Friday 30 October 2015

Common Mistakes in Exam preparation & presentation: Girls' & Seniors perspective...

Ms. Divya Mohan

Mistakes at the time of preparation:

1. Preparing for exam just before a month which is supposed to be revision time. (In my case I prepared for 17 hours a day which is not possible for everyone, so they may atleast spend 2 hours a day to get in touch with the subject particularly subjects like Tax & FM)

2. Not sleeping enough and not on a regular sleep schedule.

3. Failing to prepare time table & if prepared, failing to follow the same

4. Getting distraction while studying

5. If in case of group study – Discussing about the unwanted stuffs and wasting time

6. Studying only scanners – it is most necessary to take up coaching classes for the most difficult subject like Tax and FM which will help to crack the exam at the earliest

7.       A student must have positive mind and must be an internal driven capacity. i.e. I CAN AND I WILL DO MY BEST.

At the time of presentation:

1.       Arriving late for a exam

2.       Feeling panic  at the exam hall

3.       Taking too much time to select  which question to answer

4.       Cramming too much information into the memory  -

5.       Failing to allocate time for each question –  which will result in lack of time to cover 100 marks

6.       Starting with the most difficult question – Which will take more time to complete

7.       Poor writing style

8.       Failing to answer all the unanswered Questions in the last few minutes.

9.       Failing to use diagrams and pie charts, flow charts wherever necessary especially in theory papers.

10.   While presenting answer they may quote their practical experience to make their answers  unique from others in turn increase the Marks. 


CS. Kanchana, Salem 


Kanchana & Poorinma 


The very common problem faced by the students is “Mind & Hand” link. That is most of the students say that they have written well but they dint clear / they dint get the score which they expected. What most of the students say is 100 % correct, they know the concepts really well but where they lack is to write, what exactly in their mind. This is called as “Non-Sink of Mind and Hand”.

For E.g.


Mind: Managing Director should affix the seal and sign in the AGM Notice.
Hand: Managing Director should sign in the AGM Notice.
Non -Sink is: leaving the point of affixing the seal.

What can be done in this?

The sink can be done through a simple exercise. Just write any news which you heard in TV in your own language. Make either your parents / friends to read what you have written. Ask them what they have understood, from their reply you can find out whether you have conveyed what your mind exactly wanted to do. If not then do this exercise for a while until you feel that you’re able to write what you exactly want to convey. Once you’re good at “Mind & Hand” link you can easily convey your answer in rite manner to the person who values your paper.


Cs. Aishwarya Ramesh


First and foremost students must plan their course of preparation well ahead. They must try to finish their coaching classes atleast 4 months before the exams. The first round of studying the material should be a casual reading. During this time students may highlight or mark important topics for further reading. The second round should be a detailed studying and not reading. Students can Write down important sections and formulae in a sheet of paper with different colors and paste it in their room. 

Try to memorise what you have studied during the day before going to bed. 

Do not refer too many books. I did this mistake. Stick on to the institute material and just one good book for reference. 

Solving previous year question paper helps.

And also please avoid discussing with friends about preparation as it causes unnecessary panic .


Cs. Poornima Shankar, Salem





Common mistakes in preparation of law subjects :

1) Lag in understanding the basics of the law and just mugging up the points

2) Relying on scanners only

3) Not going through the study material (it will be useful for one marks)

4) Focus is needed in key points and sections

5) More awareness is needed on the updates and amendments

6) Solving different question papers will be helpful

In other subjects :

1) Working different kinds of problems is needed before exams

2) working with steps is necessary. Just cutting the steps and going to the final answer will not be helpful and students may get struck in the examination hall

3) should be aware of Latest amendments relating to direct and indirect taxation as it gets changing frequently

4) Being OMR based tax and costing papers , more practice is needed as wrong answers fetch them negative marks too

Common mistakes in presentation :

1) Continuing the answer for the questions in the same page rather than starting it in a new page. Starting each question in a new page will help the examiner to know what they have written properly.

2) Numbering of questions is not done properly. In the tension, some of the students fail to write the question numbers correctly.

3) Non mentioning of Part A or Part B to which their answers belong

4) Not differentiating the headings and the explanations. Use of black pens or underlining the headings will be helpful to get marks

5) Not showing the steps through which they arrived the solution

6) Failing to give notes or explanations supporting their answers

7) If they are nor able to remember the sections in law, its better not to quote it rather that quoting a wrong section and losing whole marks

8) It is always a good practice to put a line when a question is over.

These are some mistakes which students do inspite of the tension, short time in the examination hall though they are aware of these.

When these small mistakes are avoided, it will fetch you more marks and add pride to your path of becoming CS..!!

Apart from Girls perspective above, finally the views of an experienced person:

C R Shiv Kumaran MBA, ACMA, ACS

(He cleared CS recently)



CS is a thoroughly professional exam that puts to test both the mental and physical strength of the candidate. A lot of useful points have already been sent across by other contributors regarding the methods in which the syllabus has to be covered or on the do's and don't s in the examination hall. These are valuable inputs that needs to be adhered by the students to study and score marks.  On my part I would like to share a few points which I have rigorously adopted to prepare and present for exams.

1. Okay it is a professional course but that does not mean that it is a tough one: This thought should be in your mind even at the time of enrolling for the course. A professional course is designed to bring out the expert in you and is not designed to be tough so as to make you fail. At any given time remember that before you so many people have taken these very exams and have cleared them. You are not doing something not tried before. So if something has been done or achieved before you too are capable of doing the same. This very thought will bring you CONFIDENCE. 

2. Not all the time in my life is going to go towards preparation:

To many of us we lose half the battle when consciously or unconsciously right from the moment we enroll for a CS or CMA or CA course, we start to think that life is going to get tough. This in turn brings about an element of unease within us that we start to forego those very elements that bring relaxation in our lives, like time with family/friends, watching a movie, reading a book etc. A sense of urgency sets within us that our mind starts to gallop and allocates every single time conceivable towards examination preparation work. RELAX!,  a professional course is demanding but it does not mean that it is unassailable. What is needed is TIME MANAGEMENT and a PLAN for you to navigate the syllabus. Each day have a definite time plan for managing your active hours. Balance your available active hours between work, study and play. Also remember to make within that time schedule allowances for cheat days wherein you don't touch your study material but spend those hours doing nothing or something that you love to do. When you successfully manage a cheat day without having any guilt about it will make you feel that your life is completely under your control. It will bring CALMNESS and PREDICTABILITY and lead to better CLARITY IN THOUGHT. To you no longer is a professional course life threatening.

3. God is in parts:

Remember the famous saying God is in the Details, to you the caption should read as God is in parts. All professional courses have huge syllabuses that at sight overwhelm you. Never ever worry about the larger picture that the syllabus presents. Based on your time plan that you have developed for yourself, try to master smaller portions of a chapter one at a time. Look at your syllabus and your mastery over it as addition of smaller parts into a bigger one. Never do the mistake of thinking about rest of the syllabus/subjects when you are at mastering a chapter or module. The moment you do this your nervousness starts to reduce. This will lead to better  MEMORY RETENTION.

4. Go....... take a walk:

This is especially true for people who work and study. Within your time plan have at least half hour of time wherein you exercise your body as well. This can be a walk in the park or even a walk back from office/college to home, any other mode of exercise, yoga/meditation or anything that exercises your mind and body. This practice is bound to have the magical effect of DE-STRESS on your thoughts. Try to avoid phone conversations, chatting or listening to music within this time. Just be by yourself during this time.

5. Sleep well and Eat well:

Sleep is important and so is eating nutritious food. Be judicious with your sleep time and with what you eat. Remember an exam is a test of both your mental ability and physical ability. A candidate needs to last those three hours multiplied by the number of exams he or she takes without any fatigue. To withstand the rigorous demands of a punishing exam schedule, the student has to prepare his or her body for that ultimate day. Many of us make the mistake of just preparing rigorously for the exams but not taking adequate care on our PHYSICAL WELL-BEING. A well nourished body repays its master handsomely.

I have jotted down a few practices which I have adopted all these years to overcome the trauma that is normally associated with pursuing a professional course. Hope you find them useful.
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