CIMA official pass rates - P2 has the lowest pass rates at Management level

Hi everyone,

As you are probably aware, yesterday CIMA published the pass rates for the Objective Test exams. These statistics are based on students who have attempted the exams between January and May 2015. 

The secret to passing the CIMA OT exams revealed

Hi Everyone,
Thanks to those of you that completed our survey to find out - What does it take to pass an Objective Test exam?
So far we've had a great response with over 60 students taking part!
We've received responses from students who've passed and failed exams across all CIMA subjects, This means we have good range on which to base our findings.
These findings should definitely help you in your upcoming exams and will surely be beneficial to future students.
Here is an overview of the key points:
The secret to passing is...
Putting in the hours!
We were able to break down the exam pass rate by hours of study and the results were clear.

Hours of study	Number of Passes	Number of Fails
40-60	22	10
Less than 40	40	41

• Students that studied for between 40-60 hours had a pass rate* of 69%
• Students that studied for less than 40 hours had a pass rate of 49%

If you want to increase your chances of success, you should aim to study for 4-6 weeks and put in 10+ hours each week.
*Pass rate= number of passes/total number of attempts
The toughest exam is...

• Based on the survey, students are failing P3 and F3 on more than one occasion before they pass.
• So far P3 had the highest failure rate in our survey proving to be the toughest exam.
• Now that CIMA have changed the pass mark, I would hope that the pass rate in these exams falls into line with the others!

What materials should I be using?

• Study Texts, Mock Exams and Revision Questions were the most popular study materials used by students, with a majority of respondents finding them 'useful' or 'extremely useful'.
• Everybody (that's 100%!) who had passed an exam had used Study Texts as part of their revision and 95% had completed Mock Exams.
• 80% of those people who have used Mock Exams had completed 3 or more.
• More than three quarters of students who had passed exams had used Revision/Practice Questions.
• A combination of study texts, revision questions and mock exams was seen by students as the most useful revision materials.
• By contrast, the use of these materials was much lower for students who failed exams. More than half of the students who had failed, did not use revision/practice questions as part of their preparation for the exams.

Lastly, we were pleased to see that every student in the survey that used our Astranti materials had passed their exams.
You can still take part in the survey by going to the following link. It's totally anonymous and will only take a few minutes - What does it take to pass an Objective Test exam?

Astranti Financial Training.

60% find exam harder than expected - see the results of our survey

Hi Everyone,

Thanks to those of you that have taken the time to complete our MCS survey!

We've been looking at your feedback very carefully and here is a summary of the key points:

Almost 60% of respondents found the exam to be 'more difficult' than they anticipated, with only 9% finding it 'easier'.

Time management was stated as an issue by many students emphasising the need for mock practise.

Other comments indicated that many students found they had a good understanding of the theory and the pre-seen but said they found it difficult to apply both of these within the exam questions.

Relating to this, students found it difficult to understand the requirements of some of the questions.
Over 50% of students concluded that they should have spent more time on mock exams.

Industry research was not considered to be as important as expected - 42% said they would have done less research on the industry. BUT students should note that in the recent MCS examiner's report, the lack of Industry awareness shown in student's answers was criticised - so future MCS students should not abandon industry research entirely!

Here are 5 great tips from the survey for future students:

1. Complete as many mock exam as you can
2. Get to grips with the pre-seen early in your revision
3. Make sure you've revised the entire syllabus
4. Typing speed is key
5. Become an expert on time management

We hope you've found this information useful.

If you've not yet completed the survey we would love to hear from you - MCS Survey. 




Nick Best and the Astranti team