I'm under way with the online/home studying for CIMA E1 exam, and have been using an online resource called Mapit Accountancy. I completed all the studying on there, and then attempted the Mock exams shown on CIMA's student resources site - what a kick in the teeth.
From what I've seen Mapit barely touches the surface of the information I need, and therefore I'm looking into some other options. I thought this might be the case as it's fairly cheap, and doesn't even offer full coverage of the CIMA syllabus, only a few exams along the way.
Does anyone have any experience with CIMA online studying, and can make some recommendations?
Your safest bet for a reasonable price is probably CIMA's own https://www.cimastudy.com/ .
The course and text are prepared by Kaplan a well known, well respected international professional studies company. CIMA would have chosen them for this reason.
Another well known choice is BPP.
One of the trusted posters on this site works for First Intuition, so it may be worth giving them a look.
One that I have used recently is http://www.acornlive.com/. This is reasonably priced and provides full coverage of the course. Their online course is professionally designed powerpoint presentation with voice. You can print or buy the associated text. Only issues that I had were that the voice volume between sections of a course varies quite a bit so you have to keep changing the volume to either be able to hear it at all or avoid having your eardrum perforated. One two minute section was unintelligible because the voice was at double speed! Apart from that it was fine. Email and telephone support also available.
Hope that helps,
David.
Edited to correct a link.
-- Edited by David Ballantyne on Tuesday 7th of June 2016 04:55:34 PM
I am currently studying E1, I went with Kaplan, there are loads of practise questions and tests available online. Although I have generally done quite well on these, I attempted a pearson vue practise and failed miserably. If that's anything like the proper exam I am in trouble.
I also like Astranti.
Take a look & good luck
Em
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Em
MAAT, CIMA student, avoider of Tax as much as possible and going greyer by the day.
I'm ACCA rather than CIMA but its all pretty much the same learning style.
You are not going to get through the exam unless you do the study text from cover to cover (like Em and David I prefer Kaplan). When you buy the Kaplan study texts there is a code inside the front cover that you enter online to get access to a virtual copy of the book so you can still do all of your studying online but you cannot get away from reading the books.
Following the study text concentrate on old exam questions. By the end I had doing exams down to a formulae of one month for the study text and then 2 months of exam practice from old papers and the exam practice kits.
Although you are doing CIMA you may find ACCA materials help you as well. There are some free lectures for ACCA available on Open Tuition. For equivalents :
CIMA E1 = ACCA F1
CIMA P1 = ACCA F2
CIMA F1 = ACCA F3
After the first three the qualifications start to go there own ways but all in all there is nothing that you can learn that will not be useful to you in passing CIMA.
You could actually try doing the example / pilot ACCA paper for F1 as one of your practice exams.
here are some F1 exam resources complete with answers.
Some of the questions will not be relevant to the CIMA syllabus.
HTH,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Thanks for all the inputs there David, Em and Shaun. Much appreciated.
Seems like I might have to take a step back and almost start E1 again! Will pick up the relevant Kaplan book and have a read and try get back on track soon.
Shaun, I didn't realise the crossover between ACCA and CIMA was so direct for the early papers, I'll definitely look at the Open Tuition stuff you mention as a colleague of mine doing ACCA highly recommends them.
