CMA Foundation Course Exam is an entrance exam to take up CMA course. It is not an exam which you can study for a month and all done. You need a dedicated approach and 100% commitment to pass the ICAI CMA exam. The CMA entrance test is conducted in Online Mode, consisting of the following four papers --
Paper 1: Fundamentals of Economics and Management (50 Marks)
Paper 2: Fundamentals of Accounting (50 Marks)
Paper 3: Fundamentals of Laws & Ethics (50 Marks)
Paper 4: Fundamentals of Business Mathematics and Statistics (50 Marks)
The exam would be conducted in two sessions, each of the session will have 100 MCQs carrying 1 mark for each question. Total number of questions for both the sessions would be 200, carrying a total of 200 marks. Each session would be of two hour duration.
If you are bracing yourself for the CMA Foundation September 2015 exam, listed below are few CMA preparation tips:
Be clear with the syllabus
By this time, I assume you are clear with the CMA Foundation Exam Syllabus (which is Syllabus 2012). Understand what is important for the examination and study those topics in details. Each of the four papers would have certain portions/topics in the syllabus that would have greater weightage over others, have complete clarity on those. Stay calm, panicking won’t help you. Knowing what to study and where to focus will help you define your study plan.
Refer your notes
It is best time to refer your notes. Since exam date is approaching near, you can catch up with most of the short notes which you must have prepared during studying. Going through your notes would give an opportunity to cover most of the topics within a short period of time. Not every topic would be important, your notes would help you to cover a number of topics quickly.
Remember highlights
Every chapter or lesson would have certain key highlight points. You need to remember those. This is one of the best strategies which would help you to remember key points, concepts well and cover a wide variety of topics.
Understand concepts
Whether you are attempting theoretical questions or numerical questions, one thing you must be clear about is the Concept. When you understand the concepts, you can tackle any theoretical questions easily. In terms of accountancy or numerical questions, it is important to remember necessary formulae, and methods of solving a problem. You should also know how to look at statistics data.
Take help when required
When you are in doubt about a concept or couldn't get clarity on a topic, feel free to ask your teachers, students who are preparing for CMA Foundation Exam, post your queries in student forums and discussion forums like Quora, Yahoo Answers etc. you are sure to find some kind of clarity on your doubts. One thing you should never do is, never ask anyone. Remember, you can solve a problem yourself but then at this point you don’t have time. So learn from CMA experts or people who have answer to your queries.
Practice previous questions
Check out last few years question papers and understand the exam patterns and questions. You will able to understand what kind of questions and mark allocated for important topics. Also, don’t forget to set a timer when you start attempting the papers, this will let you know whether you should speed up while solving the papers.
Take short breaks
As the exam day approaches near, students often study for longer hours without taking breaks. This is something you must avoid at any cost. Reason? First of all, most of the students don’t have the habit of studying for long hours in normal situation. This regular routine is broken when you study for hours together which definitely will bring you under great pressure. So take short frequent breaks and study with greater concentration.
Stay away from social media
Distractions are at its height when exam is approaching. Strengthen yourself and keep away from distractions like -- Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and find more time to study. It is easy to waste time on trivial conversations, so get conscious of your activities to hold your focus on important things. Because once you lost your time nothing or no one can place it back. So use your time intelligently.
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