Strategy to crack CA Final Exam in First Attempt

Hello friends,

I am CA Manoj Bothra; secured All India Rank 44 in CA Final May 2014 Exam.

I am here to share a strategy to crack CA Final Exam in First Attempt and study plan.

1. First thing first, you should have at least a period of 6 month to prepare. 

2. During this long period, you are required to plan your studies in such a manner that you can complete one time revision of the all eight subjects.  

3. One should go for in depth study at first reading; it would make you to learn all the topic of the subjects. None of the topic should be escaped by saying “it can be done at a day prior exam or I will leave it or it’s too tough to prepare”. I think in such a case you should ask doubt and understand the topic from your teacher or friends.

4. Lets come to the study plan.

You all have 6 months (180 days) to prepare. I think you should have to allot 15 days for 1^st depth study of a subject in entirely( we will discuss breakup of 15 days in details further, later on). In this way you can complete all of your subjects in 4 months.

Some of you are thinking that 15 days period is quite long or short for study a subject, believe me guys it is enough time and you may even complete some subject within 12 days too and on the other hand sometime a subject like direct tax may take more than 15 days to prepare.

This is all about 4 months schedule

5. This was your first round of studies and after 4 month, you may have doubt in your mind “I may forget first subject in this long period”. Don’t worry guys. I have a solution of this problem too.

After completing 4 months successful journey of 1^st round of studies, you guys are now required to go through all the subjects once again. But this time you are not been provided such a long period for each subject. Actually this is time of 1^st revision.

Let me explain way of revision

Each subject will be given a period of 6 days (6*8=48 days). And you may have 2 days of grace to manage revision within this 50 days period.(discuss it in detail later on)

6. Study plan of last 10 days. This is most precious and valuable time as after 10 days your exam will going to start. Many time students seem confused what to do in these days and how to manage studies..?

I would like to say after going through revision, you will be confident about your preparation and from now onwards you have prepare for exam. I suggest to prepare paper 3 audit and 4 corporate and allied law within 4 days ( 2days for each). In next 2 days you should go through 3 to 4 topics of strategic financial management. And give last 4 days for financial reporting.

7. Now I would like to suggest you on the plan of 15 days details studies

First of all you should list out all the topics and learning objects of a subject. After this you should make a time table for completing the subject within 12 to 13 days. In this period of 12 days, you should have to go through entire studies, notes and practice manual. Remember one thing solve practice manual as you go through the topic, you can say I have completed Director chapter, so go through director chapter of practice manual on the same days.

After this you will have 2 or 3 days, I think now you should summarize the subject in 2 days and with one day remaining in your hand, you will have to do a lot.

On the last day, take a paper of any previous exam and set a clock for 3 hours alarm and sit in an exam like environment and try to complete the paper in 3 hours, so that you can know about your weakness and area of improvements.

8. One important thing you have t do in the depth study time to highlight or mark (), (),() on the various question or short note that are important from your point of view.

What I have said, you have to judge yourself about the question level.

Reason for doing this is that at the exam time or on revision time, you need not have to go through same question again and again so as to save time. This is a way of smart study.

9. Now we will discuss the plan of 6 days of revision. Firstly, you should go through all star marked topics and try to solve at least one question on each topic. Here you are also required to plan for 5 days and save one day for mock test. This is time to check preparations and mistakes, so as to avoid mistake which usually take place in real exam.

This was all about my way of preparing.

Now I would like to give some tips to you- 

a. Many times we are confused which subject to start first and which to put on last.

It is easy to select, as you should start that subject which is tough for you and you are weak in that. The reason is that at initial level, you will have time to study hard and come out of your fear of a particular subject. For example-  I have gone for Strategic Financial Management First, as I was weak in this but I manage to score 78 marks in this. So now you can imagine how this strategy can help you.

b. Sequence of subject for revision. I think it would be better if you go group wise, 1^st group in first 24 days and next 24 days for 2^nd group. And after this you will have 10 days to revise you 1^st -group again before the exam. In this way, you will be in touch will all the subjects.

c. Now plan about ISCA, it is also important to study this subject.  I would like to suggest that manage schedule of study and have one depth study with 2 times of revision near the exam so that all the point and topic refresh your mind again and again. 

d. One exam tip, if one of your subject is not gone as per your expectation, never lose hope and  please don’t waste time on such type of thinking about the past paper, prepare well for next one so as to score good in next subject. 

e. Many times we hesitate to get our queries solved by teacher or friend, don’t become narrow minded, even ranker may have to go to average one for asking something. Be “Besharm and ask Bindas”. At the end you will have clarity of topic. 

f. Don’t waste time to read same subject again and again, in this way you will not get any productive results and find you are reading what you already know. 

g. Make at least 2 papers within a group as your strength so that you can cross 60 in those and clear hurdle of aggregate marks. 

h. Last one….—

Subject based tips-

(i) FINANCIAL REPORTING- Never ignore or undervalue Accounting Standards. It is part and parcel of 50-60 marks paper in FR (paper-1) and Audit (paper-3).

(ii) STRATEGIC FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT- Try to solve question from your own, not audit your note book otherwise you will not be able to solve it at the time of Exam Paper. And one more thing to remember, give equal weight to each topic, it is on ICAI to ask anything and in any manner (weight of topic) is not fixed.

(iii) AUDITING- Try to remember topic point wise and present it also in point wise manner to score good marks.

(iv) CORPORATE AND ALLIED LAW- Pay equal attention to allied law too and remember section number and interlinking of section to score well.

(v) ADVANCED MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING- Make sure that you solve each question from your own and solve practice manual too. Go through development in AMA, these small topics carries handsome amount of marks in exam.

(vi) ISCA- Again Answer in point wise manner and to the point only. Never try to answer a question which is not known to you in exam sheet at early pages. Answer it on the end.

(vii) DIRECT TAX-it is nice subject to read on and learns, prepare well and solve practical question too. One more thing is amendment and case laws will have to be given equal importance

(viii) INDIRECT TAXATION- Topic wise clarity of provision and common topic is required.

Pay attention to valuation rules, case laws and amendment carries high weight-age in exam paper.

At the end I would like wish you a happy study and best of luck.

Thanks & regards,

CA Manoj Bothra

09782322113 [Feel free to contact, but after 8 pm (in the evening) ]