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
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
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