- Hi, I am Anand Bang, a Chartered Accountant from The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).
- Believe it or not, my ISCI exam went so terribly that I almost did not appear for my next paper (Direct Taxation)
- Guess what? I not only secured the 25th AIR in the CA Final but also bagged the Best Paper Award for Direct Tax. Talk about a comeback!
My Chartered Accountancy journey
While in school, I was decent in my studies but certainly not among the best ones.
And, in my opinion, it is not necessary to be the class topper in school to be one later in life.
My sisters are also chartered accountants so that mainly motivated me to pursue the same.
In my CA career, I passed both the CPT (1st level CA exam) and the PCC (2nd level CA exam, which is divided into two groups—Group 1 and Group 2, now known as CA Intermediate) on the first try.
But I was nowhere close to being a rank holder.
It’s not that I studied a lot more for CA Finals than for PCC, but I believe I was more systematic in preparing for the former, which made all the difference.
CA Final trip
- I would be lying if I said I studied only a few hours a day to prepare for the exams.
- In fact, if someone with great intelligence would require studying only for 6 to 8 hours a day, I would study much more than that, say 12 to 14 hours, and that is because I knew I would require that much effort.
- So, I feel students should evaluate themselves as to how much they should study without getting bogged down by how many hours others are studying. So yes, hard work is a must.
- Besides that, I feel I did certain things during preparation that worked out very well for me.
- One key takeaway for me was that no matter how much you study or how many times you revise a subject before exams, your exam performance will be determined by how much of that subject you are able to study on that day.
- My key mantra to prepare for the exams was that I should be able to review most, if not all, of the material on the exam day, and accordingly, my study plans revolved around that mantra.
- I used to prepare short notes in tabular or diagram form for key lessons or chapters.
- I used the highlighter to mark key points or words to make compressed study material that could be completed on exam day.
- Should one should study only one subject at a time or multiple subjects? To be honest, it depends on what one is comfortable with. I used to study multiple subjects as I used to get exhausted from studying one subject for too long, but I know of people who were comfortable studying one subject at a time, which worked equally well for them.
- So there is no hard and fast rule that only one particular way is most efficient; one must study in a way that makes one most comfortable.
- Most importantly, study with the intention of conceptualizing the subjects.
How many revisions are needed to get a ranking?
- Surprisingly, I had a chance to revise only once before the exams.
- It is a myth that X number of revisions are required to obtain a rank.
- In my opinion, how much you can revise on the exam day has a greater direct impact on results than the number of revisions.
- While revising for the first and last time before the exams (which for me started 2 months before the exams), after completing each lesson, I would specifically give 10 minutes at the end of that lesson to decide how much time I should be taking on exam day to revise that lesson and accordingly take a bird’s eye view of that lesson and do markings or highlights that would help me study the lesson within the decided time limit on exam day.
- For each subject, I used to mark in the index how much time I should spend on each lesson to revise for the exam.
Importance of mock papers
- Yes, it is critical that the main exams serve as practice sessions.
- Solving one paper for each subject helped me get a taste of the exams beforehand.
- In addition, one thing that I did that was immensely helpful to me was studying suggested answer papers of past attempts, one hour daily for two months before the exams. This not only helped me get a feel for how exam papers are but also helped me identify my weak areas on which I should focus during the revision.
- Learn the art of using a highlighter that helps you compress the notes to study on exam day.
- For practical subjects, I roughly solved one question in writing from each chapter during the exam days, which helped me remove rustiness (since it had been long since I had last revised that subject) and helped me improve my writing speed in the exams.
The most critical stage is the 16-day exam period.
We heard numerous examples from our professors of how one bad paper affects the students so much that they end up screwing up the next paper.
Eventually, in many cases, it turns out that the student ends up clearing up the bad paper but ends up goofing up the next one. So, it is very important to just forget each exam after appearing and just attempt for all papers, come what may.
In this regard, I would like to share my personal experience of CA final exam days; ISCA was the most dreadful subject for me. And on exam day, my fear of ISCA made me go blank, and I don’t remember what I wrote in that exam.
I literally cried after that exam and was convinced that I would fail.
In that negative mindset, I decided to skip the next paper, Direct Taxation (DT), and directly prepare for the last paper, IDT, to at least get an exemption in IDT (which is very common for students to do after the forgettable ISCA paper).
However, after a lot of persuasion from my family, sense finally prevailed, and I agreed to not skip the preparation for the Direct Tax (DT) exams and give both the remaining papers to the best of my abilities.
When the results were out, fortunately, I somehow managed to clear ISCA and ended up with the 25th All India Rank and the highest marks in the DT paper.
Looking back at that incident, I laugh at it, realizing how foolish I would have been to miss out on my rank if I had decided to skip attempting for DT.
So it is critical to not quit in the middle of the journey during preparations or exams and to simply keep fighting even if things aren’t going as planned.
Would I advise opting for a coaching class or self-studying?
- Classes are not a must.
- However, if one prefers joining a coaching class, I believe the best use occurs when one tries to revise things done in classes in real-time, at least key chapters if not all (I understand it is difficult to revise everything while working as an article, but if there is a will, there is a way.)
- I attended classes for the CA Final. I think I went to 99 percent of the lectures. I attempted to make the most of the classes by reviewing at least a few if not all, subjects in real time. So before the exam study leave, I had finished studying, or you could say I had a good hold as I had attended classes regularly and I kept revising the class work.
- I had gotten five months of study leave.
- I also had summarized notes for at least all key lessons in the theory subject, so that revising on exam day could become easier.
- I think taking too many notes can end up complicating things. I just studied from one book, that I had decided on, and even if I referred to some other books for certain parts, I ensured that I reproduced that part in summarized form in the main book I was studying from so that I did not need to refer to multiple books on exam day.
- For direct tax, I referred only to Durgesh Sir’s notes and his book, which helped me get that exemption and rank in the CA Final.
My advice
I always had the perception that one has to be extraordinary to get a rank in the Chartered Accountancy exams, but this perception changed completely when I got a rank myself in the CA Final.
Sheer dedication and a systematic approach are more than enough to help you succeed.
I have seen quite a few people who get pessimistic a few months, weeks, days, or hours before the exams and do not give their best or stop studying.
And on the results day, they miss clearing by just a few marks here and there. “I wish I had given my best,” they later lament.
Yes, it is true that sometimes putting in the best possible efforts might not assure the best outcome, but at least if we give our best, we won’t have regrets.
Remember that while sorrow lasts only once, regrets last much longer.
It is so important to just give the best of your efforts with a positive mindset without worrying about the results.
