Hi, I am sitting my SCS in August.

I have the 2019 SCS materials and I’m aware the syllabus has been updated with topics such as AI and digital strategy. Can anyone recommend the best (and most cost-effective) way to study just these new additions? Are there any official resources or reasonably priced supplements rather than buying the full set of texts again?

Thank you for your time.

Hi all,

Studying P3 at the moment. Hoping to study and take the exam in 2 weeks. I’m not working at the moment so hopefully can be done.

A quick question for anyone out there - were there any calculations in the exam?

The literature so far with Kaplan looks pretty much all theory based

Thanks!!!

Hi everyone,

How long should I expect before my PER is approved/actions required?

My manager signed everything off 3 weeks ago and it was immediately selected for audit, banner appeared.

About a week after that, the audit banner disappeared and now everything has been on ‘signed off’ since.

Any experiences?

Thanks !

Hi everyone,

I’m preparing for the CIA Part 1 exam, and I have only 3 weeks left before my exam. I’d really appreciate your guidance.

Could anyone please suggest:

Which topics I should focus on the most during these last 3 weeks?

What are the best resources for revision and practice questions?

Any last-minute preparation tips that helped you clear the exam?

**Also, if anyone has access to Gleim study materials and is willing to share them, I’d be very grateful. Thank you in advance for your help!**

I think I have grasp of all the concepts but still getting confused applying them on the Kaplan questions.. have my exam tomorrow.. wanted to know from all who have appeared for E3, how tough is the exam going to be? I do think I know the concepts, may not be as deep as the concepts go but I do have hold of them!
Kaplan questions not filling me with confidence!

Plus any last minute tips, please?

Does anybody know what time this will be released today? It says 17/07 on the CIMA site

I recently passed MCS, F3, E3, P3 and SCS first time while working full-time and put together a short guide on what worked for me. Hopefully it's useful to someone else preparing for CIMA

Just got my pearsonvue result and it was a pass first time. Over the moon with this as I thought the exam was tricky given I’d passed 3/4 mocks (2 quite comfortable).This is my first exam having got exemptions from a degree for the ones before. Does this mean Ive passed? The letter says it’s not proof of result. So slightly nervous it could change.

I have my E3 exam tomorrow. I've been alright with the content (just a lot of theories). I study with Kaplan and did the mock today; I scored 58%. I'm now worried as the mock was difficult and a lot of questions were throwing me off even though I knew the content.

For anyone who studies with Kaplan and recently took the exam, how did you find the real thing to be?

Have worked in a social media marketing management in professional sports for the last 4-5 years. Doing an MBA in September to help the transition, also self-funded CIMA FLP and passed the first case study exam out of three recently. I understand I have ZERO finance background, but really trying to transiition. What else should I be aware of to help the transition of career?

While I was studying through kaplan exam kit, eac formula tend to divide by annuity factor at the very end, but I just did astranti mock, it just uses the whole year. So let’s say Cost of Capital of 10% and 2 years. Kaplan way of doing it is to divide by /1.735 (0.909+0.826) while astranti mock is just to divide by 2. Which one shall I follow to be correct during my exam?

I have just passed my F3 today. Do I have enough time to complete my P3 as my last objective exam and be able to sit the August case study.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks All

Hi so I'm '26 graduate and gonna have primers exam, so with ur experience can u pls let me know how it will be, is it enough to study only pre and post quiz? Or is the exam based on senior based questions,plss let me know 😭🙏🏻

Hi all,

Not sure if anyone can help! Due to unforeseen circumstances I think I’m going to have to leave my apprenticeship to relocate abroad to be with family.

I currently only have E3 and SCS left and am due to sit in the November sitting. I have 6 years experience in my current role and completed AAT with my current employer.

I was wondering how self funded would work and if I can complete CIMA without a current employer? As it would take me some time for me to find an employer and settle myself. Do you still do some sort of portfolio after SCS? Or is SCS it?

PS if my employer needed to sign anything off, I believe they would as they know about my situation and I’ve worked there for 10 years.

Any help is appreciated as I’m struggling with all the info online!!

I got 78 in my exam recently and I'm really deflated. I dont know where to start revising again.

Do the mocks have themes/patterns in them? As in do the questions repeat sometimes?

Any pointers as I'm really gutted.

Is any one familiar with this company written test round. In our college this company is visiting and there is a written test. Would really appreciate if anyone can guide me through the process and how to prepare

Need some inputs please!!

I have been preparing for E3 for past 2-3 weeks but as I work full time, I can only manage to study around 2 hours a day.. I have booked exam for next week but as the exam is approaching, I am feeling less and less confident.. I attempted a mock and the questions were so long, I could barely attempt 50 questions out of 60.. Are the questions in the real exam as long and tough as the Kaplan progress tests and mocks?
Should I go and give the exam or reschedule it. As I’m not native English speaker, the length of questions are not making me feel confident at all.

PS: I did have some knowledge on the topics before I started my preparation as I have studied something similar in the past.

Idk if this is the right place to ask but those who were eligible for a free resit for ocs through signing up for CIMA season 1 thing have you gotten your free resit code yet?

I took 2 weeks to prepare for E3 and 2-3 weeks for F3.

I have been working on P3 for the rest of time since Jan - making it 4 -5 months approx. I scored 88 & 95 in previous2 attempts and just got a provisional fail in today’s attempt.

I Have posted my queries and worked as per the suggestions of this reddit channel’s members after my previous failed attempts. Now -
I just dont get how do i crack the exam.
I have 7-8 movks at my disposal apart from the CIMA kaplan test series. I know the concepts quite well and was consistently scoring 60-70% on my mocks in PTA , Astranti and Kaplan.

Yet on the exam day the options and the English on some options confuse me . Especially both my first and today’s attempt had 45-50 questions which were just SATA and select 2/3 of the options based . I always confuse among options especially when there are many of them . I really feel like i am in a trap where i know concepts but the ability of application only in the questions asked in those in real exam is cursed .

I would also like to mention -i am usually left with 15 mins when i finish the paper and give. The lenghty questions make it harder for me to review the “mark for reviewed” ones efffectively. Im aiming for AUGUST SCS , and im unsure if i can sit for that exam even if i dont clear this paper .

What do i do - please advice

Hi Everyone.

I have just passed my SCS following the traditional route with all 16 exams over the last 3 years, as you can imagine, a long and difficult journey.

I’m seeing the usual posts from fellow candidates in forums/linkedin who have also passed, some via the FLP, and I am noticing that some of these people have completed what took me (and I am sure many others) a huge amount of time (and money) several years to complete, in a such a short amount of time. Sometimes, sitting all 3 case studies back to back to back through the FLP.

This isn’t anything negative towards those people as it’s still a great achievement, but I am worried that employers/recruiters will see this as a devaluation of the CGMA status? As when looking for new roles (UK based) we will be coming up against ACA/ACCA qualified candidates.

I was wondering if anyone who holds CGMA via exam based of FLP has noticed a shift in employer attitudes towards CIMA. As I am looking to switch roles but slightly worried all my hard work over the last few years has been undermined, and won’t present the opportunities it was promised to when I started.

I do understand employers value experience/personality/skills much more than any qualification, but ultimately, the letters after your name are often and filter, and if employers start to place ACA/ACCA above CIMA, because of the perceived difficulty of the qualification, that would be disappointing.

Interested to hear people’s thoughts/experiences.

I’ve just done my BA1 today and received a provisional pass. My undergrad was in politics so I’m wondering whether to take BA4 next rather than diving into BA2 & BA3?

Just got my results back last night and got a comfortable pass with my SCS. I’ve used Kaplan for all exams and while I really like them for the OTs I’ve always thought their case study courses were lacking.

I very highly recommend procountancy for the SCS, for personal reasons I only had a maybe 3 week turnaround for the case study, and the materials from procountancy were a life saver during that time. Hugh that runs it set up a discord server which many candidates helped eachother in, and while I admittedly only used the free stuff, e.g. a video analysis on YouTube and also a run through of exam topics and potential questions, it was clear from that the amount of knowledge/experience Hugh has teaching this stuff, with a focus on the common styles of questions and how to answer them rather than just reading through more theory. I only found these about a week before the exam, but if I could go back and know about them sooner I would 100% have gone with procountancy over Kaplan for the SCS.

In this last week before the exam I went from blindly knowing a bunch of theory to being able to answer questions really confidently. I never really do posts recommending things but I found what I got from Hugh/Procountancy in the run up was so useful that I wanted to do one so hopefully more people can see with more than a week to go before their exam 🤣

TL:DR, highly recommend procountancy for SCS, especially if you want to pass fast. They focus on how to answer questions, not just blind theory.

I recently finished F2 and planning to sit for November MCS. I did P2 and E2 twelve months ago, I am wondering whether three months is enough (starting from August till October) to revise technical knowledge for all three (P2,E2 and E2), and prepare for MCS?

I work 6 days a week and only have evenings for studying.