Breaking the Enigma Code of the P2 Objective Test.

CIMA is a pain surely, also considered switching it to ACCA or ICAEW, this P2 thing hay

Hi All, I'm really struggling with the time for doing P2. Theres no way i can complete all the questions. I can't believe how much harder this exam is to any of the others I've done. Has anyone got any advice. Thanks

I came across this thread not long before I was due to sit the exam and it was comforting to know that it wasn't just me that found the Pearson Vue mock tremendously difficult. My study program for the module consisted of Kaplan Text and Exam kit and the full P2 course from Astranti.

My performance in the Astranti mocks was just under the pass mark. In the Pearson Vue mock is scored a staggering 25%!!! Determined that I was now going to fail the exam I finished off my last few days revision trying to stay positive.

This morning I have sat the P2 OT and passed! It was nothing like the Pearson Vue mock which had scared me to death. It was in line with the Astranti mocks and Kaplan practice kit in my opinion. The questions seemed fair and there was some longer calculations and these were offset by several very short questions. I had enough time at the end of the exam to review questions I had flagged, whereas in the mocks time was much more of an issue.

My advice to anyone that is coming up to sit the P2 OT is to cover all topics thoroughly and take little notice of the Pearson Vue mock. It is nothing like the real exam. Question practice is what helped me through it, Astranti's course was great and using the Kaplan material on top I feel really helped me gain a sound understanding of the topics. The Astranti mocks were very useful and although I did not score as highly as I would have liked in them they did help me identify areas that were weak and practice further on. They were also vital in me understanding how to manage my time. I felt much more comfortable in the actual exam having had the mock practice than if I had not.

Today I failed the P2 OT for the 3rd time. I am seriously deflated and demotivated and feel completely let down by CIMA. I feel that I want to write to let them know how I'm feeling, how I feel about giving up so I no longer have to give them my money. But it all sounds like a rant.
Today I felt completely relaxed and was happy with most of the questions on the test, yet there are still maybe 10-15 that are up there that really pish the time and also are nothing like the questions that are practised and learnt.
At 70% pass rate it's these questions that are making it a very thin line whether you pass or fail.
Reading the comments above I do feel like a silent abused child. I try to show my children that by working hard you can achieve what you want in this world, all they are seeing is their dad locked away from them at weekends and achieveing being disheartened.
Cima need to look at this as I feel that they are currently happy to accept payments for resits rather than face the issue. It's an unethical way of doing business a, and we all know how ethics is drummed into us as a student.
I am completely distraught and don't know where to turn.

I have been reading the comments on the p2 exam and I'm glad I'm not the only one in this boat. I have taken the exam today and i have failed it for the fourth time. I feel like I can do all the calculations very easily, but there are some very lengthy ones that I left until the end as I just didn't have the time to do them. My exam had loads of questions on transfer pricing and like someone said earlier, it was very much based upon interpretation and not many calculations. But when faced with multiple choice and you have a lot of text to read is near impossible, about 8 questions i didn't get time to answer as they had the lengthy calculations. So that leaves me with only being allowed to get 10 others wrong, to get 70%. So out of what you actually you get time to answer this is more like an 83% pass rate. It's totally unacheivable, I'm thinking of giving up on CIMA now and it makes me feel so sad that I've got all this way and I'm now unable to compete it. I've passed all other exams first time. I honestly don't know what to do I've paid for two taught and revision courses at two different providers, I've revised for 5 hours every evening and from 10 am until midnight at the weekends for 5 weeks. I've a young child and this is hard for her and my husband.
If anyone had any advice I would be greatful, as I would really like complete cima for myself and for a role model for my daughter.

I really wish CIMA would look at how much people are paying to pass this, if it's taking so many attempts why don't they offer cheaper prices for exams , surely online exams are cheaper than paper yet the price still remains the same. I know they are a business, but people's livlihoods depend on passing these exams, I've worked so hard on studying and if I don't pass I will be at risk of loosing my job in the future.

If anyone has any tips on intoretations of formulas, key understanding of the wordy questions please help. The courses I pay for are focusing too much on formulas and not enough on words

I also went through a similar experience with P2, failing it twice in the summer of 2015 and very nearly switching to ACCA due to being thoroughly disheartened at the lack of feedback & unfair exam questions. Hopefully my experience since will provide some hope/belief for the last few posters! After failing twice I switched to E2 & then F2 which were both significantly easier, passed first time and be returned to P2 8 months after I had failed, I passed third time around and was overjoyed, and have since progressed to only have P3 and the strategic case study left.

My learnings/advice would be as follows; yes it is important to practice questions, however having a broad knowledge of the whole atudy text is more important that specific knowledge of harder areas. It is common for the paper to focus heavily on one area, so a broad knowledge of everything sets you up will to deal with this.

Do all multiple choice questions first, then short calculations and then the long text questions.

Resit as soon as possible after failing, so the recisisikn and hard work remains fresh.

Never stop believing; you've got this far so you are damn well going to finish it!!

Keep going everyone, and never give up!

I had a provisional pass in the exam just woke up to my results and it's actual a fail can't tell you how disappointed I am, does anyone know if I can complain or dispute this, has anyone else ever known this happen to anyone as I have asked around and not found anyone else who has had this happen to them

Hi. I feel quite relieved that its not only me struggling to pass P2. Its really disheartening every time we don't make it. Perhaps the best way really is to have a deep understanding of all the theories, more practice in answering "exam-simulated" questions within the required time frame then doing a lot of supplementary readings from other materials like CIMA magazines or online articles/media.

I am due to sit P2 on wednesday, after having postponed it twice. I have done a number of mocks and can only manage to get through 45 questions at most - how is it possible to go through all the calculations in such little time? I am seriously panicking now, although I'm relieved to see I am not the only one who is puzzled by the time constraints. Any advice on time management?

Hi there, I am feeling deflated having failed my P2 multiple times now. I've gone though all the materials, practised a lot of mock exams but not achieving the pass is very frustrating. Anyone is int he similar boat? Please share your tips. This is like a dark cloud hanging over me cannot get past it. I am very depressed.

Hi everyone,

I finally passed this exam after a few attempts. The advice I can give is to keep going. I wanted to give up so many times after seeing the F word. I used Astranti mocks and the free videos, and the Kaplan textbook, distance learning and the revision kit. If there is anything, anything you are unsure about, use all the online resources and videos. The Kaplan revision book is really good. I made sure how to do the calculations and also I created examples in my head for everything. In the exam, I took it five questions at a time. I constantly panicked in my previous attempts. If there was a question that threw me, I started to panic. The other thing is make sure you know the breakdown of the main areas. Eg risk is 15 % of the syllabus so make sure you break that down further and try and do all the questions related to that. You will soon know the gaps. I learned this in the P2 seminar that CIMA host.

I also have failed the P2 exam now for the 4th time. I fully agree that the time limit is rediculous. Shouldn't the focus rather be on how well the student knows the work than on how fast you can complete the test...

But any how does anyone know what the policy is on rounding in the exam? What I found during my preparation is that when I use my financial calculator to work out NPV's / IRR it saves alot of time but then the answere differs from the memo by a few decimals or even a few digits. The system will mark this a sincorrect as it wont match the exact answer. I used to use the on screen calculator but that wasted alot of time during the exam and using one of the approved financial calculators saves time but then the answere differs from the system answer.

Demotivated from South Africa

Thanks for the reply, Does anyone have some tips when writing the actual exam in terms of time management. I found what works best for me is to do all the questions as they come and flagging the longer scenarios that require more than 90 sec, but I still struggle to get through everyting in 90 minutes.