Paper based exam or session CBE?

Well, I had given my first skill level exam PM (F5) in June’18 as CBE. In fact, I have given all exams up till now as CBEs (F1 – F5). So, I don’t have an experience in giving paper based exams at ACCA level. But I can surely give you a comparison from what I have experienced in school and board exams.

EDITING: In CBEs editing is a ten times easier as compared to paper exams. You can do unconditional editing without worrying about your handwriting, whether your work is neat or not, there is no need to overwrite or cross out stuff… Just use the backspace button.
Even for the MCqs section you can get back to an option as many times as you want. This is not case in Paper exams once you have striked off an option and chosen another one, you cant get back to the first one. (but keep a watch on the time!)

TOOLS : The highlight, strikethrough, flag to review, etc tools helps a lot. Especially the flag to review. This one you will not get in paper exams. Whichever question you are not sure about and want to revisit just flag it. While in paper exam you may need to remember that question number or make a note somewhere but the exam pressure is so much one tends to forget to revisit the question in the paper exam.

FASTER : i believe CBEs are faster may be because of you can easily edit and also using softwares like spreadsheet and word processing for Section C makes input faster. U dont need to calculate the stuff on your calculator… the Spreadsheet software does the job for you. What’s the irony here is, even though there were the Seeded Questions (extra questions which dont contribute to your scores but you Do Not know which ones are these) I found in CBEs I had more time in hand… There could surely be other factors concerning the time.

FOCUS: since you see just one question on the screen… It keeps you more focus. Unlike in paper exams where you tend to flip pages and get distracted by other questions.

MORE ORGANISED : I believe in CBEs one is more organised and especially for the Section C one can format his/her answers way better (due to the tools provided by the software) as compared to paper based.

But if u decide to take CBEs you need to do the following :

GETTING YOURSELF FAMILIAR : by using Resources provided by ACCA like
the Constructive Response Workshop,
Videos and Webinars on how to tackle CBEs
Free Mock Exams (by Bpp and Kaplan), Etc.

TYPING SPEED : you do need to make sure you typing speed is good enough so that it doesn’t deter your exam progress. So a lot of practice is required by using the above resources. Constant practice will get you accustom of it.

U dont need to be an IT expert honestly, the Spreadsheet and word pressing software are simple softwares with not many functions (just the basics)
So i will recommend you to AVOID using MS Word or Excel since they have more functions which you will not have in your exam. For that reason, I will advice you to stick with the spreadsheet and word processing software on the ACCA website.

Just remember whether you give paper based exam or CBEs the syllabus tested will be the same.
But the CBEs are structured such that a wide area of syllabus is tested so Do Not pick and choice while learning concepts…. Since any thing and everything can be tested… In fact, the same goes for paper exams too.

And also, time management! Manage your time well whether in paper or CBE, time can be the worst enemy if don’t plan and manage it properly.

I hope this helps.