As you know I’m always looking to give you my best advice on the skills, approach, mindset, and exam technique required to become CIMA qualified.

Luckily, having been through the CIMA exams and qualified myself I’m able to look back and give you my first hand experience of what works and what doesn’t.

But with the new CIMA syllabus having been introduced in 2015, the style of exams has changed somewhat since my days (feeling old now!)

Whilst much of the advice from my own personal experience is still very relevant to you, I wanted to give you the value of what’s working right now for current students.

If there are secrets that can magically get you first time passes under this new exam format, I don’t know them.

What I do know, are the tips that current students have shared with me having taken their exams recently.

And today, I will share these with you too …

Lesson 1 – Do Lots of Question Practice

This may be an obvious piece of advice but it is also the most important. The difference between passing and failing under any CIMA syllabus has often come down to exam technique rather than technical knowledge. With these new style CIMA exams it has become increasingly important that you learn how to deal with the different types of questions that are thrown at you.

Here’s just some of the feedback:

“You need to practice A LOT of different questions”

“I have gone through the practice questions from different providers”

“I did all the questions in the practice and revision kit and the practice papers online”

“The kit questions seemed so much easier than the actual exam. Much easier”

“The questions on the CIMA pilot paper and the actual exam had far lengthier scenarios and emphasis on different areas.”

Clearly then, you don’t just want to rely on one tuition provider for question practice, however, you also need to be careful which ones you choose as you want the questions to be as tough as the real thing so that you are not left underprepared in your actual exam.

I know that Astranti, Kaplan, BPP and Acorn all provide practice exams for purchase. I haven’t tried and tested the latter three so I can’t comment on their quality but it would be worth asking those who have.

Remember to weigh up the cost vs benefits of paying for practice exams such as the extra time and cost involved if you have to retake.

Related: See my recommended mock exams

Lesson 2 – Master your Time Management

Running out of time has been a common experience amongst students, even when they’ve said the questions themselves seemed manageable. As with lesson 1, you really need to make sure you do plenty of exam practice so that you are familiar with the time pressures you will experience in the actual exam and learn how to deal with them.

Students have said recently:

“I felt the exam was very time pressured as some questions had lots of information to read”

”I was so under time pressure..I started panicking because of time and started guessing some questions and not reading the question properly”

“I had to re read a few times as the answers were very similarly worded so really needed to concentrate to pick out the key words”

“For exam technique, I “flagged” questions that had a large paragraph to read, and also “select all that apply” and did them at the end when I was more calm. I finished with 20 mins left to just go through and check”

As a general rule, my advice is to try and pick up the ‘easy’ marks first – the ones that you can answer straight away. Keep an eye on the clock and try not to stress out if you get stuck but rather keep moving on and leave those you don’t really understand until last.

If in doubt, go with your gut feel if you are running out of time, don’t leave questions blank as you never know where you can pick up marks.

Related: See my recommended time management tips

Lesson 3 – Don’t Take Your CIMA Practice Exam Results to Heart

A number of students have said even though they scored poorly in the Pearson Vue practice exams (found on the CIMA website) they then went on to pass the real thing.

“I was stressing like mad after getting 40% in the practice exam last but I’ve passed the real exam today.”

“Don’t get disheartened by poor results on Pearson Vue, I got 48% last night but passed the real exam today”

“Passing the practice exam is not the key issue. My suggestion is to have a complete knowledge of the study material”

And as the CIMA Website says…

The practice exams will:

• Give you the opportunity to try the new examination format and to understand the changes
• Make you aware of the structure and content of the live exam
• Show you how questions are balanced in terms of type, length and difficulty
• Help you to become familiar with layout, navigation and the new live exam features

The practice exam will not:

• Clearly indicate your performance in the real objective tests (OT)
• Reflect the full functionality of the real OT exams. Functions omitted are:

Therefore, these should NOT be used as mock exams in which you can assess your current progress, but instead as an indicator of the format and functionality of the actual exams. Ideally look at these at the start of your exam preparation, not near the end.

Lesson 4 – Don’t ignore the integrated nature of Case Study exams

With almost all February/March CIMA case study exams having been sat, there is some initial feedback from students which suggests that the exams will cover the three subject papers on that level in equal measure.

“I went into the exam and I had questions that I was told would not come up.”

“Overall the paper was good as they have put equal significance all three subjects in the questions”

“Just learn your theory, and know how you calculate things so that you can explain in writing.. and have faith in your knowledge. If you don’t know something, put anything you think could be relevant as it might gain some marks”

Therefore, you need to give equal significance to all the subject papers in your revision of theory and learn how to apply the key models/techniques to the case.

Don’t try to question spot even if tutors try to sway you in this direction – not only is it dangerous to try and second guess the examiner, but your accounting career won’t go very far if you can’t think on your feet and deal with the uncertain nature of real life working environments.

Lesson 5 – Different Study Approaches Work

As I’ve always said, there is no magic formula or secret sauce that you need to learn in order to pass your CIMA exams. We all have different strengths and weaknesses and have a favoured way of learning. It’s therefore a matter of finding out what works best for you. That said, it’s useful to know what has worked for others so that we can follow a similar path to success.

Here’s what some successful students have done:

“I studied about 10 hours a week but last week I did around 3 hours a day”

“I brought an exam kit for practice questions, completed the whole book and this showed me my strengths and weaknesses so I could focus on my weaknesses”

“I watched all my online lectures again followed by 400 questions from my tuition provider. A good knowledge of the whole syllabus is needed”

“I have been studying since early December for around 4-5 times a week, 1.5-2 hours at a time, all home study with study text and revision kit”

“I did the online live course, for revising I made notes and did all the questions in the kit”

My advice is to follow a course if possible to receive expert guidance, do all the questions you can, ask for help if you get stuck, set yourself a realistic deadline for your objective test exam and start off small with your study routine so that you can build momentum and sustain motivation.

Don’t try to rush through your exam preparation as this will almost certainly lead to failure in your exams and even if you are fortunate enough to get through this way, you are highly likely to get ‘found out’ and be out of your depth in the workplace.

Always try to keep in mind your end goal (it shouldn’t be just to pass the exam, but to grow your career and income by being a good well rounded accountant.

Related articles:

My CIMA Exam Roadmap

My Recommended Study Technique

Final Thoughts

Most CIMA students I’ve talked to have yet to sit their first exam under the new syllabus. They are putting it off. This is a natural reaction with all the changes that have been made. Knowing what I was like as a student, I’d probably be ‘waiting to see’ myself. However, success always seems to follow those who take action and the advice above gives you some great insight into the do’s and don’ts ahead of your CIMA exams. Please try and implement at least one into your exam preparation.

Have you already taken a new style exam yourself? Please add your best tips and resources in the comments below …