15 Ways to Achieve CIMA Exam Success

I studied for the CIMA exams for over five years before finally qualifying in 2013.
Over those years I attended both classroom and distance learning courses and have
spoken to a number of successful students along the way. The strange realisation
you come to after all this time is that although each exam is different, there are a
number of steps that are really useful throughout your studies.
Now, it is important to mention at this stage that I do not go into the specifics of each
syllabus or exam paper nor do I list out everything I have learned and witnessed over
the years regarding CIMA exams. However, what I do talk about is short, relevant
and actionable information that has helped me and other students pass their CIMA
exams and can help you achieve the same result.
I also want to make clear that I had failures as well as successes throughout my
CIMA studies where I produced poor results that drained my motivation and left me
feeling frustrated and a bit embarrassed. It is these failures however, that have
allowed me to see what really matters when it comes to scoring well in your CIMA
exams and ultimately getting yourself qualified.
Many people will tell you that you should learn from your mistakes and move on but
this leaves you thinking about what doesnt work, rather than what does. That is why
I have chosen to focus on what did work for me, and has worked for others, so that
you can try to enjoy the same success.
Once you know what works, you can then repeat those activities again and
again to produce great results come exam time.
However, it is also true that are exceptions to the rules and so there are always
students who have their own unique ways of doing things and have succeeded. It is
for this reason why the steps in this guide are more about what you can do, rather
than what you must do, in order to achieve CIMA exam success.
What I have tried to do is cover the key ways in which you can be best prepared for
your exams and score well when you sit them. Not only do I explain what has worked
in my experience but also why they worked. I hope that by having these steps all in
one place, you can easily refer to them and make the most out of the time you spend
on studying.
Finally, I hope you can get as much out of this guide as I did working on it. Having
benefited from the experience of passing my CIMA exams and qualifying, it is great
to give something back to students going through the same things.

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Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read what I have to say and I hope
you find this guide both useful and informative which was my whole purpose of
putting it together.
Matt
P.S. Remember the aim of this guide is for you to get as much as you can out of
your study time and to do well come exam time. Im not only focusing on what I
found to be the most important elements to achieving CIMA exam success but also
what was the most effective use of my time.

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Okay, so here are the 15 ways in which you can achieve CIMA exam success:

Cover all syllabus items in your preparation

Have a study schedule you can stick to
Seek help along the way
Read through post exam guides
Practice past papers and/or mock exams
Make use of your 20 minutes reading time
Produce an answer plan
Stick to your exam timings
Keep your answer focused on the scenario
Look at the mark allocation for each question
Attempt all questions that need to be answered
Look at what the question is asking
Answer the question asked
Sense check your answer
Take care with presentation

Lets now look at each step in detail shall we?

1. Cover all syllabus items in your preparation

Right from the start, you want to get an overview of the syllabus for the paper/s you
are sitting. This includes what the learning outcomes are, how all the syllabus topics
fit together and what knowledge you are required to learn.
At this early stage, its helpful to refresh your mind on topics from past papers that
are relevant, especially if you gained exemptions from those papers or sat them a
long time ago.
Once you are happy that you understand all the topics you need to cover, you can
then begin to go through each topic, one at a time, ticking them off as you go,
making sure you understand the key concepts of that topic before you move on.

2. Have a study schedule you can stick to

Ideally, you only want to be studying for a few hours a day to make your study
sessions focused and manageable. I recommend having a break or stopping

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completely after each 60-90 minute session so that you can switch off and still have
a life outside of your studies.
The idea is to make your studying a habit that it easily repeatable and less likely to
lead to procrastination. You want to try and make small steps of progress each day
rather than trying cram in too much all at once.
It is important to plan your studies around your work life and personal life. If you put
each study session into a calendar you will be better prepared to fit in the study time
whilst taking into account work commitments and doing things you enjoy. Being
organised early on will reap you rewards further down the line as you get nearer the
exam day.

3. Seek help along the way

One thing that is important to remember throughout your CIMA studies is that you
are not alone.
Whilst each paper you attempt is not easy, there is plenty of help that you can
access to make your life easier. This is especially true if you do not understand a
key concept or topic.
By seeking help early on, you will have fewer things to worry about nearer the exam
and you will be able to keep making progress rather than falling behind on your study
schedule.
So where do you find this help? Well, one of the best options available is the use of
an expert, such as a tutor at one of the many tuition providers. They will be used to
dealing with student queries and problems and knowing how to overcome them.
They can also provide good feedback to let you know what you are doing well and
where you are making mistakes. This will help you to move forwards with your
preparation.
Other sources of help are the many resources on the CIMA website that include
relevant articles on the paper/s you are sitting, general exam and study technique,
past papers with model answers and post exam guidance from each examiner.
In addition, an often overlooked resource is that of speaking to fellow students. It
can be a great source of comfort to know that other people are going through the
same issues as you and current and past students are often willing to pass on the
benefits of their experience to help you through a challenging aspect of your studies.
The best places to interact are in the classroom if youre studying with a tuition

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provider and/or on CIMA forums such as dedicated Facebook pages, Linkedin

groups and of course CIMA sphere.

4. Read through post exam guides

As you get nearer to exam time, it is worthwhile reading through and making notes
on the last few post exam guides from the examiner of the paper/s you are about to
sit.
By taking on board the advice from the examiner you will be better placed to avoid
common mistakes that previous students have made and have a better
understanding of what the examiner is looking for when they set the questions.

5. Practice past papers or mock exams

Without doubt the real key to success with any CIMA exam is getting in enough
exam practice before the big day. There are a number of benefits but the most
important are:

Testing your knowledge

Getting used to dealing with time pressure
Getting used to the style of questions asked
Get used to answering the questions in the right way
Getting feedback on your progress
Knowing what your strengths are and what you need to improve upon
before the real exam

You will definitely be underprepared and stressed out on the exam day if you
havent already faced what the examiner and exam conditions will throw your
way.

6. Make use of your 20 minutes reading time

This 20 minutes is often poorly utilised. Rather than just passively reading the exam
paper I suggest being active in both your thinking and with your writing on the exam
paper.
At this stage you want to be thinking about and noting down, what the questions are
asking of you, which questions have to be attempted, which option questions you

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want to attempt (or more to the point, which ones you dont want to attempt) and
which order youre going to attempt the questions.
One of the best ways to get off to a good start when writing your exam is attempting
your strongest question first, i.e. the one you feel most comfortable with answering.
This will give you more confidence throughout the rest of the exam as you will
hopefully have plenty of marks under your belt.

7. Produce an answer plan

After your 20 minutes reading time is up, I then suggest producing an answer plan
that you can refer to, especially when writing answers to the bigger mark questions.
Here you want generate ideas of the key points you want to make, what sort of
structure your answer needs to be in and if relevant, what business awareness or
technical knowledge you can bring in to your answer to impress the examiner and
gain some extra marks.
An answer plan helps you avoid rushing in to write you answer where you might end
up wasting valuable time in the long run because you either write too much waffle or
you have to stop writing to think about what your next point is going to be.

8. Stick to your exam timings

Dealing with the time pressure during the exam can be one of the biggest obstacles
you will face when studying for CIMA. Therefore, being able to manage your time
effectively can be a big factor towards enjoying exam success as you want to have
enough time to pick up marks in every question you answer and indeed make sure
you even finish the exam.
Good exam time management can be practised using past papers and mock exams
even before you enter the exam room. It is important to know how much time you
are going to dedicate to each part of the exam and not to overrun on these timings.
Sticking to your timings can be achieved by constantly keeping an eye on the clock
(preferably a stopwatch on your desk) and moving on to the next question or
requirement once that time is up. If you overrun on a question, it is almost
impossible to make up the time later on in the exam.

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9. Keep your answer focused on the scenario

When attempting questions based on a given scenario or case study, you will lose
out on vital marks and waste valuable exam time if your answer does not focus on
the situation that the examiner has set.
This means coming up with points that help deal with the set of circumstances that
the examiner has created, rather than just making general comments. Then when
you do make your points in your answer, you have to say why they are important
given the context of the scenario i.e. what effect will they have on the business and
the situation it faces?
Simply ignoring the scenario provided or bringing in your own scenario will more
often or not score very low marks as the examiner will be looking to award marks for
application of your knowledge to a business situation and your ability to only include
relevant information in your answer.
A good mnemonic to remember here is PEA which stands for:
Point Introduce the point you want to make
Explain Say why it is important
Apply Say how it is relevant to the scenario given
Lets say you want to talk about your calculations which have resulted in a positive
NPV for a proposed project in the scenario given. We can use PEA to say:
Point The NPV of project X is positive
Explain This is usually a good indication that a project is financially acceptable as it
forecasts that shareholder wealth will be enhanced.
Apply The shareholders in Company Y have stated their wish for the firm to
improve growth and so an investment in this project will help keep them satisfied.

10. Look at the mark allocation for each question

As discussed earlier, good time management in your exams can really be a key
factor in getting you the result you want.
By looking at the mark allocation of each question you attempt you will be able to
allocate how long you plan to spend on answering the question, estimate how much
you need to write in order to score high marks and identify how many points you
need to make on each part of the question set.

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For instance, if you are set a question on explaining the main features of outsourcing
and discussing its benefits and drawbacks, for 12 marks, then you can do the
following:

Allocate 22 minutes to attempting this question (12 x 1.8 minutes)

Estimate that you need to make around 12 points maximum or at least 6
points really well explained.

Split the marks and therefore the points you make between the three parts
of the question, perhaps four points on the main features of outsourcing,
four points on the advantages of outsourcing and four points on the
disadvantages.

11. Attempt all questions that need to be answered

To give yourself the best chance of passing each exam you will want to make sure
you answer all the questions you are required to do.
Even if you do really well on one question but miss out on doing the second question
you are expected to attempt, your chances of passing will be very slim.
On the other hand, you also should ensure you dont attempt too many questions as
you simply will not have the time.

12. Look at what the question is asking

As mentioned above, questions can often come in a number of parts and so it is
important that you look out for and make a note of ALL the requirements within the
question set. Failing to do so will mean you miss out on valuable marks as marks
are usually allocated per requirement within the question.
In addition you need look out for the verbs used in the questions set. This will
indicate how you should approach your answer in terms of what points you need to
cover and how much depth you need to go into for each point.
Failing to be able to differentiate between the verbs used will lead to you not giving
the examiner what they want and missing out on crucial marks.
For instance, if a question uses the verb discuss then you typically have to talk
about the advantages and disadvantages of something. Evaluate usually means
you have to not only say what the benefits and drawbacks are, but also which ones

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are the most important given the context of the question or scenario. Any question
asking you to advise or recommend means you must do just that give your
advice and justify the reasons why.

13. Answer the question asked

It is very easy, when under the pressure of exam conditions, to start regurgitating all
you have learned about a topic you know well when answering a question on it.
However, this temptation to brain dump or impress the examiner with all your
knowledge will waste both your time in the exam and reward you with very few, if
any, marks.
Therefore, its wise to make sure you stick to the parameters of the question the
examiner has set so that you can give the examiner the information they want to see
and make the most of the time you have available to answer that question.
So if you are asked to propose ways in which a company can use Ansoffs growth
vector matrix to grow its operations beyond its current products, you dont want to
talk about everything you know about Ansoffs matrix but instead concentrate on
launching new products or diversifying.

14. Sense check your answer

It is always worth spending a few minutes to ask yourself if your answer looks
reasonable, this is especially useful when producing calculations. By taking a step
back and looking to see if the result you produced looks sensible, given the context
of the information provided, you will give yourself the chance to amend any silly
mistakes and potential loss of marks.
For instance, if you are asked to calculate the optimum price to sell a product for,
given the forecasted demand and unit costs, youll know youve made an error if the
price youve produced is less than cost.
Even if you dont have time to go back and correct it, you can always put in a note
saying what you assume the answer should be. This will show the marker that you
have acquired the knowledge to know what a correct result should look like under
the circumstances given.

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15. Take care with presentation

Finally, and perhaps an easy way to pick up marks throughout your exams, is to try
and make your answers as clear and presentable as possible. This will make it easy
for the marker to follow what you have written and award you marks as they go
through your script. Remember to also show your workings when doing calculations
as it is often these workings that generate the most marks in a calculation, rather the
final result itself.
In order to make your answers clear and presentable I suggest:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Using short paragraphs with headings.

Using labels and titles for diagrams, graphs, models and calculations.
Using correct or sensible units for calculations.
Using bullet points or numbered lists where relevant.

Stay tuned
I really hope youve learned a lot from this guide and have enough information to
act upon. Though we are at the end of this guide, I hope this is just the beginning
of our relationship. Im always ready and willing to help CIMA students pass their
exams and progress their career so please do stay in touch.
One of the best ways to communicate with me is via Twitter where I can be found
at @mgmtaccmastery and please do look out for my regular newsletter coming
your way which will provide you with plenty of free tips, advice and resources to
get you the results you want.

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