CA Foundation exams would be held from 9th to 17th November, 2020. If you have just got the ICAI study material delivered and are thinking if you can really get exam-ready in these 3 months - just read this post to know what steps you need to take to become not just exam-ready, but to crack it in the first shot...
CA Foundation - Welcome to the Game!
As a student who has just passed Class 12, it is a bit difficult to understand or even imagine the mountain called CA which he has decided to climb. No, I am not trying to force you to doubt your career choice. But just letting you know what the reality is, so that you can strengthen your inner self and take it as a challenge.
CA Foundation is the first time a student who has just passed Class 12, gets a feel about professional exams. CA exams are very very competitive, and you would have already started to get a feel of it from your peers and friends. As a course, CA demands an approach different from what you took for excelling in school or your Board exams. Here the aim of the test conducting body is not to pass 100% of the candidates, but to test each and every student to the core and pass only the deserving ones.
CA Foundation Syllabus - an Analysis
If you talk about the syllabus of CA Foundation, it does not look very heavy at first glance. Let's see what each Paper promises and how much time it may take for an average student to prepare it:
Paper 1: Accounting
This paper is at the core of the entire CA course. This subject in CA Foundation is all about getting your basics right and strengthening your concepts in Accounting for higher application in the future. If you observe, Accounts is almost 50%-60% common with what you had read in Classes 11 and 12. All you need is to adapt to the level of difficulty which the CA poses. That will come with practice and only, practice. In any case, it should not take more than 100 hours to grasp the subject (considering that you still remember whatever you had studied in Classes 11 and 12).
Paper 2: Business Law and Business Correspondence
This is a new subject for all the CA Foundation students. And there is no shortcut to study law. And to make matters worse, it is a subjective paper. So you need to know more than just the provisions of the law to be able to fill the pages. Out of the 5 statutes you would be reading here, the most important ones are the Contract Act and the Companies Act. The remaining 3 are also relevant, but with less weightage. But can you afford to do selective study in the CA course? Absolutely not. The only way out is to go through the hard grind.
The Business Correspondence part is much lighter, easy to prepare and even easier to score. I personally don't think there is much preparation required here, except the format, the style and of course, writing practice.
On a combined front, this subject would require at least 150 to 200 hours for you to experience some comfort. You will read law once, forget most of it. Then read it again, and then again. By the end of the 3rd round of reading Law, you should expect yourself to be exam-ready. So this will take time.
Paper 3: Maths, LR, Stats
A lot of students who had compulsory Maths in Classes 11 and 12 would find the Quant paper to be quite easy. Maths and Stats are more about practice, less about learning.
On the other hand, LR would need a thorough understanding. You need to know the techniques to solve the questions and the application of the mind to be able to reach to that solution. At this stage though, the questions in LR are like solving riddles and puzzles. So anyone who enjoys solving riddles and puzzles will naturally enjoy solving LR questions.
Paper 3 is all about practice. And as a matter of strong preparation, you should allocate close to 150 hours for this paper.
Paper 4: Business Economics and Business Commercial Knowledge
This is an out-and-out theory paper. While Economics would have some numerical, BCK is going to be 100% theoretical. For Economics, the basics of Classes 11 and 12 serve as the backbone. So if the concepts are still afresh in memory, it should not take much time.
BCK is theoretical and at times, boring to read. However, it should not be too difficult to prepare it for an average student as it hardly requires too much of thinking out of the box.
Overall, this paper can be prepared in about 100 hours.
The Math
At the outset, I must clarify that I am of the firm belief that studies are all about the quality of studies, and not about the quantum of hours you put in. But I have also felt that most students want to talk about the hours. So as per your wish, I will make you understand in that language only
If you have read this post closely enough, you would have already calculated that you need an estimated 550 hours to prepare all the 4 papers. Even if you add an ad-hoc allocation of 50 hours further, it still comes to 600 hours. Now the ball is in your court --> how many hours can you devote to studies during the day?
4 scenarios:
Total hours required - 600
Total hours of study in a day - 6 | 8 | 10 | 12
Number of days required - 100 | 75 | 60 | 50
As per the 4 cases above, you need a minimum of 8 hours of study per day to be able to comfortably finish off the syllabus in 75 days. But you also have to solve the MTPs, RTPs and Past Papers. These would also need time. So my advice would be to invest 10 hours daily and try to finish off the syllabus in 60 days. Even with a 10 days grace to this plan, you will have a clear period of at least 20 days to revise and solve the MTPs, RTPs and Past Papers.
How feasible is this Study Plan?
To test the feasibility of this plan, you can check what the other students are doing, or have already done. Even if you talk to your seniors in college, who are preparing for CA Inter, you would get to know that the syllabus of CA Foundation can easily be completed in 60 to 70 days. All you need to do is to be disciplined and focused in your approach. Regularity in studies with proper practice is the key to success for CA Foundation.
Conclusion
There are 4 subjects to cover for the exams in a limited time. Yes, the study schedule would be tight, and managing the same with your college classes might be even tougher. But isn't that the name of the game? The course is renowned to make students learn the value of time management in life. And CA Foundation might just be your first test in time management.
If you have any questions, observations, feedback or suggestions, please feel free to contact me on the social media handles of CA Exam Strategies or write directly to me in the comments section below.
Thanks for reading :)