[sophia95]

Thank you for your response! very helpful!

I had another I was studying which made me think! – which would you say is the cheapest AND safest method of changeover between phased and pilot?

thanks!

[sophia95]

Hi,

I passed with 75% on first attempt.

My advice would be, when studying for your OT exam, make sure you understand well, however, I realise people reading this will have already passed operational OT and studying for the OCS so may be too late.

My advice for OCS in that case would:
1. Know the preseen well. However, contrary to usual advice, you don’t need to know it back to front, word to word. It’s provided in the exam!!

2. Look online, somewhere you will find potential questions that could come up based on the preseen and also think of some using common sense.
In the Nov 19 OCS chokolate box was the pre-seen.
So scenarios that could come up would be, opening of a new shop, plantation disaster. E.g burning down etc.

3. Relate it to the real world. Imagine this was your work place, and answer as if a senior member at your workplace had asked the questions

4. Know your audience. E.g if exam says marketing manager asked a question,
You know they probably do not have any financial background so write as if you were writing a dummy guide.

5. Again, relate it to the real world. Think about the times we are in. Everything happening at fast rates, easily accessible, mobile phones, social media etc

6. Refer your answers back to the preseen
– very important!! E.g choosing a better quality product because the company is known for its premium quality. Use what the preseen says to show your point.

7. The numbers in the preseen are important. Know your working capital days, receivable days etc memorise those!

9. Example – a question on relevant costs by email

I started with:
a: Dear (whoever asked the question) or Hi (any introduction),

Sometimes the exam won’t ask “what is a relevant cost” you will just know from what they are asking that it is referring to that.
Like if they say “what should be included in a accept or reject decision” – it’s a good indicators you can bring up relevant/non relevant costs.

b: explanation of relevant and non relevant costs (bold and underline) – even when the question didn’t ask to explain that. Personally I think you should give an explanation of it.
– explain what it is. What is classed as relevant or not

c: answer actual questions –
Point
Explain
Apply

d:
To finish off: “Please let me know if you have any further questions

My rule of thumb was that if 45mins / 1.8 = 25marks and if all equal difficult questions, divide by the number of questions. So if 4 questions = 6.25 (7marks) per question. I always gave about 8 answers.

Don’t spend too long on one question!

10. you will need to know P1, E1 and F1 pretty well
P1 – OCS is heavily based on this. So learn things like decision criteria, linear regression graphs etc
E1 – personally would say questions asked are common sense in the exam. Like CSR etc
F1 – yep, you guessed it. You need to know your IASs and the rules 🙁 not the IAS numbers though, although that could potentially come up.

You get no marks for calculations!

Honestly, the best advice I could give overall is make sure when they provide you with figures or graphs etc, you’re able to explain how they got to it or what it means.
Make sure you state the obvious!!! E.g “revenue has decreased meaning we have sold less that last year/offered too much discount”

HTFT 50 question pack is good!
Past papers!!! Use them and look at answers!

Good luck!

[sophia95]

@shadyplayscr7 @eshaasif
I really recommend reading the books to make sure you understand fully. Even if you have to read your bits you do not understand 10 times!
These exams are not like others where you can just remember how to work it out. You need to know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
There is a lot of theories in the exams and I personally think that may be why most people fail because they wrongly concentrate mostly on the calculations.
This will also help when it comes to the case study as you are not marked on calculations

[sophia95]

@shadyplayscr7 I haven’t done the case study exam yet or revised for it so I don’t feel qualified to advise you on that unfortunately!
I’m not too sure what you mean by your second question?

@tarie2019 –
I passed E1 first time. I did the exam in 40 mins which means I had an extra 40 mins left. But I studied hard.
I would say make sure you understand everything. If you can teach it to someone else, ideally you’re ready.
The names are also important. E.g if they say Edward deeming, you should ideally know what they are referring to automatically.
Porters value chain is also VERY important. I’m sure it will come up and also apparently for the next few exams too, so might aswell learn now

I basically read the whole book at least 4 times and made notes and re-read those note a lot (at least 10!)
Purchased CIMA Aptitude 2. My first attempts I got between 60-68% but nearer the exam I was getting 95% on mocks online.
This exam isn’t hard, what is annoying is what you think the answer could be, sometimes it isn’t as you can miss key words easily.
I found this annoying a bit as when I revised, the ones I got incorrect, I could argue my answers I thought lol!…

But key areas I would say;
– Porters value chain
– Know the difference between purchasing and supply
– HRM
– Virtual companies
– IT , eg changeover etc
– cousins
– TQM etc
– remember the SMART, BADPIGS etc
– some is common sense!

It’s weird because some stuff came up that I never even heard off or covered and I studied from both BPP and Kaplan books lol

Open intuition question are also good and prepare you well.

[sophia95]

I took P1 at the end of April, F1 at the end of July and taking E1 this Friday coming

Very tight timeline you have there! But to be honest, although I have the lectures, I don’t really start to learn/understand till one week before the exam where I spend a lot of time studying! So I think you could do it!

Goodluck!

[sophia95]

I think it’s possible if you literally have no life and don’t work.

However, personally I wouldn’t and would wait to make sure I study and understand the concepts properly instead of rushing through just to pass the exams

[sophia95]

Hi,

I recently passed and I’ve written some tips.

https://opentuition.com/topic/how-i-pass-my-cima-p1-exam-first-time/

[sophia95]

Hi

Thank you.
I purchased this and it was quite a shock how much harder the questions were than my original provider. I got 38% on my first mock try.

It then pushed me to purchase the Kaplan books to make sure I fully understood the subject.

I passed! So will be using this method from now on

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