This student achieved what seemed impossible. Find out how...

Trust me, signing up for an online course will mean the difference between you passing and failing your exam. When striving to succeed in a CIMA exam, going it alone without the support of an online tutor, is not a good idea - as one of our recent graduates will contest!

Tim*, who spent four years trying to pass the Strategic Case Study exam, managed to finally achieve  his pass on the August 2017 sitting. How did he manage this after failing for so long? Read on to find out!

Question Yourself - Part 2

I'm sure you know how important it is to take mocks before your real CIMA exams, however, many students fail to make the most out of their mocks, and I don't want you to be one of those students! 

In Part 1 of this blog post, I discussed the ways to make your revision questions dynamic, interesting and engaging. Well, now it's time to turn our attention to mock exams - so keep reading to find out the best techniques for using mock exams as part of your CIMA revision!

Which type of learner are you - and which CIMA resources should you use?

Everybody is different and we all learn in different ways. Experts agree that there are four main learning groups into which individuals fall - visual learners, audio learners, linguistic learners and physical learners.

Read on to find out more about these different learning groups and how your own learning type could effect which type of study material is best for you!

Four must-read facts for aspiring accountants!

I'm sure you know how tough studying for CIMA exams can be. Revising in the evenings, in the early mornings, even during your lunch breaks - it seems like you're always working. What's more, some of the material can be really difficult to understand. Even the most hardworking students might sometimes question - is all this really worth it? 

Well the answer to that is 'yes it is'! Top accountancy jobs are among the highest paid jobs in the world, meaning your hard work will quite literally 'pay off' as you progress through your career. 

Check out our four fun accounting facts below - they're guaranteed to put a smile on the face of all prospective CIMA accountants! 

How to study on the go!

Sometimes it feels as though students' other commitments prevent them from studying as hard as they should. Well, this doesn't have to be the case - not all CIMA revision has to be done at a desk. In fact, you can learn well no matter where you happen to be, as long as you are prepared. 

Here's how to revise when you can't get to your computer... 

In the final stages of revision? Try these top tips!

Have you ever felt like time is sometimes going too fast? Even though revision is possibly not the most exciting time of your life, time really does seem to fly by until suddenly you are waking up and it is almost the day of your CIMA exam!

With the big day approaching so fast, what kind of things should you be doing? Here are our top four tips to make stress your new best friend!

Want to change your revision forever? Try these tips!

Have you ever walked into the self help section of a book store? If you have, then you may have noticed that there are a good number of books claiming to perform near miracles in a very short amount of time. Become happier in six days? Sounds good! Stop smoking after one session with a hypnotist? Sign me up! Learn how to grow your own money tree? This book comes with free saplings to get you started!

Okay, so maybe some of these aren't exactly the real deal – but it doesn't stop a lot of books from claiming to change your life in under a week. As great (and easy) as it sounds, the effects are unlikely to last long term. In order to see real results, you must keep working on your goals consistently. How can we do this? We have some great tips from one of the most successful self help gurus - no money trees included!

A trio of materials to combat the CIMA exam!

It's not long until the CIMA pre-seen is released! How is your revision going? Do you feel like your mind is blossoming with knowledge or do you currently feel like a stick in the mud who is feeling a little overwhelmed? Have no fear, we are here to help!

Our very first piece of advice would be to start your revision now. Yes, right now, before you start reading that 900-page book, begin studying origami or planning a walk that will take you as far away from the CIMA exam as possible. But without a pre-seen available from CIMA yet, how can you start revising? Well, we may have the materials just for you! The answer is in our Ethics pack, Course Videos and Study Texts. With these three, we have a trio to combat CIMA!

Do you get distracted? I know I do! Four tips to minimise distractions

Don't let distraction lead to CIMA failure! 

Sometimes, the temptation to get distracted and lose focus during CIMA exam periods can be almost irresistible. Going through the same or similar things over and over can be so frustrating that you spend your time staring at a wall, flicking through your phone or doing anything that isn't revising!

To overcome this, I have devised a few useful tips to help you become productive even when things get tough:

Three must read articles on the Wind Consultancy industry!

In my experience, students who dedicate time to researching the CIMA Case Study industry usually perform better. By doing this, it gives them a broader knowledge and the insight to enhance their exam answers and impress the CIMA examiners!

Remember, these are the people marking your scripts so listen to their advice. A good answer is a happy examiner, and a happy examiner equals a pass in the CIMA Case Study exam! 

To demonstrate my point, here is a quote from the latest CIMA Strategic Case Study report: 

"The pre-seen scenario was detailed and well prepared candidates should have been able to give good answers in the context of the industry." 

This shows that a wider understanding of the Wind Consultancy industry will help you when it comes to applying your knowledge in the CIMA August Case Study exam. With this in mind, here are three interesting articles I found to help contribute to your research:

Don't make the same mistakes as past students. Find out what they are...

So there's not much longer until the start of the CIMA Strategic Case Study exams! Are you ready? 

These last few days will be absolutely vital to your CIMA success, so make the most of the limited time available. I thought I would share with you the key points from the latest CIMA Strategic Case Study Examiner's Report as I really feel this is a great source of valuable information for everyone taking the exam in the coming weeks.

What better advice can you receive than from the examiners themselves? After all not only do they write the exam, they also mark it!

I attended a conference in London where examiners fed back on the performance of CIMA students. It's a shame that you were not all in the audience with me as they gave some great advice on how students can perform better in the exams. 

It was interesting to hear in the conference that the examiners were disappointed that many CIMA students did not take the time to read their reports, as the same problems were coming up time and time again. So to overcome this, we've captured the key points across the Examiner's Reports from the most recent sitting:

Must know tips from the SCS examiners!

The May 2016 CIMA Strategic Case Study Examiner's Report has just been released – as always it contains valuable information for students about to take their CIMA exams. 

It amazes me that so many CIMA students don't pay attention to the Examiners' Reports. After all, they are the people you need to impress on the big day!

These reports highlight the same old issues that come up time and time again. They summarise the mistakes students are making in the exams and give important and helpful advice on areas they should improve.

Make sure you don't ignore these! To help you out we've captured the key points from the May report here:

50% of students found the exam to be more difficult than they expected. See the results from our survey...

Learning from the experience of past CIMA Strategic Case Study students can be the recipe for success!

So it's been a couple of weeks since we launched our SCS Experience Survey, and the results beginning to emerge are very interesting.

Learning lessons from CIMA students who have been through the exam can really help you to achieve success. Find out below how difficult students found they exam, their most common mistakes, and where they felt they should have spent more time during their revision.

Don't let stress be the reason for failing your CIMA exams!

Stress can be your biggest enemy when it comes to your CIMA exams! In my fifteen years of teaching, I've seen excellent students fail their exams due to an inability to manage their stress levels! This is such a shame as they often work long and hard to achieve success.

Remember, everyone gets nervous in the build up to important events. Whether it's starting a new job, attending an interview or making a wedding speech, it's perfectly natural to feel butterflies in your stomach before the big day.

Sportsmen often say that a little stress is a good thing as it actually improves their performance. Similarly many famous actors suffer from stage fright just before giving outstanding performances on the stage.

Like these successful people, the secret is it to control the stress not let the stress control you!

So, let's think about stress in terms of your CIMA exams. Take a look at these 5 great tips that could be key the to passing:

6 ways to significantly improve your work life balance

Juggling work, revision and home life is the single biggest challenge for many CIMA students.

I was recently counseling a CIMA student who was struggling with getting this balance right. He was a committed rugby player as well as a father of two small children. Combined with a busy job in the finance team of a large multi-national corporation, his CIMA revision seemed like a step too far in his busy schedule. He found that not only was his revision going badly, he was not managing any of the key parts of his life successfully. He was heading for problems!

This reminded me of many conversations I have had with Accountancy students over the 15 years I've been teaching.

Of course there is no simple answer, but there are some steps that can be followed to help students to get the balance right and be successful in their CIMA exams.

Here are my six key tips:

Model, average or disaster Student... Which one are you?

People regularly use the term “The Model Student” within the education industry when describing what the ideal student would do when passing their exams with top marks.

However, the idea of the model student can seem a bit out of reach for some students, as they may think that they will never get to that level.

I wanted to explore the idea of the model student therefore, in order to try and work out what really makes the perfect student within the accountancy world, with the hope of potentially inspiring a few students to reach that little bit further within their own studies to achieve the best that they possibly can.

Don't make this big mistake!

I was recently approached by a worried student who was struggling to remember his theory. He was spending hours reading the CIMA Study Text but simply couldn't remember what he'd just read - nothing was going in! He talked me through his revision technique and basically we soon released that he didn't have a strategy. He simply spent hours reading through the CIMA Study Text over and over again. 

His biggest mistake was that he was not taking notes. I suggested that he should spend one hour on a specific subject annotating the text and capturing the key points as he went along. I am pleased to say that he was quickly able to take me through the CIMA subject in great detail much to his own surprise!

Sometimes it isn't enough to simply read through a piece of text - in my experience you have to take things a step further like this student did. Take notes as you go along. The process of reading a portion of text and then translating this into a written note helps your brain to consume and understand the information. It also helps you to remember it at a later date.

To help you do this really well, here are 8 simple but effective note-taking tips:

Exam tip - Reward your hard work!

You may have an exam approaching in the next few weeks and there's no doubt that this can be a very stressful experience...

Scrabbling to cram in that last bit of revision whilst doubting whether you know enough to pass the exam - I'm sure this is a scenario familiar to us all. 

Sometimes it can feel like a very stressful period, but it's so important that you enter the exam hall with a fresh and positive mind-set, so what tricks can you employ to calm yourself down?

Keeping your eye on the prize...

Passing through the CIMA exams is tough. That's why you need to make sure you have something you are striving for.

Of course becoming CIMA qualified is the first thing you will think about.

But why do you want to become CIMA qualified? Where do you see yourself in five years?

During the periods where revision is tough, or you are struggling to get through a particular exam, you'll need to have that vision to keep you going.

3 tips to make your revision fun and effective (yes I said fun!)

CIMA revision is of course very important - but are we guilty of making our approach a bit too serious?

It goes without saying that all students really want to pass their CIMA exams - so it's important to make sure your revision is as effective as possible. After all, it's a serious matter!

However, there is often a misconception that revision can't also be enjoyable. 

With that in mind, here are three tips that could not only make your revision more fun, they could also make your revision more effective!