CIMA Professional Exams - Revision Classes & Question days worth the cost?

[BennyC]

I know there are lots of threads knocking about on the topic of ACA/CIMA etc however I'm curious to hear people's experiences of further tuition/revision that's offered.

A brief background, I passed all 5 certificate level exams in the latter half of last year and have had a short break from studying looking to sit my first 2 professional exams in November this year. My employer is funding the taught phase & covering an exam and I've been thinking that a revision class & question day could be useful. I used distance learning last time and feel that taught might be better and that the guidance could be valuable.

If anyone has been on one I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. I should be able to salary sacrifice the cost of these excluding VAT so the cost to me should be approximately half that of the cost (circa £60pm) though they're not cheap at around £500 for a 2 day revision course and £250 for one question day.

Thanks,

BennyC

 

[Theophany]

Haven't done CIMA, but I did the IMC to get to QCF4 in November last year. I opted to do the tutored classes instead of distance learning because the classes were in at Moorgate and I lived on the Metropolitan line at the time.

If I was to do it again, I'd probably not bother with the classes. Whilst they were great for colour commentary for the course, I was able to learn the stuff I needed for the exams off my own steam.

 

[weringo]

I'm currently studying for the Advanced Stage of the ACA qualification through BPP, paid for by my employer. The tuition is excellent, it's extremely exam focussed and targets exactly what you need to know from the syllabus in a short space of time, while at the same time ensuring you gain exactly what's intended from the qualification.

I find the tuition is so good you can almost need to do no work outside of college in order to pass the exam, as I have done for a couple of my Professional Stage exams (Tax and Business Strategy) as well as pretty much all my Computer Based Assessments (the Knowledge Stage exams).

I can highly recommend BPP tuition provider and can honestly say attending the course will save you SO much of own free time, as the exam technique they teach you is invaluable.

From what I've heard the course is only £100-£150/day (although maybe my employer gets a large corporate discount) so what you plan to pay seems a little steep.

 

[BennyC]

Thanks for the replies.

The initial tuition for the course is around £600 including materials covering between 3/4 days so works out about that rate. It's a small employer however I will see if we can swing some discount.

I think it could be worth while for the first two for exam technique and then perhaps if I struggle with any of the later exams I could always attend another.

 

[semi-pro waster]

I did the taught classes, the revision classes and the question based days (QBDs) for all my CIMA exams as that's what my employer was offering (with Kaplan at the time). I think it was worth it as it gave me a ready made structure and meant I didn't have to do quite as much on my own time (although it's not a substitute for working through questions yourself) - however I'd suspect that you can probably do as well, it just requires a bit more commitment and focus from you.

If I hadn't been funded for it then that might have given me pause for thought but I still think I'd probably have chosen to do the classes as if it meant that I managed to pass everything first time that was probably worth it.

A few points that may or may not be useful to you:

• You've got about 1.8 minutes per mark, be fairly strict on your timings, the first say 50% of the marks are comparatively easy to come by but after that it's the law of diminishing returns so the last few points in any question take up far more time.
• Some models and/or pro formas will appear more than once - learning them properly the first time can pay dividends later e.g. Porter's Value Chain, Mendelow's Matrix, the BCG Matrix etc will all probably come into your studies on a number of occasions.
• There's no negative marking - putting down almost any answer (provided it's not unethical) is usually better than putting down nothing.
• Try not to "audit" your answers, try the question properly unless you're really stuck. It was a bit of a bad habit of mine and can lead you to think you'd have got the answer when actually you'd probably only get part of it.

What exams are you going to be doing if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Participant]

I tried a couple but learnt far more at home with my head in some books doing examples. That was a much better use of my time, but then that's my learning style. Depends how much your learning thrives from interacting with others I suppose.

Any concept I didn't understand I just went on the CIMA forum or investipedia etc.

 

[BennyC]

I did the taught classes, the revision classes and the question based days (QBDs) for all my CIMA exams as that's what my employer was offering (with Kaplan at the time). I think it was worth it as it gave me a ready made structure and meant I didn't have to do quite as much on my own time (although it's not a substitute for working through questions yourself) - however I'd suspect that you can probably do as well, it just requires a bit more commitment and focus from you.

If I hadn't been funded for it then that might have given me pause for thought but I still think I'd probably have chosen to do the classes as if it meant that I managed to pass everything first time that was probably worth it.

A few points that may or may not be useful to you:

• You've got about 1.8 minutes per mark, be fairly strict on your timings, the first say 50% of the marks are comparatively easy to come by but after that it's the law of diminishing returns so the last few points in any question take up far more time.
• Some models and/or pro formas will appear more than once - learning them properly the first time can pay dividends later e.g. Porter's Value Chain, Mendelow's Matrix, the BCG Matrix etc will all probably come into your studies on a number of occasions.
• There's no negative marking - putting down almost any answer (provided it's not unethical) is usually better than putting down nothing.
• Try not to "audit" your answers, try the question properly unless you're really stuck. It was a bit of a bad habit of mine and can lead you to think you'd have got the answer when actually you'd probably only get part of it.

What exams are you going to be doing if you don't mind me asking?

Cheers, extra support for the first few is quite appealing as I'm not sure if I will struggle and it'd be good to know I'll be doing everything that's required/expected. I think I respond better to taught classes than self study though I don't think my approach was great last time due wanting to get it all covered and then recap, sitting through recorded lectures twiddling my thumbs and then not really doing much practice to drum it in, bit of a fundamental flaw there!

I'll be starting with E1 & F1 I should think.

I tried a couple but learnt far more at home with my head in some books doing examples. That was a much better use of my time, but then that's my learning style. Depends how much your learning thrives from interacting with others I suppose.

Any concept I didn't understand I just went on the CIMA forum or investipedia etc.

Ta.

 

[daver]

I did the first two level at MMU, strategic at Kaplan and topcima at BPP. The professional places were more expensive but the tuition was much better imo. The revision courses at the Kaplan were very good. BPP also did very good 'Practice and Revision' kits which were basically loads and loads of past/example questions which is the best way to prepare for the exams imo.