PCC Disaster

[Important : This post is neither a piece of advise for anyone nor it is meant to offend anyone. I have just shared my feelings & my experiences about PCC studies & results. I have written it with pure heart and to avoid any offensive act, I have not named any of my friends]

29^th January 2009, Thursday : It was 12:30 AM on the longest morning I had in my life. I had waken up at 7 and impatiently passing my time roaming here and there, watching Die Hard 2, chatting with my other impatient friends and refreshing the result page every 30 seconds for the PCC results due to be announced at any moment after 11 AM.

It’d been 2 and half months since we gave our PCC exam and now finally it was to be announced today. Anxiety was at its peak and suddenly a chat window popped up on my browser with one of my best friend saying, “Results are announced and available on the website. You have passed, I have failed. “

Usually I am being known as an Atheist among my friends, however I prayed to God for benediction almost every single day since I gave my exam. And seemed at that moment that my prayers being heard, the output i.e. my result was positive and I had achieved much great success than I had ever expected looking to my preparation when I appeared for the exam and my performance in papers. I got 367 marks out of 600 i.e. 61% approx.

But….. I couldn’t bring a little bit of smile also on my face as from the moment I got to know about my result, it came to my knowledge that many of my friends have failed. I fell into the world of sorrow. (Seem to be hyperbole…..) But, immediately without checking my result or informing parents about my results, I opened results of three of my friends and just vacuously looked at those lurid WebPages for some minutes.

Simultaneously, many chat windows had already popped up on computer and my both the phones were ringing asking for the goddamn result. I controlled myself and started picking up phones and thanked all well-wishers who phoned me up. However back of my mind, I could not control and cried madly. What a situation!! I was praying since days for my positive result and when it came, I couldn’t feel elated and excited.

Time was passing by and in the evening I went for Slumdog Millionaire with three of my friends which I had already seen thrice just to cheer them up, but movie was strictly ok ( which I already knew, but due to Oscar hype I couldn’t convince them ). After the movie, we stepped out of the theatre and walked towards home. During that, I could see that all three of them were in deep thoughts, tension, depression, disappointment, etc.etc. (All other miserable adjectives I can use here) due to the respective flunks they had in PCC exam, I can call it as “PCC DISASTER”. I couldn’t hold that and silently walked away back home. I had my Tiffin to eat on night of that goddamn horrible day. I just dropped the Tiffin at home and went to Uncle’s home at Dahisar to meet him and cheer myself up and after coming late night slept without having a bit of food.

30^th January 2009, Friday : I woke up at 8 AM and directly getting off of bed I switched on the computer and started working on internet to see whether result was high or low percentile wise. No, I was wrong. Results were quite higher then what it looked like. They were around 21% overall, however in Gujarat it was quite high at 25% from where I gave my exam. If it is to be believed then results were just 2.5% in Mumbai region. There were 8 rankers in top 5 from which 3 were from Gujarat. At Academics level, Gujarat is having Leaps and Bounds with everytime having overall results much higher than any other states and many more rankers in comparison.

Anyways, whatever the results everyone has got, now it is a sheer waste of time repenting over the result. It’s a new day now and new beginning. I was just surfing on internet when I came across this article : Click here.. The article may help to plan yourself and your studies and how to cope when you have failed once in PCC. Just go through it. Actually I don’t know what all who have failed must be feeling, but you only can motivate yourself now and work hard for the next four months as the exams have been declared in the coming June instead of May.

I am not arrogant, hero or saviour. Neither I have done any heroic act by passing PCC nor I have got any rank that you can ask me for advice as to how to clear PCC or such exam. But for sharing my experience, I can say that I hardly studied for 5 hours a day during last days of exams. As a matter of fact, I am incapable of studying beyond that. Even when I was entering examination hall of the centre I was allotted for writing the CA paper, I had not completed my portion even once in any subjects except Tax. There was too much left & omitted & ignored & my parents were in a big doubt that whether their son would be able to even clear the exam or not.

I knew from the very beginning that it’s not my cup of tea to finish the portion atleast once even when I would be giving exam of that particular subject. This has been continuously happening with me in each and every exams I have appeared till now, even in 10^th & 12^th boards [ scored 92.29% & 90.91% respectively ]. I cannot refer this as a smart step though.So, I have always prepared best for those aspects which others fail to pay attention to, which draw direct attention of paper checkers and which help in creating good impression over them. People often tell me that I am lying about my preparations that I have not studied well or my so much of the portion is yet to be completed or I have omitted this much as I have no time. And for my friends to know, I have not lied. When it seems to me that now it is impossible to complete the portion, I forget everything and start concentrating on such aspects. Following were the main points I had kept in mind, particularly for my PCC exams: [ Some may like it, some may not, but this is what I felt to share ]

1. I read Examiner’s comments for each and every subject from the Model Answer Papers released by ICAI and applied each and every comment of them in the paper, so that those particular expectations which examiners expect from students is done away with. For downloading, the examiners’ comments, click here for Group I and here for Group II.

2. I tried to remember each and every section, some of the case laws however they were so hard to remember, figures wherever possible, matters to be represented into inverted commas, accounting/auditing standard numbers including the new numbers introduced though they were not in the course, however writing new AAS numbers would make a strong impact as every checker must be a CA and he must be having knowledge of new numbers. That was my logic behind putting extra effort to remember new AAS numbers which I applied in every question where particular AAS was applied.

3. I knew that I have not completed the whole course, so there may be some questions that I might not answer. That’s why from the first word in the paper, I always kept in mind that to build a good impression on examiner, I must have superb presentation, section and all other important words underlined so that examiner’s attention is first drawn to those underlined statements which will make an impression on him as if I know the answer very well and he would not care to look in detail as he is running behind time and has to check many papers within minutes and I would get better marks than others who may have written even better than me. This lets you escape from examiner’s attention even when you have written bullshit stuff in the paper.

4. Every time before 4 to 5 hours of exam, I would stop everything and start reading Revision Test Papers booklet provided by ICAI. They generally ask many questions in the paper from RTP itself. For example, this time in November 2008, they asked the whole theory of accounts from RTP, full integral-non integral practical sum of 15 marks from RTP ( though I omitted it and later on repented ), similarly many questions in other subjects also though not directly. In I.T. I was not able to do anything as I had no time, I just read RTP and managed to score 52 marks in IT & SM paper.

5. Stop Studying and start relaxing yourself 1 hour before the exam. As for me, every time before going for the exam, I used to listen Lakshya title track and Aashayen from Iqbal. May be that motivated me or making me relaxed. This is the most important thing to remember in any professional examination as what you have studied and prepared for whole 2 years, you have to recollect everything and throw it away in these 3 hours. If you are frightened at any moment during exam, you are gone. I hate theories, but those are the one where I can have best presentation rather than having in sums, I started & completed theories first and then did sums and managed to complete the paper though it was too lengthy ( though I did many mistakes in theory which I expected ..scored 61 marks in accounts paper) I won’t write what to write first and what to write last in any paper as it is being told since we were in Nursery.

6. People usually say that don’t solve the paper once it has been appeared. However, I feel that everyone should solve the paper. I am not saying that discuss with others, but just recheck with other reference books and modules by yourself. This will help in knowing whether you have written everything right or anything wrong.Yes, but this should not depress your mind if you find many mistakes in the paper, instead you can take it positively that you could judge yourself now and do better in other subjects. As for me, I was so happy after I completed my accounts paper that I completed my full paper where other were managed to write only of 75 marks because of its length, I wrote everything right. But after coming home, when I checked myself, I came to know that I did many mistakes, around of 25 marks. Same way in Tax. [ scored 70 marks ] I have seen many people, saying that I wrote everything write, everything in detail and still I failed and then blaming ICAI for their failure. But the fact is that after giving the exam, they didn’t care for even checking that what they have written is right or wrong. ICAI is obviously not going to give you 100 even if you have written the whole book which is not demanded.

7. Try to do written practice as far as possible. I solved each and every sum provided in J.K.Shah module of Accounts, Costing & FM in one and half months in a possible fair manner with proper formats and presentation. I feel this guided and helped me a lot during last days of preparations as I had just to go through and not calculate every sum then. Even, writing a single paper helped me boost confidence like anything. I didn’t like tax much, but after writing just a single paper of tax though not complete, a great sense of confidence got created in me for particular tax and I didn’t leave anything to give my best in Tax then. I remembered all the sections with all the provisions when I entered the examination hall. So, try to write papers as far as possible.

8. In last moments, when you hardly have few hours left before exam, you can opt even for doing Compilations. These are beneficial in two ways : You can do only selective study and only most important questions rather than doing all the question-answers. And most importantly paper-checkers will be having Suggested Answers with them which are made straight from the Module and the compilations will contain exact answers of the Module. While doing from the reference books, you will be having answers, the language of which differs quite a lot from Module. But when you have learnt from Compilations, you will be answering in the same language what is there in the Module as well as Suggested Answers provided to paper-checkers by ICAI.

I hope these points may become helpful while preparing and appearing in exams.I am not saying that follow what I have done. I'll be the last person to say so. Do everything from everywhere it is possible and then in last moments, if you feel that now it is not possible for me to complete the whole portion, you can make use of these. If you are hard worker, then these are just extra efforts to boost up greatly and if you are like me, lazy limbs as far as studies are concerned, you can use these as guidance for scoring better smartly.

I am the last person who may be known for writing anything , but after I felt miserably low for my best friends’ results, I felt like sharing such points, which according to me, may have helped me in scoring good marks inspite of my poor preparations. While writing this post, whatever came in my mind, I have posted. So, if you found anything offensive or hurting,please bring in to my knowledge. Even there may be many things I may have left out for this particular post which I will be adding gradually.

But, to & for all my friends, I am always available guys. Whatever support you need from me, in whatever way I can help you, I will be the happiest person to do so.

Thanks a lot for being with me all the way through and for your well wishes.

Do Post your comments if you liked this post.

- Vaishal Dalal