TIME MANAGEMENT FOR EXAM PREPARATION

|CA DHIRAJ A. RAMCHANDANI|

Introduction

Ok so, I have been receiving calls and messages from people, regarding time management for the studies. I have already stated the same in my previous articles, but that seem to be much impossible or not feasible for everyone, when someone goes for his/her self studies. Therefore, I am drafting the time schedule again for you people, which would definitely help you in managing the time accordingly.

Generally, it does happen, even if we go for coaching of certain subjects, studies require our own efforts at the end. So, it is like, coaching classes are there to help you out understanding the basic concepts and guide you for the studies. But the real efforts are to be made by you only. Hence, finally all comes on the student to manage not just the studies, but the time as well for those studies.

Length of content

I don’t agree that ICAI has got the toughest syllabus, as I have been in touch with different people from commerce and science stream. They got similar difficult syllabus too. Yes, the only uniqueness ICAI’s syllabus has its length and the content. No other syllabus is as lengthy as our CA studies, while the time allocated is same as any other course. That means, the problem is to cover this high contended syllabus in limited time.

Anyways, I am here to suggest for proper time allocation for CA exam preparations. Such sort of schedule can be helpful to all or most of them, as I have practically experienced the same and the same has been followed by some of my juniors and friends, who have appreciated the same.

IPCC

Let us discuss about the IPCC. This is one of the most critical stage in CA course, as actual learning and execution of the same starts here only. CPT generally revise your previous learnings and adds in it basic concepts. And now, CPT itself gets eliminated for graduates. So, IPCC plays vital role for any student in pursuing CA.

TABLE I

Here is bifurcation given subject-wise and days allocated for each subject:

IPCC – Should be completed within 5 Months (150 days or 1700 hours)

Now, we always have a doubt, how to consider the subjects and which subject is to be considered first and which one at the end. Mainly, though we have time allocations with us, we fail to execute the same in our routine.

General problem with students is that they consider hard work from the very beginning itself, which exhaust them at the real time. When you begin your studies, don’t sit for late hours or don’t be a superman from the very first day. Start with less-time studies in the beginning, grow your study time slowly and gradually.

TABLE II

I have tried to explain a pattern to be followed, in the following table, when you are studying on your own. Following table shows, how you should start your studies in different phases, and how much sitting should be done in each phase for studies per day. And you can also compare the TOTAL HOURS REQUIRE PER SUBJECT with TOTAL HOURS REQUIRE PER PHASE. So that you can finish one or two subjects in each phase:

So, you can see now there is some savings of 80 hours in total, i.e. difference between hours allocated as per subjects and hours allocated as per phases. That means, you can spare, waste, enjoy some 8 days without studying, if your average studies take 10 hours per day.

REVISION

In those 15 days revision, you can spread it in following way:

-Accounts I: 2Days

-Audit: 2 Days

-SM/IT: 2 Days

-Accounts II: 2 Days

-Law/Ethics/Comm.: 2 Days

-Costing/FM: 2 Days

-Taxation: 3 Days

Closing Notes

I know some may feel, that sitting for 14 hours a day is too much for any IPCC student. But trust me, if someone starts putting his efforts right from this stage, he’ll b benefitted in the FINALS. As IPCC creates a base for the next big step, which covers both, articleship and studies as well. So, such kind of efforts are needed at IPCC level itself.

Disclaimer

All the above views and contents are results of my own thoughts and experience. I have not referred any other article or notes for the same.