How Do I Pass the CKE?

How do I pass the CKE? Before we provide strategies, we will briefly explain what the CKE consists of:1. 100 MCQ questions  5 questions in Governance  30 Questions in Assurance  10 Questions in Finance  15 Questions in Management Decision Making (MDM) 25 Questions in Performance Measurement and Reporting (PMR) 15 Questions in Taxation 2. You have 4 hours to complete the exam  With 100 questions you have approximately 2.4 minutes (or 2 minutes and 24 seconds) to complete each question 3. The questions are a mix of theory and calculation (I find that people overestimate the number of calculation type questions; be prepared for theory questions – when we wrote the CKE we noticed that majority of questions were theory as opposed to calculations)4. ICAO does not disclose the passing rates but approximately 75% to 80% of the people pass the CKE. Getting a mark higher than 60% on the CKE exam will likely get you a pass (but this is not a guarantee since whether you pass also depends on others) 5. There are two sittings for the CKE (one in first week of January, and another in the first week of May). Which sitting should I choose? Reasons for choosing January It is good to write in January for many reasons: (1) you may be at a job where you will be in the midst of busy season during January-April and (2) In the event you do not pass the January sitting, you can re- write the CKE in May and still be eligible to write the UFE in the same year. Reasons for choosing May We personally wrote in May and found this to be a huge plus because our technical was fresh in our minds for the SOA (the school of accountancy starts in June with final SOA exam being at the end of June). People say that it is too difficult to write the CKE in May because you would need to also start practicing for the SOA. However, we found that because our technical was fresh in our heads from CKE study, we got more out of our practice cases. Because we started studying for the CKE early (see below) we were able to space things out and started writing 1 case a week beginning in the second week of March (approx. 3-4 hours spent per week on SOA case practice) while studying for the CKE. Strategies: 1. The #1 strategy to pass the CKE is to do as many mock exams as possible. We studied as a group and among the three group members, we each did approx. 1200-1500 mock MCQ questions (that’s 12-15 Mocks) under a time constraint (i.e. if we did 50 questions we gave ourselves 2 hours) Our experience of using this strategy: Now many people pass with doing less; but we feel that that’s leaving too much up to chance. When we first did these MCQ questions we were getting very low marks (like 30-40%). But as we did more and more, and by the last week before the exam, we were hitting 70-75%, and felt very confident going in to the exam. Our strategy of doing 1200-1500 questions helped us in the following way- It allowed each of us, through experience, to decide which section to answer first and get control over the time o For example we had the strategy of getting through what we found to be the harder topics first, that being audit and PMR. From our mocks, on average, we got through these sections in approx. 2 hours. We knew that if we felt comfortable with our performance in PMR/Assurance (55% of the exam), we are almost guaranteed to pass as we still had ample amount of time to tackle the less heavier topics such as tax and MDM. - A lot of question we practiced were very similar to the actual exams (for example when we saw a calculation questions we knew right away exactly what steps to take and what tricks they can incorporate into the question)2. You need to debrief your mock exams, this is where you learn why you got a question correct or why you got a question incorrect. - Initially this is going to be a tough process as you are just starting to learn, and make sure to debrief the questions you got correct as well because you may have got a question correct by guessing - As time goes by, you may choose to skip questions that you got correct and know 100% why you got it correct (this will save a tonne of time)- If you did a 4 hour mock exam (look to spend anywhere between 4-6 hours debriefing it, initially in the process this may be more like 8-10 hours) o Don’t worry about how long it takes you to debrief; take as much time as you need until you feel comfortable with your understanding of the question/topic- We followed the following procedure when debriefing o I read the question and the MCQ options one more time o I then looked at the solution for the answer. If I got the question correct, I still read the solution to see if my reasoning/calculation followed the same process that the solution followed (i.e. although I got the right answer, the solution may have provided an easier way to solve it that I can use next time to save time). If I got it wrong If it’s a calculation question – I read the solution and ask myself where did I go wrong? And thereafter, after having learned, I re-do the calculation question without looking at the solution  If it’s a theory question –I read the question again, to make sure I didn’t misread the question (this is very common) and ask myself why my answer is wrong and why the solution’s answer is correct without even looking at the solution’s explanation. This is really effective, because sometimes you start remembering something you learned in the past and getting the reasoning without even looking at the solution. Whether you understand why or why not the solution is correct, read over the solution so you can learn from it. 3. Note keeping is key Throughout the CKE study period you will be learning a lot of technical material and it is impossible to remember it all, and when it comes to review, you need to have a neat and efficient way of go through what you learned, especially the areas in which you struggle in The way we designed our notes is to use Microsoft One Note and it looks something like this…- Create a new note book call it whatever you want (i.e. UFE 2013)- Set up tabs for each of the topics (PMR, Assurance…) - Create a page in the tab (i.e. business combination, investment in associates) for topics- As you learn something from your debrief that you think is important, simply through it in the correct spot o I.e. if I learned that under IFRS, you can use the revaluation model for PPE, I would to PMR, PPE and through this fact under thereDoing this helps in the following ways: 1. You can use it effectively to review your material in between mocks and the time leading up to the actual CKE 2. Using one note keeps everything in one neat spot, you don’t have to worry about paper being all over the place and unlike word you don’t have to deal with folders and files (all you have to do is launch outlook and create a new notebook called UFE and put everything there)3. Because CKE is a key time to learn your technical base, you have a good set of technical notes, that you can look to as you go through the UFE and SOA (and best of all it’s in your own writing and you don’t have to worry about going to the CICA Handbook or other materials). - During the SOA you have very limited time to learn your technical, it’s a stressful period, because when you are done the SOA class, all you have time to do is to write and mark a practice case. Make sure you build a good technical base during CKE study! Or you will end up wasting too much time on learning technical and not enough time on developing case writing at the SOA. - We used our OneNote notes all throughout our SOA classes and while debriefing SOA/UFE cases - Trust us on this one, you learn a lot more reviewing/reading your own notes than you would reading a the handbook or another material so make it an effort to make some good technical notes during the CKE process4. More importantly, for those writing the January CKE, you will forget what you learned very quickly (as many of us have more important things in our lives than say to worry about the GAAP for financial instruments). Keeping notes allows you to quickly stay fresh and up to date with your technical during the time you aren’t studying (i.e. January-April). Doing this will ensure that you get the most out of learning case writing, because to be a good case writer, you need to know your technical. 5. Make sure you keep track of common mistakes you make on a separate page (for instance, one question that always tricked us was calculating amortization under ASPE, there is a “greater of” formula and we kept note of this so we remember it for next time)4. Track your results by Mock Exam and by Category- We aimed to get 60% in each of the categories so when we got below than we marked it in red to focus our debriefing in that area and to keep an eye out for these areas in future mocks to see if we improved - It’s okay if in one mock you did really well in say Assurance and in another mock you completely blew it in Assurance. This happens, as you can see it happened to us. That’s just reality, you may get an exam where all the questions just make sense, and another exam where it just doesn’t. But understand that the more mistakes you make earlier on in the process the better, because you are learning and it lessens the chance of you making the mistake in the actual exam. - If however, you consistently struggle in an area, this likely means that you are not debriefing/learning properly o If that’s the case, I would go back to those exams and go over the section where you struggled (i.e. say Tax) and debrief them again, if you find that the debriefing notes are not explaining things sufficiently please do not hesitate to read the technical summary notes which tend to be more detailed (note we provide free technical summaries in the resources section of our website) o To boost your confidence in this area, try re-attempting all these questions after learning it (i.e. say all the Tax questions from the past 4 mocks) again without using the solutions and under the appropriate time constraints o You will find that questions are similar and draw from the same theories and over time you will see improvement6. Do your mock exams on the actual scantrons provided by CKE - You can download them here - http://www.icao.on.ca/CAstudents/CoreKnowledgeExam(CKE)/1014page14324.aspx- This ensures that at the actual exam it’s just like if you were writing a mock at home and reduces exam stress 7. Start Studying Early in the Process- Don’t leave your CKE studying up to the last two/three weeks - Ideally for the January CKE you should start cracking your books around end of September; for the May CKE around the end of January - Starting early has the following advantages o It means you have more time to learn and retain information (i.e. debrief properly), more time to make notes, etc.. learning the technical and keeping good notes will help you out later on in the process especially the SOA and UFE (as mentioned above) o It reduces stress o It allows you to figure out weak areas and gives sufficient time to rectify it (i.e. you may struggle in tax, if you waited till the last two weeks to study, you will not have time to rectify this weakness) o For the January CKE, waiting till the last few weeks is not a good idea because it is Christmas time and more distractions are present and libraries are not open o For the May CKE, waiting till the last few weeks is also not good, because you will have to balance writing practice SOA cases and studying for the CKE at the same time. This would likely result in you sacrificing the SOA preparation for the CKE, which may lead to negative consequences down the road. o Some people study late (i.e. the last few weeks before the exam); this leaves too much up to chance and it leads to messy strategies like leave tax till last and guess all C’s for tax. 8. Relax and take it easy- The key to passing these CA Exams is to study smart without burning yourself out- Don’t stress out and don’t over study (you do not need to get 80% to pass this exam)- All you need to do is pass! It’s not hard, anyone can do it - Studying on Work Days: o Come back from work, take a break, and then write a short mock (2 hours or less) and forget about it o If you choose to write a 4 hour mock, don’t do any debriefing on the same day – you will burn yourself out) o The Next day spend time debriefing o If you feel too exhausted from work, just spend some time doing light review (this is a perfect time to review the notes you made) - Studying on Weekends/Off days: o If possible, save 4 hour mocks for the weekends and the off days (the last thing you want to do is spend 4 hours writing a mock after a hard day at work); relax for a couple hours before debriefing o You may need to carry on debriefing to the following day (don’t worry if you have to, make sure you take as much time you need to debrief – don’t short change it; this is where you really learn) - If you started early studying, as we suggested, you take a couple evenings or a Saturday off and do something fun (not CKE related) – this will keep you balanced and in a light-hearted mood when you get to the exam. 9. Don’t study the day before the CKE and get a good night’s sleep - You may choose to quickly skim through your own notes (spend like 4 hours max and relax afterwards)- Don’t do any mock exams! - If you followed our steps; the time you put in already is enough! 10. Plan to arrive early for the exam: - In Ontario, most students write in the international centre - There will likely be traffic delays, construction as you drive to the exam, so plan to arrive early - You will not be able to use traffic as an excuse for arriving late! 11. On the CKE attempt all the questions and Please DO the tax questions!- One of the most common strategy students do is to leave tax till the end and just guess their way through it - Don’t do this, as tax tends to be the easiest of all the topics and does not take a lot of time- This is a common strategy resulting from students leaving the studying to the last minute and not reviewing tax for the exam - Also even if you are not sure about a question, at least make a guess you have 25% chance of getting it correct. In the past students have left questions blank!Don’t leave anything up to chance, take control, and study early and study properly and you will see success throughout the CKE, SOA and UFE!

How Do I Pass the CKE?

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