Scunnered
Chinless Wonder
Registered Posts: 61 Regular contributor ⭐
1st May. 23 days till my first CIMA paper. Sun is blazing down outside; I'm head down in a room with no windows. Two mock exams to do this week & hand in to college. One of my teachers is off long term sick and we still have the last 4 chapters of that paper to learn. One of my other teachers turns up 30 minutes late for class every week and has worked through examples on the board approx 4 times in the whole year. Our entire class is considering submitting a formal complaint to CIMA. And I've just been called for jury duty on 18th May. Can anyone point out the "on the positive side" in this story? 
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Comments
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The sun is blazing outside, you will get some feedback on the two mock exams, which will be very helpful.
You only got 4 chapters to go and you can read through them yourself and see how much you understand.
That's me ignoring all the negatives! I do think you have a reason to complaint, but I would complain to the college before complaining to CIMA.
And for the rest, 23 days apparently is enough to practice loads and loads of questions! (I have been told four weeks is enough to get ready for the exams). So get your nose in a practice kit and start doing questions and questions and more questions!
I just awarded myself 5 1/2 points total on a 25 mark question, which is not helping my mood, but lunchbreak now and then on to the next question, before I do this one again...
Good luck, stay positive and remember you can do this!0 -
The sun is blazing outside, you will get some feedback on the two mock exams, which will be very helpful.
You only got 4 chapters to go and you can read through them yourself and see how much you understand.
That's me ignoring all the negatives! I do think you have a reason to complaint, but I would complain to the college before complaining to CIMA.
And for the rest, 23 days apparently is enough to practice loads and loads of questions! (I have been told four weeks is enough to get ready for the exams). So get your nose in a practice kit and start doing questions and questions and more questions!
I just awarded myself 5 1/2 points total on a 25 mark question, which is not helping my mood, but lunchbreak now and then on to the next question, before I do this one again...
Good luck, stay positive and remember you can do this!
23 days is not bad I agree, but I failed to mention this is strategic level which is more demanding. I've not failed a CIMA paper yet, and don't intend to - however, the sheer volume of information I need to digest, understand and apply to the scenarios given is overwhelming. I'm already working through the four missing chapters of P3, and am now doing it from a newly acquired set of Kaplan notes as the CIMA texts are UTTER GASH. They are designed for reference - not learning. Everything you could ever need to know is in them - but they are weighty and hard to actually learn from with no exam focus.
I've already had a long dialogue with the head of the course over all this as it's been sh*t from the start in a number of ways. In January I was thinking about ditching F3 - the paper with a truly awful teacher - and taking it to Kaplan instead - however, with course fees of nearly double (including revision) I couldn'y afford it; I opted to stay at uni "to see if things got better" and also because I can come back for free next year if I need to. Well, needless to say, things didn't get better! a few weeks back I bought the BPP F3 Text book - I'm now "revising" (but really, teaching myself for the first time) from that.
CIMA have a "learning matrix" - which is a set of key criteria to which colleges should adhere to provide CIMAs required quality of teaching. They're falling down on so many areas it's quite shocking. It makes me really angry as I pay my own fees and am getting nothing but frustration back from it.
The jury citation was the straw on the camel's back!
I've done enough for today. I'm off out to get some of this sun (if it's still out) before doing my self-employed work tonight. Life goes on...
Thanks for your positive words!0 -
PS the positive side is that my E3 teacher is absolutely superb, and he's taking us for the revision of the non-financial aspects of P3. So that's something!0
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Right, I did seem to remember you were at strategic level, rather than operational somewhere in the back of my head.
I don't really know what else you can do, other then what you are doing already now. Especially since being on strategic, it means you got three exams upcoming! I know you said you won't start failing an exam now, but would it be wise to keep spreading the focus between all three or go for two papers specific and aim for only one resit?
I'm sure you can do all three, if you can find the time to study and put some decent time in, but I agree it is short time, especially with the jury services. It's just that short time does still mean there is some time left!
The only thing to do is to stay positive and keep at it, but you know this already!
I'm glad your E3 teacher is so good though.
Based on your comments here, I would put in a review or complaint to CIMA though. CIMA has a feedback form, not sure if you can use that for the complaints or that you would need to do it separately, but in this case I do think it's worth mentioning it. (It won't help you pass, so might be worth waiting till after the exams?)0 -
Right, I did seem to remember you were at strategic level, rather than operational somewhere in the back of my head.
I don't really know what else you can do, other then what you are doing already now. Especially since being on strategic, it means you got three exams upcoming! I know you said you won't start failing an exam now, but would it be wise to keep spreading the focus between all three or go for two papers specific and aim for only one resit?
I'm glad you mentioned that. I had "written off" F3 as a lost cause. Now that I am actually getting some decent learning in, I'm aware I'm now "working" on it. So my decision is exactly that - do I still focus on P & E as I originally planned, or go hell for leather?
I think the answer is a bit of both - do enough work on F3 to have a decent shot at it, but without absolutely stretching myself.I'm sure you can do all three, if you can find the time to study and put some decent time in, but I agree it is short time, especially with the jury services. It's just that short time does still mean there is some time left!
The only thing to do is to stay positive and keep at it, but you know this already!
I'm glad your E3 teacher is so good though.
Based on your comments here, I would put in a review or complaint to CIMA though. CIMA has a feedback form, not sure if you can use that for the complaints or that you would need to do it separately, but in this case I do think it's worth mentioning it. (It won't help you pass, so might be worth waiting till after the exams?)
Well I'm certainly feeling a lot more positive today (especially after doing the year end at work!). It just feels like such a constant grind and stuff like Jury duty popping up just sends you over the edge. I think you're right about leaving any action till after the exams. Right now the focus should be on positive energy: working, learning, practising, not the negativity involved in a formal complaint.
We can write the formal complaint in the pub on Thursday afternoon after the last exam!!!
Thanks for your help Rinske
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Chinless Wonder wrote: »...I've just been called for jury duty on 18th May...
Hi
You should be able to defer for sometime in the next twelve months.
Neil0
