1.      “Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves.”

Time management is a very important aspect for exam preparation. Time management in relation to any preparation means to prepare a tough schedule for yourself to complete a given task in a timebound manner, albeit, one can take short refreshment breaks. In my opinion, following can be the time allotment which shall be followed to gain maximum output -

(You can prepare your own TT as well)

Further, you have 180 minutes (apart from your 15 minutes reading time) for writing your 100 marks paper. I would personally recommend that you allocate 1.8 minutes to each mark (180 minutes/100 marks). Thus, allocate proper time to 20 marks / 16 marks / 8 marks question accordingly. Low mark question should not consume much of your time otherwise you will end up falling short of time and you might not be able to complete your paper. Also, if you get completely stuck with a question, simply leave it and return to it later. DON’T get panic if you realise that you’ve answered a question incorrectly as it affects your confidence level. Try to attempt the questions you know very well first, this will help you boost examiner’s confidence.

(20 marks question would require 35 minutes / 16 marks question should take 28 - 30 minutes.)

2.      “Do what you love, love what you do.”

Love your subject and what you do to the subject, the subject will rebound the same to you. Affection towards any subject always matters a lot. There should be a burning desire in you to learn the subject. Each and every line you read should be with full of focus, poured with 360-degree analysis regarding what you read.

You should understand the difference between just reading and learning. Only a newspaper read wouldn’t be enough in this competitive exam. A thorough read of each subject is necessary. No doubt there may be a few subjects which are not of that interest as others. For example, a student in Tax domain may feel Audit as a boring subject and vice versa. (no offence to any field as I love all subjects). In such a situation a student shall think that I have already learned about happenings in Tax fields, now I have got the opportunity to understand and learn the subject in depth as much as possible. So, come on let’s deep dive into it.

Always keep a sceptical mind and keep yourself in that position to analyse things. For example, while reading the Audit subject, imagine you have been given certain documents and now apply your mind as to what type of documents you would ask the management to provide, on what basis you will extract samples and now read relevant Standard on Auditing (may be SA 530).

Further, to note, it may be possible that the subject you loved the most would not fetch you expected marks but not an issue, be satisfied that subject which you didn’t like gained you enough marks.

3.      “Healthy discussion leads to construction of knowledge; Over-discussion leads to destruction of knowledge & confidence.”

Discussion is very important aspect to deep dive in any subject. Discussion helps you in broadening your mindset. It may so happen that certain provision you understood well but when another person read the same, he had a doubt you never had before. At this moment, you shall try and improvise your reading and should understand why I didn’t face the same doubt. There could be two possible reasons, firstly, I was very clear about the provision, or second could be my reading was not full proof. If the reason is second one, slow down your reading and start becoming sceptical towards the subject. Never get discouraged when person asked you a doubt and you were unable to answer. Just think where exactly you went wrong, work upon it, improvise & you will stand better and ahead of others.

4.       “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."- Abraham Lincoln

Time-allocation: Smart Work not every time would mean preparation of summary charts. Smart work in my dictionary means to give proper weightage, time allocation to some chapters or sums. I personally categorize it as “HOT TOPICS”. The target you set for yourself shall be based on proper analysis of your behaviour, trend & moods. For instance, if you keep a target of 8 pages per hour, then a topic having 40 pages would take 5 hours. However, it may be possible that you either complete it early or little bit late. Thus, in order to monitor your speed, it is necessary to give certain time to a topic so that you regularly monitor yourself rather than at the end where time has already been passed away.

A B C Analysis: - All topics in a subject are not equally important as others, however, it does not mean you completely skip a particular topic. Undertake an ABC analysis of every subject and prepare accordingly. Invest more time in “A” Category topic. Moderate time in “B” category topics & less time in “C” category topics.

Thus, you have to work smarter & harder both.

Coverage: - Never forget to cover past 4 attempts Exam papers, MTPs and RTPs.

5.      “This is the game of Confidence”

Confidence means grip over concepts in a particular subject. Meaning thereby even if you have not read a certain chapter you should briefly know the concepts in it and you should be able to at least write around 60% of what question is expecting you to answer. There are two type of students, one who would get panic that he left a chapter in the option and it appeared in the exam, and consequently he would spoil the rest of his paper becoming unconfident on topics which he would have prepared properly. Second type of student would firstly focus on writing those answers which he learned and appeared in the exam and then he would analyse the situation, try to gather certain points on the subject matter & put up on paper.

The difference between these two students was very simple, the one who got panic, spoiled the entire paper as he lost the confidence in first go, whereas second one kept calm.

“Confidence does not get build up in one read; it builds up after your 1^st revision is complete”

6.      “Enter an exam with a positive mindset”

This is the exam of 3 hours & I have to do best within these 3 hours given to me. A student ought to have a full confidence and positive mindset that “100 MARKS PAPER SHALL BE APPEARED BY ME AT ANY COST”. If you appear 100 Marks paper the odds in favour of passing surely increases.

7.      “Nine Mothers cannot give birth to one child in one month but One mother can give birth to one child in 9 months”

Yes, appropriately read. The essence of this line was to make you aware about sticking to the same material throughout the tenure of preparation. Frequent switching of books in search of something extra would not be much profitable to you. Stick to only one book, if you feel something you found out which was not there in your material, add/amend it with pencil in your material itself. Your approach shall not be to read 3 books once rather it should be to read one book thrice. Three revisions before exam would help you boost confidence in paper.

8.      How to prepare a timetable?

It is very common that timetable always fails. Right? Most of you may be saying- Yes, it always fails!

So how to prepare such a timetable which would actually get executed. First of all, there are 2 types of timetable, one of which is as below-

Timetable 1: -

Timetable 2: -

No person can predict what he or she would like to do the next day or the day after the next day, so how can you predict that you have to do this only the next day? There is a strong possibility that on 6^th November, 2020 when you decided your TT you wanted to do Costing, however, when actually the day arrived you felt like studying Direct Tax along with Costing. Now what will you do? Delete the TT or revise it? You will get stuck up.

Thus, if you want to prepare TT, prepare TT like 2^nd one in the table above, which is quite flexible, whatever slot you want to take, take and complete it & tick it. May it be Direct Tax or Costing, just concluding thing shall be total hours you studied in a day should complete targeted topics you allotted for.

9.      “Apply 60:40 Rule in 100 Marks Paper”

60 would here mean 60% of paper written would surely fetch the best marks & 40% of paper written would fetch you the average marks in an overall paper. It is a competitive exam, even if we know all the questions properly, speed would matter, thus, we cannot present every answer in a beautiful manner.

The thing you have to do is, present first 3 Questions in the best possible manner you can. If possible, first try to choose such questions which have higher application of concepts, so that corrector would understand your conceptual strength (only if you are sure of concept). The rest of the answers can be attempted averagely, meaning thereby not thinking of much good presentation. Only a legible handwriting with hitting right concept would be enough to make your answer average.

10.   “One test paper is mandatory; solving sums should always be done”

You should write one test paper to face the similar atmosphere of actual exam paper. Always go for good test series which explains you how to improvise on writing skills. Also, you can refer Paper Presentation tips posted on my Telegram Channel.

Practical Sums: - Whenever you take a practical subject make a habit to solve every 4^th sum you do. Wherever you make a mistake highlight it and refer it at the time of revision.

11.   “Understand the Nature of Paper”

CA/CMA/CS are India’s professional exams which gives birth to a ‘Professional’. Institute always sets ONE PAPER from eight papers which will make you cry and demotivate you for rest of the papers. Trust me, checking of that one paper would be much easier than you think. So, there is no need of getting panic & destroying upcoming papers. Institute is not only checking / testing the students’ calibre but also how a student handles a difficult/unknowing/ surprising situation patiently.

Also, to note, one question out of every paper would be very difficult to crack. This is purposely done to test your patience level & to demotivate/ distract you from the rest of the paper.

The marks in this question are not (majorly) for presenting the answer but for writing the concept correctly, understanding requirement of the question & cracking it in a most beautiful manner. If you have appeared the tough question of paper appropriately, your chances of gaining good marks automatically increases.

“If a paper is easy, it is easy for all. If a paper is difficult, it is difficult for all. Always give your best while writing anything”.

Always write like you are writing your last exam. ALL ENERGY, ALL POSITIVITY and ALL EFFORTS are to be put in there only as if you are writing the last paper of your Professional Career.

12.   “Someone highly intellectual person is reading what you have written”

Many students have a habit of writing lengthy answers. For a moment, think that some person would be reading the words which are flowing from your pen. He is actually reading your mind. Assume you are a CA/CS/CMA while you write a paper because only result gives you legal recognition. Just think of how it sounds when a qualified professional is writing whatever it comes to his mind.

Always write valuable words/ sentences/ paragraphs. This is not your college/university exam. This is a professional exam where examiners are also qualified professionals. Compare this situation with your CA principal evaluating any article drafted by you. In the same way, examiner will point out mistakes from your answer booklet if you write whatever comes to your mind.

That’s it from my end.

1)  Put your efforts in such a way that you should not feel it might have been done.

2)  Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

3)  Don’t regret the past, you cannot do anything for it just learn from it and move ahead.

4)  Trust that people put in you is the biggest asset you have.

5)  Destination may / may not be beautiful but journey should be best.

6)  Your shoulders are stronger than what you think.

7)  You have ability to do everything you need to have just right mindset

8)  Develop patience, humbleness and calmness

All the best