Failed my P1 exam yesterday - become a bit disillusioned

Cima exams now is becoming a sheer luck. You are right if the study materials have no resemblance with the real exam even no amount of so call official exam practice text from kaplan then passing the exam is just a luck. I failed this exam in december, failed again in this month(March 8th) have reschedule for saturday for the third time but just praying to let my luck shine on saturday otherwise I have to keep resitting till I give up. The questions I have been gotten is not all that difficult but still my provisional results came out failed and since I have not means of knowing what actually is the problem I have to accept it. Please the only solution now is keep trying but is too fustrating studying for three months for just one paper and still failed. Good luck on your next try.

Thanks for the replies.

After coming out of the exam, it did feel like a disastrous fail, but after checking my score online I got a scaled score of 98, where 100 is a pass. I was so close to a pass but this makes it even more frustrating!

I have tried to rebook my exam but the whole of April and May is booked up. I don't know if this is accurate or if the website booking system isn't working? I don't mind too much if I fail an exam but ideally I would want to resit within a week or two, which is impossible! The Pearson Vue test centre is usually full with Driving Theory test students - I'm always the only one doing a non-DVLA test! I wish there was somewhere else I could sit the tests with more availability!

I think once I get P1 done I am going to switch study providers to Kaplan. I have heard a lot of positive things about Kaplan.

I definitely agree with learning Relevant Costing inside and out. Also Variances came up a lot with Mixed Variances too. I felt I was confident in these areas but the actual CIMA exam asked the questions very differently to the CIMAstudy questions I faced.

It's looking like my next resit will be after May now which I'm very disappointed with, I really cannot afford to fail next time or I'll be resitting again around August time if the lack of availability continues like this.

I also failed P1 back in April with a score of 96. So incredibly frustrating. I had self-studied with BPP at great expense and i agree with P1 Fanatic, far too much detail in the study text that only served to confuse the matter.

In the exam the time pressure was ridiculous, time management skills are crucial here. Whilst i agree you don't want to flag and skip over too many questions, if you're faced with a page of text and you know it's going to take lengthy calculations, just leave it. Especially so if you can see that it's a genuine multiple choice answer, at least with those the worst case scenario is you fly through them in the last minute and take a random guess, a 25% chance of being right by sheer luck is better than nothing.

Something else I've done is to take another exam before re-sitting P1. If you haven't done them already, E1 and F1 and a lot easier than P1 (just look at the pass rates CIMA release). Having already done E1 prior to P1, I had a go at F1 with a total of 6 weeks to study and prepare for the exam just using Astranti free materials. I passed in June with a 103 ( a pass is a pass, right?). Now whilst I've forgotten a fair chunk of what I had learned for P1 now that I'm revising for it again, what this has done has introduced a feel good factor about this exam and a bit of momentum. I've passed E1 and F1, so I must be able to get past P1.

My resit is in August, I'll report back with my results. Best of luck guys

Reporting back as promised, delighted to say that i passed P1 last week with a 111, my best score to date!

For anyone reading this who's about to sit a P1 exam, here's what worked for me on my second attempt. I completed loads of mock exams working up to the exam, alongside all the usual studying of the text and calculations etc. Even though i felt more much confident going into the exam, time pressure was still a problem. You've got to keep moving in the exam, you don't have time to get bogged down re-reading the same question several times, and you certainly don't have time to let your mind wander for a moment (happens to me quite often, i have the concentration span of a 4 year old). If you get stuck, leave it and move on, if needs be you can take a guess when reviewing at the end.

Appreciating that all exams are different, I got a lot of variance-based questions. The questions are really straight forward when you know which bits of info you're looking for within the questions to calculate the variance, sounds obvious really, but ensuring you know all the variances inside-out and back-to-front will save gain you plenty of marks and save you precious time. If you're lucky you'll get a good quantity of the short, theory based questions. We're all different but to me these were like gold, short questions that you can answer confidently in 15 seconds and move on. Hard to say what's going to come up in these questions, but if you know your theory you'll whip through these in no time.

If you're only using Astranti materials to get through this exam, pay special attention to Chapter 16, as this is the ONLY chapter that covers the Risk and Uncertainty area of the syllabus (15% of the exam and, for me at least, questioned often). I got a lot of EV and High-Low and Regret matrix questions in my exam, if you haven't mastered chapter 16 then it's unlikely you're going to score proficient in this area.

Whoever you are, and wherever you are, i wish you all the best of luck in your exams, I'll see you in November for the OCS!

Terry C - when you say you completed lots of mock exams, where are you getting these from?

I study via Kaplan distance learning and they only provide you with 2 mock exams, plus the Pearson Vue exam (which just regurgitates the same questions but in a different order) so I'm stuck with where to find others.

I'm losing interest in CIMA after failing P1 twice now (to be fair to myself, the 2nd re-sit was 98 marks so I was close) but repeating what some other users have said, my PV centre is always booked up with student drivers so I have to wait 5 - 6 weeks to get an appointment.

Hi Marta

I've posted this on your other question but I'm glad to re-post it here as well for the benefit of the others. Click here to see original reply - cimaforum.boards.net/post/4142

"I'm sorry to hear about your results.

My stance is always to encourage students never to give up. You can read my blog post here. I know that case study exams are different from the OT exams, but the frustration and despair in students are the same when they hear they have failed.

Another blog post that you may be interested in is on what kind of assistance to get to help you.

My advice to you would definitely be not to give up. I must confess, when I was going through my CIMA studies eons ago, E1 was very painful for me. Many late night reading, research and class attendance later (yes, I myself sought a tuition provider to help me), I eventually overcame it. So it can be done.

As for switching to another course (like F1 and P1), if you need a break from E1, sure, no harm in that. The issue is of course, you will ultimately have to come back and face it. And by then, the stakes will be higher that you need to pass it to continue on.

Good luck for your next steps, Marta!"

I tried using lots of Mock Tests from Practice Tests academy and used Kaplan Texts. After intense revision, my first attempt was a disaster where I was only proficient at Risk and uncertainity chapter and the rest were failure. With my second attempt after another intense learning, I had proficient in all the chapters except Risk and unceratinity which made me score 96 as I am not able to finish all the questions, left 4 to 5 questions at the end. I was so devastated. I have signed up for study materials and videos from "Practice Tests Academy". Will see how I get on.

I felt the same after three attempts, there is always something new focused on. It doesn't reflect any of the mock tests.