June 2015 Class Schedule Registration: Fill & Download for Free

I would like to share my preparation story here.I’ll try to include everything i consider was helpful in my journey to get AIR 29 in GATE CS 2020. I hope you’ll find it useful.And yes, it’s a long answer. Tread carefully.But first some background.BackgroundI did my B.E. from NSIT Delhi (Now NSUT). It’s not a tier 3 college. Placements were good. But I never took interest in studies. And also didn’t sit for placements.“Why?” you’ll ask. Let’s skip that for now. :PDuring March-April 2019, in my Final year, I decided to go for masters. And I didn’t want to settle for any college other than the top 3–4 old IITs.Search for a Preparation StrategyIn May 2019, I started googling for anything and everything i could find on the web.Here are the things i found -GateOverflow - This is a website used by a lot of GATE CS Aspirants. Some of it’s features include.- All the gate questions + other questions with answers. (most voted = correct ?)- There are 2 pdfs (one for all GATE questions & one for aptitude) for free- Basically, you can use it to clear your doubts by posting them there- A rank predictor. We’ll come back to this later.- There’s a Facebook group too. But i did’t use that.GateCSE - Sister site of gateoverflow.- Contains information about everything related to preparation, syllabus, books, admissions, cutoffs, college reviews, previous year ranks , scores, etc.Interview by Ravi Shankar Mishra (AIR 1 GATE 2015) - He shared the list of books and the relevant chapters, which i converted into a google sheet.A Quora Answer by Parimal Paritosh (परिमल परितोष) - It was informative as well as inspirational for me.Odyssey to GATE (Telegram channel) by Manish Sharma - A bit of motivation.Gate 2019 Information Brochure (for checking the syllabus and other stuff.)You can get the Gate 2020 IB hereJune 2019College was over. I spent the month at home, enjoyed it with my family. Read a bit of CLRS.Coaching or No-CoachingIt was not a difficult decision for me. I decided to join Made Easy (Saket branch) as it was 2 hr away from my home. Didn’t had the discipline at that time to do self study.July 2019Classes started from 1st of July. So i moved to a PG nearby on 30th of June.And if you’re thinking of living in a PG. The food sucks. Real bad. (After a couple of months, I started eating lunch and dinner from a nearby mess, which was a lot better than PG food.)I couldn’t find a single room (at a reasonable price), so had to manage with a roommatePro Tip : Don’t waste time with your roommate.July - November 2019Classes started, 6 hr classes felt like a lot in the first week, but later got adjusted to it.My routine for these months was almost the same. Described as below.11:30 pm to whenever i woke up (about 7–8 am) - Sleep08:00 am to 09:00 am - Breakfast and Bath09:00 am to 10:00 am - Revise previous day notes.10:00 am to 12:30 pm - Do some Made Easy workbook questions12:30 pm to 01:00 pm - Lunch01:00 pm to 01:30 pm - Study if i felt like it (or an episode of Friends)01:30 pm to 02:30 pm - Nap time… lol02:30 pm - Get ready & Head to class03:00 pm to 09:00 pm - Class with one 20–30 min break in between09:00 pm to 10:00 pm - Dinner10:00 pm to 11:30 pm - Revise today’s notes and go to sleep.On some days i understood everything and on some days i struggled to get the concept. But i kept doing my work. (Somehow didn’t miss even a single class :P)Some days there were 12hr classes. It was challenging to retain that much, but i maintained good notes and revised them when we got some off days.The teachers were good and explained the concepts well and were available in the break to clear personal doubts.If you’re getting the feeling that it was hectic, well, it was a bit. But i enjoyed it very much. Besides the teachers were funny and knew how to motivate you.November - December 2019My classes ended on 5th of December.I was in the last batch (CS-D), so the classes for last week (for Computer Organisation) were scheduled from 8 am to 9 pm. Which was a lot to take in.But i revised my notes a few times after the classes got over, and understood the subject quite well.I studied a week in my PG room, But was not being productive. So I went home and started my revision.Revision TimeI had about 2 months to revise the complete syllabus, and attempt the test series.I only bought Made Easy test series for practice after consulting some seniors and at the end i found that it was enough for me. But your mileage may vary.Here’s a few tips related to Revision -Regularly revising concepts is a must.Don’t just revise revise revise. Give some tests as well.Prepare short notes from each subject. (Don’t put everything in them, only write concepts you seem to forget every time.) and revise it regularly.Do not read anything new in January.Here’s a few tips related to Previous Year Questions (PYQs) -Do try to solve them during your preparation.Solving them helps you know what kind of questions come in exam, what are the important topics, what topics have never been asked, etc.Solving the recent previous year questions is a must as it builds your confidence.Analyse what they meant by each word of the question. Think what they can modify in it and make a new question.Here’s a few tips related to Test Series -I was a little late to the Test Series game. I would advise giving the Topic wise & Subject wise tests as soon as you finish a subject. Don’t save them for later. You won’t get the time.Don’t worry about how much marks you’re getting. Write down your mistakes. And correct them. Promise yourself not to repeat those mistakes again.Give tests during actual GATE time slot.Helps you develop the order of solving questions i.e. the exam strategy that works or you.Make all the mistakes in the test series. So that you don’t in actual Gate exam.I revised my notes and solved most of the PYQs in December and January.I had the Gate 2019 + 2020 test series, so i gave about 24–25 full length tests in January.Apart from that i also gave 2 Made Easy Computer Based Tests (CBT) which are conducted at test centres to give the real feel of the examination environment.I used to make a lot of silly mistakes which i rectified with the help of the test series.A Week Before GateI used to sleep a lot, eat healthy and do a little bit of exercise.Also, when you’re preparing for something for months, anxiety is inevitable. Don’t worry about it. I was excited that it’ll be over soon.In the last week, I only revised my mistakes that i noted down, and the short notes that i used to forget often. Also, gave 2–3 online tests.A Day Before Gate (07 Feb 2020)Didn’t study anything the day before Gate. Only revised short notes in the morning itself.Had dinner early. Tried to sleep at 10 pm. Couldn’t.Tried to meditate and felt asleep at 11 pm fortunately, with the alarm set to 7:30 am.The D-Day (08 Feb 2020)Woke up, got ready. Didn’t talk to anybody. Took the bus from my hometown. Reached the exam centre at 12 noon. Checked my registration no. in the list.Exam was scheduled to start at 02:30 pm and entry was scheduled to be at 01:30 pm, so i had one and half hour to kill. There were a lot of vendors selling different food items. But i didn’t eat anything (didn’t want to fall asleep during the exam).There were a lot of students with colourful notes discussing concepts with each other. Took a seat far away from them :P and rested for the remaining time.When we were allowed in, after the security check, sat in front of my designated computer. It was already logged in with my name & photograph showing up on the screen. Took a sip of water. Went to the washroom. Came back. Stared at the countdown.While reading the instructions, i found one thing different than what i had expected.The aptitude questions would not be first 5 questions of 1 marks followed by 5 questions of 2 marks. Instead, they would be in random order. This didn’t have a big impact on my attempting strategy. But moral of the story -Do read the instructions.Exam started. Aptitude section was way too easy compared to made easy test series. Sailed through the 10 questions in 15 minutes. Jumped to the 2 marks technical questions. Solved about half, rest marked for review. Then, jumped to 1 marks technical questions. Solved most with some marked for review.Half the time for the exam was over, and started my second pass of solving remaining questions and rechecking attempted questions. If you’ve prepared well, the 3 hr time is sufficient.With 5 minute left, I had attempted 62/65 questions. Left 3 two-mark questions. I felt okay about my performance. Wasn’t sure about some questions.After the exam, headed back to metro, bought a delicious sandwich (everything’s a delicacy if you’re hungry :p). Reached home at 9 pm, watched the Gate 2020 Analysis by Made Easy. Got many answers right. Got a few wrong. Watched some YouTube and dozed off.After GATEA week later the response key was out (it contains all the questions with options, and details about which answer you marked). Found out my silly mistakes, like marking the wrong option, forgetting to take modulus of the final answer, etc.A day after that the rank predictors were up.For Computer Science, there are mainly 2 rank predictors -Gate Overflow rank predictorMade Easy rank predictorYou just paste your Gate response key’s link, and it’ll tell you your marks, expected score, correct and incorrect answers, rank among those who’ve checked.The keys used by predictors vary, and may be different than the official answer key which is released later. Here’s what they showed for me.Gate results were declared on 13th March, a few days earlier than expected. Logged onto the site and -MiscellaneousHere’s a few miscellaneous tips -Don’t ignore the Aptitude section. Prepare it well.Make your concepts clear. This reduces your chance of making mistakes. By knowing the correct concepts one can easily avoid many wrong choices by looking only.Try not to make calculation mistakes. Improve your accuracy.Don’t leave any subject. At least do the basics.I’m hoping this will help you in your journey.If i forgot to mention something, do let me know in the comments.Regards,Ankit

Edit: Card payment system has been added in registration of ITT and OP too.Original answere :Well , NO.That's what my experience was.We students are left only with the “trial and error method”, just keep loging in into the Dashboard , one day you may find that windows are open. And there is not a single notification for students that the online registration of ITT and OP requires the Demand Draft no. too.I am from Indore (M.P.) , and the Indore branch of CIRC of ICAI, hosts the highest number of batches of ITT and OP in the CIRC. So if we students in Indore gets it from the air (ofcourse the classmates ) that the windows are open, until the moment we get to the dashboard and look for the seets, there are no seets left, and if by luck we get free seets and start filling the form of registration , there comes a text box requiring DD no. Now, how the hell are we supposed to get a DD. ready in advance when we don't even know when the window is going to open. If we rush to a bank, surprise!! seets are full.So instead of running towards a bank the students of Indore fill up a fake DD no. and then after registering , we login into the Dashboard and delete our seets, the same seets are again reflected in the ‘available’ column and we re-register it with a correct DDno. and if someone is unlucky performing this stunt may loose him the seet to other “predator" student trying to find an empty seet , that's why we do it in the midnight so the chances of loosing a seet are low.My father is also a CA , and when it came into my knowledge , that our respected Institute has this type of discrepancy in internal control and management systems, I complained about it to my father. He talked to the branch manager and told me not to re register sent me to the branch office with the DD and registration acknowledgement with that fake DD no on it.When I told about this to the manager, the office staff started laughing at me saying why did you do this stupid thing, they were tossing me here and there, Then i called my father telling about the same , he came and took “the class” of everyone there and specially that one person he came to know who harasses the student most. My father was too angry on this “sarkari-karan” of our prestigious institution.They didn't know i am a CA- child ;P.I found it my duty to solve this issue . And later , during my mails to the Board of Studies,came to know that no one in the whole institute knows about it.These were my mails and replies-Respected Sir,My students' registration no. is CRO ****”” ( Pou Name - Indore ) . May I please ask you about the relevance of registering for future batch of ITT And OT in section "Apply for Future Batch "of the Cloud Campus Site of our Institute. As I did it on 30th January 2015 with a view that institute will inform me about conduction and registration of ITT/OT.Personally, I thought that I will do my preparations for the IPCC examinations ,to be held from 3rd may 2015, and after appearing in exam , I will perform a daily check on the window of Course Registration for ITT and OT and will get it done as early as possible (and that is what all my seniors , i.e articles in my Fathers CA firm, suggested me as per their experience). I am also a student of ICAI - City (ICAI's coaching classes) of IPCC group 1, which are being conducted in the city office of Indore Chapter. And I asked about the opening time and date of ITT window to the receptionist of city office (Vishal ji) , and he also replied that he doesn't know about it .But today a friend of mine,who is also a student of ICAI -CIty in the same batch, called me and said that the online registration window has been opened today and all the registrations have been full till August batch.Please make it clear that, why is here a gray area about opening of ITT registration window ? When I was registering in waiting list ,there was not enough information describing the function of "Apply for Future Batch ", I considered that I've dropped my name in waiting list and probably institute will mail me that the window is opened or something , but nothing came over and today and only a news came from my friend , when i checked it myself by loging-in in cloud campus ,that news flushed my plans.Please tell me what should I do with that WaitListed number, How can I now be registered for the course and do I ,from now and every time later , have to drop a mail to BOS confirming what I have done in Cloud Campus, what does it mean for the Institute and what are it's functions ?Thanking YouNavneet YadavCro **”””””””S/OC.A. ******””Mem. No. ******On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 10:25 AM, Nidhi Aggarwal-ICAI\BoS\Noida 62 <[email protected]> wrote:Dear Student,You are well aware that the fee is to be paid through DD and the students should get the DD prepared in advance.Regards,Nidhi AggarwalFrom: Navneet Yadav [mailto:[email protected]]Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2015 9:08 AMTo: Nidhi Aggarwal-ICAI\BoS\Noida 62Subject: Re: FW:Respected Ma'am,Please reply if you agree that institute has not provided us with this procedure at the time of registration in IPCC ,No one has told us to keep a DD prepared in advance.Maybe because Indore branch handles more students than any other branch in Central India Region, That is why the seats get full in no time.ThanksOn Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 3:12 PM, Nidhi Aggarwal-ICAI\BoS\Noida 62 <[email protected]> wrote:Dear Student,This is the procedural way of getting the registration done. This problem is not being faced by the students at the other branches.Regards,Nidhi AggarwalFrom: Navneet Yadav [mailto:[email protected]]Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2015 2:08 PMTo: Nidhi Aggarwal-ICAI\BoS\Noida 62Subject: Re: FW:Thanks For your ReplyMe and my father have earlier discussed the problem with Tiwari Sir at Indore Office and I expect that he has told you all the grievances of registration portal, but let me tell you from my side too that there is a bigger problem, please be sure that I am not only telling what I have experienced myself but almost 90 % students of Indore do , there is no place in the portal or ICAI's any website where the procedure of registration has been given,So the student who is doing it first time and without any other senior student who has done the registration before, he has no way to know that he has to submit DD no. while registration, we eventually know about the requirement at the time of registration itself, and in Indore POU the seats get full within a few minutes, so there is a student who is registering for ITT ,has no experienced person with him and thinking that if he get the ITT OP done before the declaration of IPCC results he may apply for article-ship and the attempt for his final examination shall not be delayed for 6 months, but suddenly he sees that he has to submit the DD no., okay, Students do know that Payment to ICAI are made by DD or Online is some cases, but the ICAI has not informed us about the submission of DD no.,(and if we don't even know that when the window will be opened how we are supposed to make a DD in advance, and no one has informed us to do so) now what almost 90% students do is that they submit a fake DD no. and if they don't they wont be able to register themselves, now after registering by a fake no. they get a dd made and login the portal in night (12 - 2 AM) as there are low chances that ,when they cancel their registration (With MODIFY option in portal) and re-register themselves in the same batch, any one else can register at the vacant place, and it is a risky affair too.Please believe me , as when I told this at Indore Chapter office, all the officers were shocked and laughing at me and were hearing the procedure used by the students for the first time,they never see cases like fake registration, almost all the students get it re-registered or some of them give fake reasons like they have submitted a wrong DD no. by mistake.The language used in the acknowledgement is not appropriate too, it says "The following documents are required to be submitted along with this letter 2 days before start of the batch for confirmation of your registration as per batch schedule mentioned above.", which makes students confuse among " on the day which falls 2 days before start of the batch" or "any day up to 2 days before start of the batch" . All my Friends at the batch of ICAI's coaching classes were confused and asking here and where about it.It is the exam time , no student has time to tell about this to the Institute or "waste" a day.Tiwari Sir were very supportive and were listening to me and accepted my Registration acknowledgements with an application to the chairman.Please note that we want to help Institute improve and that is why I mailed you , me and my father visited chapter office because we wanted to inform the Institute what is happening on the ground and hidden from it. It is not only me but I've written from the side of all the suffered students.Please Inform about the bug to the head of BoS, and make cloud campus a better place.Thanks.On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 11:08 AM, Nidhi Aggarwal-ICAI\BoS\Noida 62 <[email protected]> wrote:Dear Student,We have contacted the Indore Branch and forwarded your mail to them for needful action. However, when the Branch launches the batch as waitlisted, only then the students who applied for future batch get an intimation otherwise when the batch is launched as General, students have to check on the portal themselves.The Branch is saying that the seats are vacant in July. You may check and apply for the same.--Thanks and Regards,Nidhi AggarwalAssistant Secretary,Board of Studies,The Institute of Chartered Accountants of IndiaICAI Bhawan, A - 29, Sector - 62,Noida - 201 309, India.Phone: +91 120 3045988Fax: +91 120 3045940Website: http://www.icai.org/For help please visit: http://help.icai.org/From: Nidhi Aggarwal-ICAI\BoS\Noida 62Sent: Friday, April 17, 2015 11:05 AMTo: [email protected]: FW:Dear Tiwari ji,As discussed telephonically, please coordinate with the student. I am forwarding you the mail.Regards,Nidhi AggarwalFrom: [email protected]: Friday, April 10, 2015 6:53 PMTo: Nidhi Aggarwal-ICAI\BoS\Noida 62; [email protected]: [email protected]; [email protected] Maam.My OP batch ( INDORE-OP_161 ) was successfully completed on 5th June 2015, Butat the completion of batch we were told that we have to give Online feedback by logging ininto the Dashboard through which we did our course registration, we were informed that itis compulsory to do so. As though we were given the manual forms too, to give the feedback.Our whole batch is trying to give the online feedback since the next day but the portal says "no records found".Although, the complaint was not taken that sincerely.The only solution is to introduce digital payment options like we have for exam forms, and prepare a system to notify the students.I don't know about other cities but that's a big issue the students of Indore face.Whatever said, the professionalism and glory of our prestigious institution should not be questioned for only this one thing.PS. My first answer in Quora:) and apologies​,I don't have Qura- Level command over EnglishEdit: Card payment system has been added in registration of ITT and OP too.

It’s a big question since preparation for these examinations go on for months. While I have covered the strategy to prepare in bits and pieces in many other answers as mentioned in footnotes, I will discuss here points which I have not covered before and discuss my own preparations as well, as requested by OP.27th August 2012 - Joined ArticleshipI cleared CA-IPCC and joined articleship. For the first year, I had planned only to concentrate on Articleship.1st May 2013 - Started Coaching ClassesTwo years before the CA-Final exam in May 2015, I started taking coaching classes. I had planned to pursue classes for all subjects, since I used to understand better through classroom studies. Hence, two years was enough time to pursue classes in twenty months to leave me with four months for preparatory leave. I had not planned any studies during coaching i.e. while pursuing classes, only classroom study, no self study at home, since there was no time left. My plan was perfect.However, laziness to get up early, September season in articleship, mismatch in batch timings of different subject and my following decision made things pretty difficult.30th May 2014 - The Big DecisionI had completed last year of bachelor degree and was in the second year of my articleship. This is the time when I made an important decision of pursuing CMA and that too immediately because 31st May was the last date for registration. This meant that I will have to prepare for three exams one after the other i.e. CMA-Inter in Dec’14 ahead of CA-Final in May’15 and followed by CMA-Final in Dec’15. I knew this was a very risky decision since if I fail in any one of the exam, it will ruin the entire plan. But somewhere I felt, this is the time to level up the difficulty level of studying.June to July 2014 - Articleship at PeakArticleship was at peak time since we were running out of articles as new articles could be admitted only after IPCC results in August.August to December 2014 - Preparing for CMA-InterI was running out of time. I had office from 9am to 7pm, followed by CA-Final classes from 7pm to 9pm. So all I was left with was three hours daily in the morning and around one hour at late night, for an exam which was just 6 months away. No place for anything else. That was one of the toughest time I ever faced in my life. This schedule went on for around 4 months and with 10 days preparatory leave and 10 days exam leave, I somehow managed to study.Ofcourse, the advanced knowledge gained through CA-Final classes was helpful for CMA-Inter exams, but still there were many new subjects and from past question papers I realized the pattern of papers is quite different in CMA as compared to CA. Besides, there were subjects like Performance Management whose modules can be used as dumbbells in Gym. Many recommended to use Scanners, however, I sticked to ICMAI’s modules.Post exams I rejoined articleship for balance days of December. January onwards, I was eligible for preparatory leave for four months for CA-Final, as per office policy.First two weeks of January 2015 - Celebrating Preparatory leaveYeah! When you get leave from Articleship, this happens. I could not start studying immediately. One week went in happiness that for next five months, I don’t need to go office. Next week went in planning “How tommorrow I will start studying.” But then I started studying finally from third week of January, probably the Cricketing season had come to an end, so it was good time to concentrate.Third week of January to February 2015 - Good daysThese were the real days when I actually studied. My plan was pretty simple.Step 1 - Understand the concepts of all subjects and study in detail during the month of January and February. The entire day was divided into four sessions of three hours. It was a two days cycle where I used to cover all 8 subjects i.e. Law / ISCA in Morning session (3 hours) because I can study Theory subjects only in Morning; followed by FR / SFM in Pre-Lunch session (3 hours) since I was usually tired after morning session and these subjects involved sit & study; DT / IDT in Afternoon session (3 hours) since in afternoon it feels sleepy and these subjects were interesting; Evenings were for Gym & television (2+1 hours) and Audit / AMA in Post Dinner session (3 hours) since it is difficult to concentrate after a full day and these subjects were relatively easy.Step 2 - Prepare in accordance with requirements of exam i.e. Read Study Material and solve Practice Manual questions during the month of March.Step 3 - Mock test series at home alongwith Revision during first fifteen days of April.Step 4 - Final Revision during the last fifteen days of April alongwith one quick test series at home.However, by the end of February, I realized I had hardly completed 50% of the portion of each subject. As I mentioned above, I did not attend the coaching classes for FR & SFM properly and did not have enough time to pursue classes for Audit and Law. So Group I was like Self-study for me. Besides, I had the habit of studying every topic in such detail that once a topic is completed, I should have mastered it completely. Hence, though quality of my studies was high, the quantity was too low.I redesigned the plan and aimed to cover the balance studies in the month of March alongwith Practice Manual and then Paper solving in April, as planned.March, 2015 - All plans go haywireEven by the end of March, I had completed only 75% of the portion and now I felt my entire plan had gone haywire because I didn’t had enough time to do everything as planned. So I had two options - (1) Complete balance portion & Practice Manual (2) Revise what was had completed and switch to Paper solving. I chose option 1 because I believed covering entire portion is more important than paper solving, since we are used to paper solving, as we have 18 years experience in giving exams!April, 2015 - Panic and DespairAnd I made the mistake of choosing first option. The implications were:I still could not complete the full portion, as revising previous chapters which was important, alongwith studying new chapters took a lot of time.I could not solve practice manual for all subjects and all chapters.I could not solve even a single series of papers. I just went through the questions that were asked in the past.I was in all panic and despair. I didn’t knew what would happen and was pretty unconfident about preparations.May, 2015 - Struggling with ExamsSo here is how things went on -FR - Superb preparation as I had studied the entire Author Notes, Study Material, Practice Manual, Revision Test Papers, Past Exam Questions. I had left no sum unsolved. When I saw paper, I was happy that I knew the answers to entire 120 marks paper, while people around were in despair since the paper was pretty difficult. However, I had not imagined that I would be able to cover only 50% of the paper due to my slow speed. I somehow covered 10% more by writing short answers. Post exams confidence of becoming a CA had fallen down from say 100% to 25%.SFM - Again superb preparation, except that I did not have enough time for Derivatives, so this chapter was left out. When I saw paper, I was happy to see there was no derivatives question and paper seemed a slightly difficult but manageable. However, as I went to solve questions, I was stuck halfway in many questions, since there were twists in the tales that examiner had set for the students to manage. So the confidence had fallen down from 25% to 5%. Few friends bid adieu and said they will come back directly for AMA.Audit - Poor preparation. Since there were so many amendments, I could not understand which book to prepare from. I was preparing from some Popular Author’s notes, however, it later turned out that, the Author had not covered all chapters. So in the end days, I had switched to Study Material. Besides, the first two papers had left me with no hopes. So I was hardly preparing. It was pretty clear that howsoever well you prepare, in the end it doesn’t help and all that matters is your state of mind in exam hall.So instead of revising and preparing, I started sleeping, playing mobile games, watching Cricket which I had controlled myself from during the past four months. Yes, my family was totally confused, but they knew my situation after first two papers.The day before Audit exam I had switched to Study Material of Law. All I had studied was relevant chapters from Company Law. Paper wasn’t good for me, except for the questions relating to Company Law, since I had not prepared well. However, I used all my articleship experience and solved the entire 100 marks paper. Hopes had fallen down from 5% to 1%, since I knew I had not written answers as per books, but just from my experiences, which won’t be awarded marks.Law - This was my weakest subject. My memory is very weak, sometimes I cannot even remember my friend’s name. I had studied Company Law in detail, since in Articleship, it was quite relevant. However, Allied Laws portion was too huge in comparison to the marks, so I had not prepared them in detail, since I was out of time. Paper turned out to be worse, as it had to be, since I had not prepared well and the questions were from every corner of the book. None of expected questions were asked but all questions were related to penalties and other aspects. However, I continued with my strategy of using experience and sense of natural justice to answer questions and attempt 100 marks. Hope of becoming a CA was now at 0%, since it was pretty clear that clearing Group I is impossible.AMA - My preparation was perfect, just like FR. The only fear was whether I would be able to cover the entire paper or end up like FR. However, this time examiner had set the paper in such way that it could be easily covered. They were many instructions on the paper after each question which guided how a student can save time. This was because ICAI was highly criticized for the past AMA paper, since students were not able to cover the paper. Thus, this paper went wonderfully.ISCA - Preparations were decent, however, I could not revise a few chapters before the exam day. Hence, my situation was grim at exam, since many questions were asked from that particular chapter. I somehow managed to solve 80 marks paper, but I was really unsure how well I will be able to score.DT - Preparations were decent, however, paper had some rare breed of questions. Still it was better than most other papers and quite manageable. Articleship experience was quite helpful.IDT - I had prepared very well for this subject. Paper was quite manageable. So things went well.So now my situation was such that if I pass ISCA, I will clear Group II and if pass in Law, whose chances are very low, I may clear Group I, however, it would still be pretty difficult given the poor performance in FR, SFM and Audit.16th July 2015 - Shocked, Surprised & HappyI passed CA-Final to become eligible to be a Chartered Accountant.Now forget the above story, it was just to keep certain points and explain the mistakes that I had committed. Understand the important takeaways for you, else the time spent reading won’t be useful.What are the takeaways for you?If you are attending coaching classes, attend them seriously. Do not waste your time and energy. It becomes really difficult to manage studies at later during Preparatory leave and your plans may go haywire. Your objective of joining classes should be simply understanding the concepts and gaining the experiences shared by various faculties. You don’t need to think about exams at that point of time.Self studying is better than classes. If you have the determination, self study becomes easier. You can go at your own pace and study as per your requirement. Your understanding levels are much higher and you are not biased by the opinions of the Coaching faculties. Unless you find a subject very difficult, don’t pursue coaching classes.Define your Source books and don’t change them. Once you have decided that you will follow a particular set of books, you should not change it at any point of time. Hence, while selecting you should carefully compare notes. If you change notes frequently you will waste a lot of time.Prepare Summary Notes. In the end you will only have one day to prepare. In case of CMA exams, you won’t even have a day but only few hours to prepare. Hence, summary notes are important. If you don’t have summary notes, you won’t be able to revise the whole syllabus and if you don’t revise, it will be difficult to recall everything during those three hours in exam hall.Don’t study only one subject at a time. It becomes difficult to revise, if you study only one subject at a time. It is always better to study two subjects per day or four subjects per day. I would recommend to create such a schedule that you can cover a few chapters from all eight subjects in every week.Understand your studying pattern. Analyse which timings are good and which subjects you find interesting. Prepare a mix such that you study difficult subjects during your best time and interesting or easy subjects during the time of day which you find not much conducive to study.Do not study selectively. I could not cover all chapters, hence I had to face difficulties during exams. In subjects like Law and DT questions come from every corner of the syllabus and if you study selectively, things might become difficult. In FR, SFM and AMA, small topics are very relevant because conceptual questions are asked from those topics consistently in all exams.Pursue some other goals concurrently. I had kept specific time for Gym and television everyday. It helped me to relax and spend some time away from studies. However, there should be specific and limited time for the same. Besides, when you keep some goals concurrent to your studies, for the time when you are concentrating on the other goal, your focus is completely away from studies. This technique keeps you relaxed.Use any notes but read Study Material alongside. In the end, papers are set following the study material. Authors simplify the language of study material while preparing notes. This is the reason why students fail to understand questions. If you use some author’s note, after completion of reading, go through study material once. Since you have already understood the concepts, you will find it easier. All you need to do is grasp the words and if any concepts are missing.Keep a list of things that motivate you, it proves helpful. You might be wondering how did I manage to stay motivated all time? Well, just like an MCA circular regarding CSR says that “CSR should be done in a programme mode and not as a one time activity”, your CA / CMA Final studies should be like a mission. Give a title to your mission, select a mission song or mission movie, draw your schedule charts & paste it around you, etc. There are a lot of crazy stuffs that you can do to keep yourself motivated. I had watched a particular movie 13 times during CA-Final preparations and listened to particular song for around 284 times in 8 days during CMA-Final exam days, just because I found it highly motivating. It works. It kept me calm.Do not ignore Paper Solving. It is okay if you could not manage to study a few chapters, but paper solving is really a must. It ensures that whatever you have studied is upto the mark.Articleship experience is important. I can definitely say, Articleship experience came to my rescue at various instances in exams. So try to make the most of articleship. Gain as much experience as possible.Try to write complete paper. Difficult papers are checked easily to compensate the difficulty level. Hence, howsoever difficult the paper maybe, try to write the entire paper. Give examiner the chance to give you extra 2–3 marks. If you won’t even attempt full paper, it would be difficult for the examiner to give you grace marks.Other points have been covered in these answers -What are some basic study tips for CA Final Students?How to prepare for theory papers in CA examinations?How to prepare for CA examinations?How to practice Paper Solving for CA examinations?More about my preparations -What is your success story of becoming a Chartered Accountant?How was your reaction on passing Chartered Accountancy course?Thank you for the question Sruti; and Shalu & Sejal for the answer requests. I made the question neutral so that more people can share their experiences.