If you have just received your CA result & haven’t cleared your exam, you are bound to experience a mix of emotions. You may be dejected, disappointed & even surprised if you were not expecting this. Well, it is very natural for you to feel this way. 2 out of every 3 candidates doing the exam experience this. However, what’s important hereafter is how you collect yourself, respond back & come out victorious. Its time for introspection & do what’s in your control. You need to fight back with positive attitude and work on your mental makeup. Here are tips of how you must approach this phase.
1. Identify the short comings in your preparation –
The first and most important step is to identify the weak areas in your previously used preparation strategy. This are the areas you need to work on the most. Speak to your mentors and friends who cleared the exam to get an understanding of how their preparation was different from yours. You may also get to learn better methods of preparing.
2. Check if your content is adequate –
Sometimes students chose to study only from scanners and summary notes to save time and effort. However, it is always advisable to use the material provided by your coaching provider as base. Further, you should glance through the material provided by ICAI to ensure that you do not miss out any important topic.
3. Study as per the marks weight distribution provided by ICAI –
The Institute releases a topic-wise weight distribution for every subject for each attempt. This can be found at – https://www.icai.org/post/section-wise-weightage-for-subjects. You should ensure that your preparation is in line with this distribution so that you can allot appropriate importance to each topic.
4. Focus on getting conceptual clarity –
Conceptual Clarity is an absolute must if you need to crack the exams. The exam questions focus extensively on testing whether you have understood concepts well, you can apply to a given situation & how well can you express it in given time. You need to go micro & mark for yourself what parts of the syllabus you have not understood well. You may need to go back to your tutors to understand this better or perhaps a crash course or masterclass may help in revising once again.
5. Paper solving practice –
Writing Skills are of paramount importance in clearing CA exams. . No matter technically how strong you are, unless you have the correct writing skills in place, you may not be able to achieve your targets.
Theory questions demand a particular framework in which you need to write an answer. Practical & number driven questions focus on the right formats & working notes so that you can communicate the numbers & the logic behind them.
Ensure that you practice at least 3 mock exams for every subject. Get your papers checked by your mentors and understand where you are lacking and how you can improve.
It is also advisable to go through past Suggested Answers so that you have a clear understanding of the Examiner’s expectations & you can self-assess how close or far you are.
6. Prepare summary notes and revision plan –
One of the major challenges faced by all CA students is how to tackle such a huge syllabus one day before the exam. You may have revised your portion over many times earlier but if you cannot collect yourself 1.5 days prior to the exam, then your preparation is in vain.
You must have a good plan in place to revise on the eve of your exam You must prepare summary notes, charts & mind maps (wherever required) during your first revision. This will not only help you to revise quickly, but also boost your recall and retention during the exams.
It is also important to have a systematic & efficient Study Plan in place so that you can prepare in a seamless manner, taking into consideration all the mistakes you made in your first exam. While doing up the plan, ensure that you allocate time sufficient time for past papers, MTPs and RTPs. This will also help you in monitoring your progress.
Additional Tips
- Ensure that you cover all the important amendments which are relevant for your attempt as they carry important weightage.
- Do not leave any part of the syllabus unattended. You must learn 100% of the concepts across all papers.
- Practice the last few RTP, MTP & Past Papers of the last few attempts to be 100% certain of your preparation.
- Check out examiner’s comments on past attempts on the ICAI BOS website. The examiners do a comparison of their expectations pertaining to the question asked in the exam vis a vis the mistakes which the candidates made in understanding the same. Have a mentor (be it your tutor, coach or a friend who has cleared the exam) whom you can keep going back to for guidance & tips.
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