pass mark for cima strategic case study

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Passing the CIMA case study exams

Mark Foley shares four top tips on mastering the CIMA Case Study Exams The CIMA Case Study exams are the final capstone exams of each level of the CIMA Professional Qualification, which students must pass to gain the CGMA designation. We explore four tips to help you prepare for the exams.

Understand the three Case Study levels

Each Case Study exam lasts three hours, with multiple tasks of equal lengths. There is a natural progression to the levels — Operational, Management and Strategic — that simulate how work as a management accountant progresses. To reach the Case Study level, you will have already passed the Objective Tests, which focus on ensuring that you have acquired the knowledge and skills for each pillar. Case Study exams are more about interpreting data and require practical answers to practical questions and simulate real-life business scenarios.

Operational Case Study (OCS)

Focus — The short-term role of the finance officer and the implementation of decisions.

Skills you need to convey — How to work with others in the organisation and use appropriate data and technology to translate medium-term decisions into short-term actionable plans.

Stats — Three-hour exam containing four tasks related to the enterprise, performance, and financial pillars; allotted 45 minutes per task, each task has two to three sub-tasks.

Management Case Study (MCS)

Focus — The role of the finance manager involves translating long-term decisions into medium-term plans.

Skills you need to convey — How to use data and relevant technology to manage organisational and individual performance; allocate resources to implement decisions; monitor and report the implementation of decisions; prepare and interpret financial statements to show performance.

Strategic Case Study (SCS)

Focus — The role of the senior finance manager entails long-term strategic decision-making.

Skills you need to convey — How to support organisational leaders to craft strategy and evaluate and manage risks that might prevent the successful implementation of strategy, including sourcing financial resources; value the organisations.

Stats — Three-hour exam containing three tasks related to the enterprise, performance, and financial pillars; allotted one-hour per task, each task has two to three sub-tasks.

Understand the Case Study exam cycle

Understand the pre-seen materials

Pre-seen materials — known as ‘preseens’ — are background information about the fictitious organisation featured in the Case Study exam. This information forms the basis of the tasks you can expect to see in the exam. The preseen tells the story of the company, including the industry and context in which it operates, its financial statements, management accounts, markets and competitors. Preseens are usually 26–30 pages long. Key tips include:

• Be ready — Familiarise yourself with the company, industry and current events.

• Analyse — Perform an analysis such as strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) or political, economic, social and technological (PEST); review financial statements and reporting issues. The end of the preseen will contain live issues regarding what is happening in the industry. For instance, a new standard may have come out that will change reporting standards from the current year to the next and that the Case Study exam must address.

• Cross-reference with the blueprint — Being able to know what you can do is critical. Can you discuss finance options, dividend policy or evaluate digital strategies?

Tackling ‘I can’ from each of the core activities in each of the sections is necessary for success. For instance:

• I can identify relevant costs and benefits. • I can advise on the communication process. • I can recommend a dividend policy. • I can use appropriate technologies to gather data for costing purposes, from digital and other sources.

Have a broad syllabus knowledge and know your company intrinsically.

You become the person when you role-play the exam. Avoid prefabricated answers, as the exam will have details not included in the preseens. Your answers have to be relevant to the question.

Plan your exam approach Manage your time — If you can complete a section early, that time does not get applied to the next section. We suggest spending all of your allotted time within the section.

Keep your answers real and relevant — Remember, this is a role-based exam; identify one or more factors that might be relevant, then explain why that approach would be relevant. The more tangible details you provide, the higher you are likely to score. Do not offer irrelevant arguments for the sake of padding your answers. Aim for neat, discreet paragraphs.

Understand the scoring — People mark the exams, and the pass rate is 60%. Even though a scale is scored 80 out of 150, 60% is the pass rate.

The sub-tasks will be weighted differently. Each case will contain tasks from all five of the core activities:

• Evaluate opportunities to add value. • Implement senior management decisions. • Manage performance and costs to aid value creation. • Measure performance. • Manage internal and external stakeholder.

Scoring example

As the MCS Examiner said: “For a 12-mark answer, it might be possible to identify, say, four issues. A candidate who aims to write about four topics only has to score three marks for each to obtain full marks.”

You have all the tools you need to do well on the CIMA Case Study exams. From all of us at the Association, we wish you the very best for your next Case Study exam.

• The content of this article is based on a Case Study Masterclass webinar delivered by CIMA and BPP in November 2020

CIMA CURRENT ADVICE

Should you sit your case study exam online?

Many students do have a successful experience sitting their case study exams online. However, due to the less controlled environment of the online setting and the need for a continuous and regular internet connection, there are some students who have a disrupted exam experience. Test centres offer a reliable, controlled environment in which to take a test. Where possible, if you feel comfortable travelling to a test centre and feel at ease with the safety and hygiene procedures that have been made available in test centres as a result of the COVID19 pandemic, we recommend that you take your case study in a test centre.

Pearson Vue have more information on the measures that have been put in place.

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CIMA Exam Results and a Look at the Grading Mechanism

• By Stephanie Ng
• / 3 COMMENTS

Eager to find out when you will get the CIMA exam results, and how to interpret the performance report?

CIMA Exam Results for Objective Tests

Since the implementation of the new format, it is the easiest and fastest to get the CIMA objective test exam results — you get a “pass” or “fall” grade immediately after the computerized exam.

After 48 hours, you will receive an email, confirming that CIMA exam results breakdown is available in the MYCIMA portal.

CIMA Exam Results Breakdown

The results are shown in a table format, listing the subject areas in the objective test.

Each subject area is marked “proficient” or “not proficient”, with more detailed comments on how you can improve.

Here is a sample showing the candidate getting a “not proficient” in Financial Reporting:

Image courtesy of thecimastudent.com

If you’d like to have a glimpse at how the full performance report looks like, check out this official video from the CIMA:

A Note on CIMA Exam Pass Mark

The CIMA states that you need a 70% accuracy to pass each objective test. At the same time, they tell you the CIMA exam pass mark is 100.

Please understand that you are given a scaled score ranging from 0 to 150. The emphasis is that this score is scaled, meaning that you cannot figure out your percentage accuracy by a straight formula. In fact, if you try to divide 100 by 150, you get 66.7% instead of 70%.

The scaling is a way for CIMA to balance the more difficult questions with the easier questions . The system weighs difficult questions slightly more, such that students who got a few more difficult questions wrong would still score the same as those getting more easier questions right.

CIMA Case Study Results

The questions in case study exams are more complex. Human graders instead of computers mark this exam, and therefore, we need to wait for approximately 5 weeks after the end of the testing window to get the results.

Similar to the objective test, the performance report is available on the MyCIMA portal, and is presented in the form of a table. We will see “Strong”, “Moderate” or “Fail” in each of the 5 competencies.

In this example, the table is showing “Moderate” under technical skills is marked “Moderate”, with details on areas of improvement:

For those who would like to know the technical side of grading, here is a detailed explanation by the CIMA:

A Note on CIMA Case Study Pass Mark

The pass mark for case study is 80, out of a scaled score of 0 to 150. The candidate must also score a “Moderate” or “Strong” across all competencies in order to pass the case study exam. This is to ensure that the candidate is not weak in a particular area and that he/she is “business ready”.

Even if you pass, take a look at the performance report for rooms of improvement. This will only help you in the next CIMA case study exam.

Is This helpful?

I hope the discussion on CIMA exam grading and results is helpful in preparing psychologically for this exam. If you have any questions, please drop a note in the comment section. Thank you and good luck!

For Your Further Reading

• Frequently asked questions on the CIMA exam
• CIMA exam historical pass rates

About the Author Stephanie Ng

I am the author of How to Pass The CPA Exam (published by Wiley) and the publisher of this and several accounting professional exam prep sites.

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CIMA Strategic Case Study

Case study questions pack

Question practice is the best form of preparation for the case study exams. You practice key theory. Master exam technique. Perfect your time management. Crucially, you learn from feedback about what you get both right and wrong!

And yet practising past real exams is really hard because you don’t know the pre-seen. And, to be honest, the official solutions are not always the best as a learning tool either – they’re simply not designed for that purpose!

We’ve reviewed over 5 years of real strategic case study exam questions and recreated them with their own scenario meaning you see what real questions are like without the need to learn the pre-seens. We’ve also written detailed solutions in a style you can clearly learn from and should aim to recreate for the exam.

The question pack contains 60 case study exam-style questions – the equivalent of 15 mock exams!

As these questions are not applied to a specific pre-seen they are an ideal way to practise for ANY case study sitting and can be done before your pre-seen comes out as excellent preparation .

The questions come in document format and are not timed, meaning you can make your way through them at your own pace as excellent preparation before sitting timed mocks.

“I’ve used Astranti to support a number of my CIMA exams, the materials are designed to bring the theoretical knowledge to life and prepare you for a top result. Highly recommend to any student needing some support for their studies. “

CIMA Case Study Student , April 2024

“I used Astranti FLP and can absolutely vouch for their materials. They are written in plain English and are really engaging and easy to grasp. I passed my MCS on first attempt thanks to their materials”

Test your knowledge

60 CIMA case study exam-style questions

Based on real exams but without the need to know a pre-seen

Get some extra practice whenever you can fit it in

Master your theory application

Apply your theory knowledge to exam-style scenarios

Prepare yourself for a range of possible question types

Detailed solutions demonstrate how to apply the theory

Learn from your mistakes

Solutions demonstrate how to write high-scoring answers

Assess your own performance against the solutions

Identify areas of weakness to focus your remaining revision

Try the questions for yourself…

Our SCS questions pack contains 60 exam-style questions, based on real past exams.

However, none of the questions require any previous pre-seen knowledge .

Also, due to their document format, you are not restricted to completing the questions under exam conditions , meaning you can dip in and out of the questions pack whenever is convenient for you.

Try the questions for yourself now with our five-question sample here. We’ve also provided the corresponding solutions so you can learn how high-scoring answers are constructed.

What our students have to say…

Please see our  testimonials page  for our latest student reviews. Here are a couple of examples:

“I registered for SCS with Astranti after 4 attempts of self study. What really helped was the feedback from the SCS mock exams. It helped me to understand where my strength and weaknesses lie.

After applying all these lessons learnt, I passed the SCS exam I’m happy I chose Astranti.”

CIMA Strategic Case Study Student , January 2023

“The study materials, the online masterclasses, the analysis of the case study, industry analysis, ethics analysis were vital to my passing. But the marked mocks with feedback prepared me mostly, found some of them harder than the exam which prepared me brilliantly, helped to reduce nerves and gave me confidence for exam day.”

Purchase the SCS questions pack

The Questions Pack is part of our SCS Premium Course. Head to the course page to find out more.

SCS Questions Pack £55

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CIMA Strategic   Case Study

Strategic Case Study (SCS)

• Register now to get access to free resources and discounts • Get the first 7 days for free, and get started straight away • Download the free SCS Study Plan to get you started • Subscribe to the CIMA library and get access to this course, along with full access to the complete CIMA syllabus

Join over 30,000+ students who have used Learnsignal to pass their exams.

Course Overview

As the final exam before you become qualified as a CIMA member, the Strategic Case Study (SCS) is designed to test the knowledge you have learned in the three strategic level objective tests (E3, P3 and F3), and apply it to a real world situation. 

This will get you ready for what you could expect to experience as a management account.

With Learnsignal’s support, you can learn how to:

• Prepare and get ready for your case study exam
• How to use the pre-seen material
• How to understand exam technique, and apply the content in the Operational syllabus

The Learnsignal guide to passing SCS – Strategic Case Study:

• Study with an a Registered Tuition Provider to get expert content
• Make sure you have completed and understood the OT courses
• Work on your exam technique, not just the course content
• Follow a study plan to make sure you are studying in a structured way
• Use mock exams and practice questions to get ready for your exams
• Reach out to tutors when you need support

What is included in the CIMA Subscription

Payment plans to suit your budget, with access to everything you need to pass your exams!

What you get

• Access to full syllabus across all CIMA courses
• Student support webinars
• Over 5000 OT Practice Questions
• Case Study Exam Techniques
• Subject Cheat Sheets
• 24/7 Expert Tutor Support
• Everything you need to pass your exams!

Case Study support 1 – preparing for the Case Study exam

This is the first in a short series of three articles written for students who are preparing for case study exams. It is based on the authors’ experience in setting and marking CGMA case studies. These articles will be valuable to candidates who are preparing for each of the three levels of CIMA's CGMA Professional Qualification.

Note: These articles take examples from the pre-seen materials and question tutorials for all three levels of the CGMA qualification to illustrate the points made, so a familiarity with these would be helpful. With that in mind, it is recommended that candidates read these articles in conjunction with the other resources that are available to them, including materials that are level specific.

Study planner additional resources: Operational question tutorial material Management question tutorial material / Gateway question tutorial material Strategic question tutorial material For further resources and variants visit the study planner and view a relevant exam session.

The purpose of the case study exam

CIMA describes the case study exam as a “role simulation”. It requires candidates to “respond to authentic work-based activities presented during the examination, drawing together learning from each of the three subjects to provide solutions to the issues and challenges presented”. The case studies at each of the three levels require candidates to imagine themselves as finance professionals with clearly defined roles that are linked to the Operational, Management and Strategic levels of the professional qualification. These roles are outlined in the examination blueprints for each level.

Each case study comprises two separate elements:

• The pre-seen information is released in advance of the exam. It describes an entity, providing background information on its industry and other information that should help candidates to understand any issues that arise. Each level has its own pre-seen.
• The unseen information is provided on the day of the exam. It comprises supplementary information that expands upon the background in the pre-seen, along with requests for responses from a colleague/superior that are the exam task requirements.

The case study exam can be described as a “role simulation” because it reflects what happens in the real world by providing scenarios which reflect various types of organisations and industries and require candidates to take on the kind of role a CGMA candidate or member would have in the simulated organisation. CGMA finance professionals are expected to understand the entities that employ them. As they progress through their careers, they are expected to be capable of accepting greater levels of responsibility. When assigned a task they should be able to apply their technical knowledge to the entity itself and the position in which it finds itself.

In the real world, it should be expected that a finance professional would be able to make realistic and sensible recommendations that can be justified in the event of a superior who asks: “why do you think that?”. The case study approach enables CIMA to promote the employability of its students and members to organisations who are recruiting finance professionals who can do more than simply pass knowledge-based exams: the case study role simulation requires candidates to think and act as they would be required to do in the workplace.

CIMA has released a question tutorial for each case study level of the Professional Qualification.

• The question tutorial for the Operational Case Study relates to GymFiT, a company that operates 102 low-cost gyms. The candidate is expected to assume the role of a Finance Officer, who supports the company’s Finance Manager.
• The question tutorial for the Management Case Study relates to Grainger, a company that designs and manufactures mobile phones and that operates globally. The candidate is expected to assume the role of Finance Manager.
• The question tutorial for the Strategic Case Study relates to Fizz, a soft drink manufacturer that operates largely within its home market but is contemplating overseas expansion. The candidate is expected to assume the role of a Senior Manager who reports directly to Fizz’s Board.

Each of the pre-seen documents for the question tutorials describes a very different business, and that is key to understanding what is required in the case study exam. For example, GymFiT is a service company that operates from a large number of separate locations. Candidates will have to take that into account in responding to any requests for support on operational matters.

Using the blueprint to support case study exam preparation

Candidates are expected to have already studied the syllabus material that is relevant to their case study, either through passing the relevant objective tests set by CIMA for the three objective tests at that level or through having been granted exemptions for previous relevant study. Regardless of how they got there, case study candidates are expected to have grasped the syllabus content and now be able to apply it in the context of the case study, to be able to formulate and structure a credible response to a request from a superior/colleague.

For example, the Management Case Study question tutorial sets a task that asks about the challenges associated with transfer pricing for charges to be made by one part of the entity to another, to reflect the transfer of resources. Clearly, a candidate who did not know what transfer pricing was or what a target costing exercise involved, would struggle to answer this requirement. (The need for application to the case – which is clearly crucial in a case study exam – will be explored in a further article.)

To assist candidates in their preparation, CIMA has published a series of examination blueprints, which spell out core activities and expands on those by breaking them down to “I can” statements (headed as assessment outcomes). So, for example, a candidate preparing for the Management Case Study knows that it is necessary to be able to manage internal and external stakeholders (Core Activity E) and that requires the candidate to be able to say “I can explain the behavioural and transfer pricing issues associated with internal trading.”

Making full sense of the blueprints requires careful study and preparation. Every candidate should complete a satisfactory course of study, whether self-led or facilitated by a tuition provider, to ensure that the necessary content has been mastered.

The case study exams reflect the real world in the sense that all tasks are compulsory. It is very risky to skip topics on the basis that they would take too long to revise or have been evaluated as unlikely to be in the exam. It should go without saying that knowledge that has been learned and examined in the past can be forgotten and so there is no substitute for revising study materials to refresh knowledge and to ensure that it is up to date.

Candidate responses which appear to have been written as a summary of the information in the pre-seen and do not reflect any of the framework that is expected from them will receive few marks.

For example, the Management Case Study question tutorial includes a sub-task requirement that relates to the challenges associated with ensuring that a proposed team will be effective. Ideally, candidates would have written strong answers by using their knowledge of the factors that can determine the success or failure of teams, drawn from the syllabus material, with the facts that were presented in the unseen material concerning this particular team. The syllabus material would be a significant element in offering a justification for the arguments, with the facts provided in the case itself enabling the candidate to demonstrate application of that material.

Reading the pre-seen

The pre-seen is made available on the CIMA website before the exam. It is expected that candidates will read and study the document closely and that they will be extremely familiar with it on the day of the exam.

Realistically, the examiner cannot expect candidates to have memorised every single paragraph of the pre-seen. A copy of the pre-seen material is available for reference throughout the exam so candidates can check details. It is quite common for the tasks themselves to repeat key facts rather than risk causing confusion or wasting precious time during the exam. For example, the Strategic pre-seen lists the directors’ names and areas of responsibility, but a task would not take it for granted that you had memorised that list. If a task referred to, say, Simon Bridges then it would remind candidates that Mr Bridges is the Production Director.

When working on the pre-seen material, the expectation is that candidates will develop an awareness of the way the syllabus knowledge that they bring into the case study should be applied. Returning to Fizz, it is clear that:

• Fizz manufactures a range of products for the consumer market that are sold through third parties (mainly retailers and food outlets such as cafes, restaurants and bars).
• This is a competitive industry with relatively little scope for innovation.
• The company has effective governance systems in place.
• There is financial information that might repay careful study.
• There is a collection of news clippings at the end of the pre-seen.

The first two points are vitally important because they can help candidates avoid offering unhelpful or ill-informed advice. It is easy to lose credibility through ignoring the nature of the industry.

For example, the sample assessment 2 for the Strategic question tutorial asks about the implications of fixing the costs of ingredients for extended periods. Without going too deeply into the mechanisms available for doing so, Fizz has two basic choices for buying sugar: it can either accept the current market price whenever it places an order or it can make a contract that fixes prices for a specified future period.

The nature of the business really matters when offering advice because Fizz cannot necessarily pass any cost increases on to its customers. Supermarkets may not be willing to pay more for Fizz’s cola drink if the company’s competitors are keeping their prices unchanged.

Regardless of the level of the case study, the nature of the entity will have an impact on the advice that is offered. In the case of the Operational Case Study, our entity is a low-cost gym. Its clients are attracted by low costs and so cost control could be more important for GymFiT than it might be for a traditional full-service gym that promotes itself based on quality of service and facilities. In the case of Grainger, it sells mobile phones and customers might be more interested in quality and functions than in selling price and so cost control could be less important.

The initial read through the pre-seen should involve thinking about all the commercial, regulatory and financial issues that have been provided. The examiner has scope to develop tasks that require candidates to identify the relevant issues and to address them in the context of the case study.

Candidates should always ensure that they understand the content of the pre-seen. The fact that they have had several weeks to study it suggests that they should have been able to take time to interpret the facts that have been provided. For example, the Strategic pre-seen for the question tutorial charts the respective share prices of Fizz and its competitor Qwench. The most striking feature of the graph is that Fizz’s share price has remained relatively unchanged over the period under review in comparison to Qwench’s, which has declined slowly. Another key feature is that the two companies’ share prices have tended to move at the same times and in the same direction, implying that they have been affected by the same events. Candidates might be tempted to focus on the fact that Qwench’s share price was consistently higher than Fizz’s, but this means nothing whatsoever in financial or economic terms.

A closer read

When marking case study exams, it is clear that many candidates conduct their own independent study of the industry and the factors that affect it. That often results in them developing helpful insights that they can use to develop and inform their answers. For example, a candidate for the Operational Case Study might find it helpful to learn more about the background to the industry, the factors that drive demand and the contrast with full-service gym providers. Background research is not mandatory – there will be sufficient information in the pre-seen and unseen documents to enable candidates to write full and relevant answers – however some independent reading and research can benefit case study preparation.

Candidates should beware of the one major risk associated with independent research. Many candidates feel that they must demonstrate that they have read more widely and that often results in them including irrelevant arguments or examples in their answers. Marks are awarded for arguments that are both correct and relevant, so illustrating an argument with a real-world event that bears no relation to the case will simply waste time. Rather than researching the industry in very narrow terms, candidates might benefit more from keeping up to date with the general business news. Many candidates gain credit simply by demonstrating that they have a good grasp of the issues that might affect, say, a service industry and applying that understanding to the case study and its associated requirements.

Many candidates work through the information in the financial statements and use that information to illustrate their arguments. For example, GymFiT’s revenue increased by 24% compared to the previous year, which may be a useful statistic to cite in an answer. Numerical tasks are not set in the case study exams, but credit is given for any relevant computations provided by candidates, including accounting ratios, which support the response to the task.

As with personal research, care must be taken to avoid wasting time on insights from deep study of the pre-seen material just because it is possible to do so. There is no point in telling the marker something that does not relate to the task requirement, even if it is correct.

Candidates should always take care to read through the content of the press clippings that usually appear at the end of the pre-seen. Examiners often provide those in order to help candidates better understand the industry. These may not always be directly relevant to task requirements. They may also be provided with the intention of adding background information that could help candidates to better understand the context of a requirement.

For example, the question tutorial Operational Case Study Pre-seen includes a news article on data analytics and improving health. One of the tasks in the question tutorial deals with the potential usefulness of digital sources and the costs associated with providing gym members with a fitness app. Neither of those requirements could have been predicted from reading the news report, but the background information that it provides would have helped candidates to develop informed and relevant answers.

Prefabricated answers and question spotting

So far, we have argued that candidates can improve their marks by studying the pre-seen and thinking about what might happen in this particular case study, to this particular company. That is a legitimate and helpful frame of mind in which to read the pre-seen and be ready to address the requirements that are set on the day. In contrast, candidates should resist the temptation to read the pre-seen with a view to predicting the tasks that will be set and concentrating their revision on the related topics.

As mentioned previously, the purpose of the case study approach is to reassure employers that CGMA finance professionals are employable. In the real world, finance professionals are expected to be able to respond to unforeseen and unpredicted problems. Case studies will often reflect that by introducing a change of direction or a complication that could not necessarily have been predicted from the pre-seen.

For example, the Management Pre-seen for the question tutorial provides quite a detailed discussion of battery technology. That then informs requirements that deal with a collaborative effort to design a new model of phone that incorporates certain design elements that are restricted by the battery. Candidates responding to that task would have benefitted from close study of the pre-seen in advance of attempting those requirements but would have struggled to have guessed the task in advance.

Question spotting is dangerous because it risks candidates excluding topics from their revision that could form the basis of a task in the exam. The fact that the information in the pre-seen could lend itself to a particular topic does not guarantee that the topic will be examined.

Some responses read as if candidates have read the pre-seen and have prepared a response on a topic which has fortunately come up in the exam. Unfortunately, those answers often stress the information drawn from the present to the exclusion of the additional material that is provided in the unseen content that accompanies the requirements. These “prefabricated” answers read as if they have been written in advance and are then reproduced by the candidate without much attempt to reflect all of the facts that the examiner has provided. These types of responses earn few marks.

It should be stressed that it would be potentially helpful to read the pre-seen carefully with a view to understanding the business and the challenges that it might face. Problems only arise when candidates do not prepare themselves to adapt to changing scenarios or unexpected events.

To sum up …

The case study approach to exams is intended to provide candidates with the ability to demonstrate their employability by asking them to approach practical problems using their knowledge of the syllabus material to develop an appropriate response.

The pre-seen is a key element of that exam and it should be regarded as such by candidates. Close study of the pre-seen material and careful preparation will equip candidates to provide relevant and well-informed answers to the task requirements, drawing on their knowledge and skills to provide solutions to the practical problems presented in the exam.

CIMA Student Series: Strategic Case Study (SCS)

The Strategic Case Study represents the final hurdle for CIMA students. In this article, Angelo Koukios demonstrates the importance of the right attitude. His never-say-die attitude and ability to identify and improve his weaknesses saw him improve his score by 25 marks between his first and second attempts.

Angelo Koukios currently works as a financial advisor at Grant Thornton (see LinkedIn profile here ). Angelo enjoys a versatile working experience in two different countries (England & Greece) within a variety of industries and roles. His main areas of interest are predominantly financial planning and analysis in the context of financial modelling, along with the application of advanced data analytics and Business Intelligence (BI) techniques. During his free time, Angelo loves to hang out with friends, exploring the beauty of Greece as well as watching and playing sports. ‍

The Strategic Case Study represents the final hurdle for CIMA students. In this article, Angelo demonstrates the importance of the right attitude. His never-say-die attitude and ability to identify and improve his weaknesses saw him improve his score by 25 marks between his first and second attempts. ‍

When did you take the SCS exam and how did you get on? Was it your first attempt?

I successfully passed the SCS exam in May 2019 and that was my second attempt. As the saying goes, “you are allowed to fall, but you must get back up”. I failed with my first attempt with a scaled score of 78 (just 2 marks below the passing grade), and I am sure that you can imagine how devastated I was. I had to go down the same road over again, in the context of a new case study scenario, only because I got a result slightly lower than the pass mark. By being persistent, paying more attention to those small things that make the difference and having the unlimited support of VIVA, I eventually got the desired pass mark, this time 103.      

How long did you spend preparing for the SCS paper?

My preparation for the SCS paper lasted approximately 6 weeks. Believe me, time flies! On average, I was studying approximately 4 hours per working day and approximately 10 hours on Saturdays and Sundays.  

Did you take a course or did you opt for self-study?

As you can imagine, self-study and commitment are the most important parts in this journey. However, VIVA’s SCS Genius Study Pack paved the way for succeeding in the exam. The case study preparation videos, professional marking of my mock exams with detailed comments and the one-to-one session helped me to familiarise myself with exam requirements and conditions. In the SCS exam it is not just a test of what you know, but also a test of how you manage to express that knowledge in a specific scenario. This is exactly where VIVA’s terrific contribution makes the difference and equips you with confidence during the actual exam.

What (if anything), did you find especially difficult with the SCS in relation to your preparation?

Definitely, balancing work, personal and study life is the toughest part of this process. As time is probably the most valuable asset that we have as individuals, the CIMA qualification requires substantial amounts of it, if you want to reap the benefits of this accreditation. Getting inspiration from the virtue of learning more and envisioning a better future are key incentives to push yourself forward and never give up.

What (if anything), did you find especially difficult with the SCS in relation to the exam day?

I believe that time management is key on the exam day. However, more often than not, good time management is highly correlated with good preparation. The more you know, the more efficient you become when you express that knowhow either verbally or on paper.

Was there an area of the Strategic syllabus that you liked more than others?

Most students struggle with hedge accounting or currency and interest hedges. I was one of those to be honest. However, this gradually became one of my favourites along with valuations, Big Data and the Balance Scorecard.

Was there an area of the Strategic syllabus that you liked less than others?

Probably the areas of Integrated Reporting and GRI were not “my cup of tea”. However, I grasp the main attributes of those two areas and I was prepared to implement them in the case scenario.

Do you have any tips for other students about to sit the SCS?

Stay focused, be confident, aim for the best but also be prepared for the worst. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. SCS is a “once in a lifetime” experience and as such, presents particular challenges that are unique to it.

Were there any study techniques you used that were particularly helpful?

Reviewing weak areas again and again with a fresh view and continuous familiarisation with the industry and the scenario itself are critical success factors for exam success.  

Do you have any final comments/recommendations/feelings/thoughts about your SCS experience?

Have fun! The learning process and exams are tough. However, the whole experience makes you stronger and better. As the song says: “At the end of a storm, there's a golden sky”!

‍ You might want to explore and learn more about our CIMA Strategic Case Study Course . You can also check our webinar for Introduction to the SCS, register here .

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Related resources

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Strategic level

Strategic level is the third and final level of CIMA's CGMA Professional Qualification and consists of three subject areas.

Exam pass rates

We publish up-to-date pass rates for the CGMA Professional Qualification exams every three months.

For the CGMA Professional Qualification, CIMA has published CGMA Examination Blueprints, based on the syllabus, that set out what is examinable in each of the nine Objective Tests and three Case Study Exams. The blueprints are published annually and provide information about the format, structure and weightings of the assessments.

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