FINANCIAL

MANAGEMENT
Cheat Sheet
 FM – Cheat Sheet

Financial Management
______________________________

Key study techniques to passing your FM exam:

● Plan your study - make sure you have a detailed study plan and stick to it
● Study regularly - 60-90 a day for 5 days is much better than one long day
● Practice questions - build the knowledge and practice relevant questions as you go
● Complete a mock exam - don’t let the first time you attempt the exam be the day of
your exam - no 2 subjects are the same
● Examiner reports and articles - vital information and guaranteed marks available if
you take the advice on offer

Exam Tips for passing the exam

Planning

Read the question carefully. Take your time in thinking about an approach and solution. If
you start writing too quickly you will miss key points and marks. And remember, answer the
question asked and pay careful attention to the requirements, there may be more than one
action required to be completed.

Layout and Structure

The questions in Section C are constructed response questions requiring the use of a
spreadsheet or text editor. Not only is question practice important, but practice using these
formats is also key. These can be done on the learnsignal platform. It’s important to include
formulas when doing calculations so that you earn marks for small mistakes. Review our
tutor solutions to see ways you could improve the layout of your calculations to earn the
marks. Please note, some questions can ask candidates to use a specific structure (i.e 3
Es).

Technical Knowledge

You need to cover the whole syllabus and ensure you are able to explain course elements in
your written answer. Sections A and B can come from any area of the syllabus; Section C
will mainly come from the following areas:
● Working Capital Management
● Investment Appraisal
● Business Finance

Application to the scenario (incl. Recommendations and conclusions)

The expectation at this stage is application and analysis. Make sure you are applying your
solution to the scenario and if asked to recommend, perform a comparison or make a
conclusion, make sure you do this. A good way of doing this is making sure that each
 FM – Cheat Sheet
recommendation or suggestion you make can be tied into an issue identified or highlighted
in the case study. If not, it is not relevant to the solution. Also, you need to use the scenario
for supporting evidence to explain why an organisation might use different methods, and the
advantages and disadvantages of these for that organization.

Time management

FM is a 3-hour 15-min exam with all compulsory questions. Planning and time management
is vital so allocate the first 15 minutes to this without starting to write an exam answer. This
leaves 3 hours (or 180 minutes) for the remainder of the exam, as such you should allow 1.8
minutes per mark for all questions you attempt (i.e. if completing a 10-mark question, you
should spend 18 minutes). Be strict with your time and don’t allow a negative impact on one
questions by spending too long on another.

Learnsignal resources available to improve exam technique

Here are some resources available for learnsignal members to help you improve your exam
technique:

Tutor Exam Report Debriefs:

Watch our tutor review of the most recent examiner report, which highlights the common
mistakes of students in the last sitting. If you can avoid these, you'll have a much higher
chance of passing your exam.

Study & Exam Support Webinars:

You can attend our weekly study webinar every Friday leading right up to the exam week,
where we provide guidance for your study and answer any questions you have. The webinar
also serves as a forum for students to talk and offer advice to each other. We also run
individual subject webinars with each of our subject tutors during our Webinar Week,
allowing you face to face time to ask technical questions and get feedback on the required
exam approach.

5 Minutes to Pass videos:

Watch our 5-minute to pass video which covers the key topics and required exam approach
for the subject. This video provides concise guidance you should follow to ensure you get
over 50% in the exam.

Exam Bootcamp

It’s never too late to try our Exam Bootcamp, which is a 21-day program for each subject
leading up to exam week, providing you daily with a topic to study, an exam standard
question, a time limit to complete this in, and our tutor solution. This allows you to cover a
large range of exam standard questions to perfect your exam technique before the real
thing.