or least by some of our individual materials or that you can use this as the checklist for for making sure you're doing all these things as part of your tuition provider or as part of what you buy in order to help you to pass or the way you prepare but you know what in the end passing the exams and doing all these things to pass.

 I think we have to think about what's the point of it all you will pass all the exams and spend three is doing it and it's I know it's incredibly tough I've done it myself and you're working and you're taking exams in your spare time and you're doing it I look probably an exam level higher this higher than degree love it's harder than anything you've done in the past all in your spare time in your weekends and a few courses that you do and why what's all about but it is about pride I've done it I'm a qualified accountant but you're not a lot of it is about what it means for you in your life and I know for me once I got qualified that it's given me the security to know I can always get a well-paid job as an accountant and I mean I've gone into teaching rather than actually doing but it's given me the assurance that I've always been able to do it and actually if teaching wasn't there then I'd always be able to go back and be in accountant and because you've got that qualification is giving me that security and it's given me the the the income that comes through being qualified this enabled a comfortable life for my family and me and and and had that and ultimately you know there's those benefits from going through passing of pride and doing something worthwhile and creating a life for yourself that is hopefully a good life I've loved being a qualified accountant there are many people that would say that you know because I love teaching.

I found that you know that they're teaching it for me was was an absolute joy in supporting people and guiding people you know and people go on to become finance directors or financial controllers where they're not just doing the numbers they're analyzing the numbers they're analyzed in the business and it's something that they absolutely love to do so people love doing the numbers as well of course you know but that's of course one of the benefits of getting qualified and moving up through the structure and there's loads of other opportunities I've got friends who are in corporate finance or doing acquisitions some that are just pure occurrences people are qualified with some people in consulting so there's all these different opportunities once you've actually got qualified and so you know ultimately it's about that you know it's not just about getting a good mark on a mark or passing one is an it's about passing all of these and what it does for you and I hope that through this video series I've been able to help guide you and what it takes to pass a case study exam.


 I also hope that you know you'll be able to you'll come on some of our courses to support you through that but whatever I wish you the best of luck through your studies and once you're qualified through your life that the whole thing is is something that really works for you and yeah and I'll just say you know particularly for any upcoming exams you have just really you know just the best of luck

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