Help! Too many options!?

Training provider- i would use one of the big guys Kaplan or BPP
Best way to study -Down to you the distance leanring material is excellent if you can put the time in.

Number of papers during each exam sitting:- i would only sit 2 a time but 3 each sitting is doable if you put the effort in
Any other info you think will be useful:-Don;t forgot your examtions thanks to AAT for the certificate Papers in CIMA will cost you around £225...

i actaully did mine at a tuition centre, mixture of weekend courses and evening courses,

but if i was to do distance learning that would be the approach i would take, block around 3 hours out each evening to work through the sylabys, should take you around 6 evenings per subject that way.

Woooof wrote: »

Hi everyone,

The company I work for has asked about me continuing onto further studies past the AAT. I know my preference is CIMA, but with regards to options to do this I am rather confused. So if you have an opinion on any of the following it will help me decide which is the best route to take

Training provider
Best way to study
Number of papers during each exam sitting
Any other info you think will be useful

Thanks

I agree with Slackda - if you can afford it - go for the big boys who have the reputation and the pass rates.

I did AAT at Kaplan but my CIMA has been at a uni who for the first two years were ok - but have really let me down this year and I will be submitting a complaint to CIMA as the quality was very very poor.

I chose the uni because it was the only provider nearby to offer evening classes - I always found them the best way to continually motivate myself - but having just (hopefully) salvaged one of my Strategics mostly by self study from BPP texts I realise I do have the willpower now to put in the hours, so for any resits I will be working on it myself and doing Question Based Days at Kaplan.

(I met a former classmate from uni at the exams who did Kaplans QBDs and said they were so challenging that the exam was EASY by comparison!)

No of papers - if you have a job, or any sort of life, don't do more than 2 at the same time. I just sat my 3 Strats (you have to do 3 together at the first sitting) and it just about wrecked me. There's a bit of discussion on this in the "3 weeks to go" thread that I just joined in on....


Oh - more information - be VERY wary of buying the official CIMA Text books (Elsevier). I've been very disappointed in them this year as they are very academic; I don't find them oriented towards example practice and exam technique, and they take half a page of wordy text to explain something you can describe in 20 words. Yes they are complete, and if it's in the book, "it could come up", but LIFE IS TOO SHORT.

And they are RIDDLED WITH TYPOS! I have had to query stuff in class that I'd read up in the house for an hour or two in complete confusion, only to be told "oh, that should say $82 not £80" or whatever.

BPP and Kaplan's books are designed for actually learning from. CIMAs texts are designed for looking stuff up via the index at the back.

Chinless Wonder wrote: »

I don't think you could cover a whole CIMA syllabus in six 3 hour sessions. Our evening classes were 11 weeks of 3 hours per paper

CIMA say: CIMA’s guideline is about 200 hours of study time, per paper. An hour ‘in class’ equates to about 2-3 hours of self study.

So, if you are studying at home, aim for 200 hours. If you are at college for 50 hours, for one paper, an additional 50-100 hours of self study should suffice.

I've never self studied so cannot comment, but im assuming if you use the BBP online learning Media which includes videos of topics explained by bpp tutors they this would help you condense down the study time a bit.....

I guess the big difference is the big tuition providers condense the sylabus down into its core areas. so we were looking at around 30 hours study time with 16 hours on revision courses, then i put in a week of intensive study/revision before the exams, so roughly 7hrs per day split on two topics so roughly another 18hours, so im a bit light only taking about 64 hours per subject. i have taken this approach to all my exams so far and had comfortable passes, but thats not to say it suits everyone.
(all execpt e1,which was a margin fail on first sitting, more down to exam techique than lack of learning)