Haste chehre mein gum ko chupao
Try following this maxim while you face the MAFA paper in CA Finals.
Bahut Kuch Bolo Par Kuch Naa Bataao
Strategy to be applied when someone asks you "Exam Kaisa Hua??"
MAFA and Costing are twin sisters in CA Final .
Don't you dare under-estimate their potential to wreak havoc in your life..
I shall make no bones about the fact that MAFA is a difficult paper ..while accountancy often makes you feel that time alloted of 3 hours is too little ..MAFA may make you wonder what to do with them..cartooning ,for a change???
Because ICAI does not often offer you the privilege of solving sums..
The complexity of the questions they sometime ask , often puts you in a kind of Catch-22 situation...
ICAI often uses the MAFA paper to tailor the result to the student's disadvantage.
Remember the May'07 mayhem????????
The question paper wasn't conducive to a decent attempt.
The answer scripts were checked ruthlessly.
However the picture is not as grim as it may sound.
Jokes apart, in the usual course of affairs, MAFA can be managed smartly...
80 % of the paper can be answered in any scenario. When I make that statement, I assume that you are not fussy about perfection and don't mind answering a difficult question partly, eyeing whatever step-marking you can snatch from the examiner. There is an alternative strategy of making some questions, a prestige issue in the examination hall ...In that eventuality, I can certainly guarantee your doom .....
So choose your approach accordingly.
If you have opted for a tuition teacher, I am sure he will make an intensive effort to drill into you the basic concepts. Only then should one go for solving the hi-fi sums.
Capital Budgeting and Forex are two chapters that are demanding in terms of conceptual clarity.They are infact quite interesting and provide a lot of value addition to your personal understanding of finance.
However you must keep one thing in mind. Some questions in these chapters are only meant to instill fear and panic in the student.for e.g. a capital budgeting problem on gold mine that featured as a compulsory question in a particular term. Simply avoid them .Like you ,most will not be in a position to even touch these hi-fi sums .Consequently they do not merit much time waste.
Chapters like Portfolio Management and Valuation of Bonds and Shares are mathematical, involving some formulae or the other.
Mergers and Acquistions is a high sounding term .Given the manner in which this word is buzzing all around these days, one expects something technically difficult here say the EV/EBITDA multiple stuff which is more useful in real life to analyse M&A deals. But CA Final's M&A is a bonus chapter. I think even a kid (I mean ...simply anyone ...) will be able to solve the kind of sums they have asked in recent times.
Leasing is a topic mired in controversy ...because we had the rare opportunity to learn some international concepts like Debt Displaced By Leasing etc etc ......an approach will simply baffles you . But the moment you see the lucid approach in ICAI's MAFA compiler, the topic suddenly seems so manageable.Please remember that its the Indian Institute of Chartered Accountants which will be evaluating your paper and not some International CFA Body.
When in Rome , behave as Romans do ..rite ??? I hope you've got the message!!!
One good strategy would be to prepare a formulae sheet, in order to ensure that you don't get lost in the sea of formulaes scattered across so many chapters. Having them all collected in one single place would facilitate quick revision.Some questions on topics like Black Scholes Model(BSM), test merely whether the candidate remembers the formula .Why lose such a golden opportunity to snatch in an otherwise difficult exam!!
Some miscellaneous topics like factoring of receivables, basic calculations involving repo and reverse repo concepts etc etc are not be ignored although they may appear to be boring.
Finally the theoretical part.It comes to your rescue if the paper setters have turned malafide on the practical sums front. 20-30 marks of theory can always be attempted in the worst case scenario. For that simply go through the Compiler and the Revision Test Papers (RTPs). You can also try Mr Sudarshan Agrawal's MAFA mat for the theory. Some basic awareness of current issues is an added advantage .In that case you will be able to attempt even questions you've got no clue about..say application of DTAA in promoting GDRs. Who knows .....it may so happen that anything structured logically actually fetches you 1-2 marks.
Also please remember to revise SEBI Gudelines from your law book even on MAFA exam eve. In Nov 07, we got a question on Greenshoe Option. Luckily I had discussed it with a friend of mine..otherwise without revision, there remains only a hazy picture of any technical portion of CA Final.
Hope you scrape through MAFA..infact with a good score.