AMA is a very scoring subject in the sense that mostly practical problems are given in the exams. Students who are a bit weak in theory subjects target this paper to score as much marks as they can. In this paper, students can easily score exemption(60+), with planned efforts.

Paper 6: AMA - Topper's Study Plan

1) Harsh Rustagi (64 Marks : May18)

Concepts clarity is topmost. I have covered whole of Costing Practice Manual. Every question should on your tips or atleast u should know how to start and proceed the question, as mostly the fear is of understanding the question and attempting it. For theroy - read pm atleast 5 times.

2) Prabhat Jain (68 Marks : May18)

One of the most interesting subjects in CA Final is AMA. But then it depends on how much you like costing. Costing is basically applying your brain and looking at the problem differently. Unlike IPCC, AMA in final is not about formula crunching but understanding and then applying it. If you had a good understanding of the content in IPCC, you definitely can do it in CA Final all by yourself.

For this I will suggest you certain things that you would want to keep in mind:

Start early : Do not think that you have a lot of time left before your attempt. Start from today itself. When you start with your studies, you’ll find that the length of the course is limited but when you dig deeper, it expands to another level. So better start early.

You would want to refer Padhuka for doing self study. It is the best and the most comprehensive book for AMA and has enough examples and content for you to practice.

Do not cram the stuff : Never ever do this for AMA. It will backfire on you. Read, understand, read again, understand again, practice, practice and practice.

Make Operations Research your strong point. You can score around odd 25 marks in this area out of 30 marks.

Start with Relevant costing then Transfer Pricing and CVP and then moving to budgetary, service and standard costing. Standard Costing is easy if you understand what the formula is all about, but if you try to memorize the formula without understanding it, you’ll be in trouble. After you are done with standard costing pick up rest of the topics in any order you want to.

Remember to do theory : Do not leave theory, not even by mistake. You’ll surely find worth 20 marks of theory. And most of it is based on the practical topics. Only some part of it comes from the technical areas. For this again Padhuka is the best. Do only the past year and RTP theory questions. That would be sufficient.

Now if you are left with very little time, then I’ll suggest you to go with Practice Manual. First complete OR, then Relevant costing, Transfer Pricing, CVP, Service Costing, Budgetary control. After this do Theory. Since Standard takes a lot of time, you might want to just take a look at the basic formulas.

If you are doing Padhuka, you can skip Practice Manual. But do the RTP before your exam.

All the best.

3) Rucha Keni (62 Marks : May17)

I have got exemption in costing in May 2017 attempt. I'll tell you the reaction of students when they came out of exam hall. They were like “Where did the questions come from?” Questions were not drawn from PM or SM. Basically majority of questions were unseen.

I had practiced from PM only. But I could attempt upto 88 marks paper. I was pretty confident about my performance and I expected to get 50+. Paper tested the conceptual clarity of students.

Result came and I scored 62. I was so happy. It was my best score ever in costing because I had scored 42 in costing Fm in IPCC. In final too I had scored around 45 in my earlier attempts. It was my mindset that costing is not my cup of tea forget about getting exemption. What I had tought when I started preparing was to get 50 and I was going to go strategically. My strategy was to finish OR first as that is the easiest part and we can cover it in short span. Next was first topic of costing “Developments in business environment” as it had weight of 20–25 marks and again easy to do. Then comes Marginal costing. I had practiced it thoroughly and solved all problems in PM. It had around 20 marks weightage too. Here you have already prepared for around 60 marks. Then comes Budget, Service sector, uniform costing, Pricing decisions, transfer pricing etc.

Have all the concepts really cleared before going for revision. There is no point in solving 50 questions without understanding the concepts behind them. Once you have understood go for solving PM. Read question, try cracking it. If you can't reach till end or if you can't even start, check the answer given. Don't waste your time on solving a single question of marginal costing for an hour and losing your confidence level. Just get the techniques of solving questions from PM and apply them correctly.

It's very much possible to get an exemption in costing if done this way. I had left standard costing and simplex method in LPP because of time constraint still I could attempt 88 marks paper and get 62 out of it. Accuracy matters here.

All the best to you!

4) Apurva Gupta (68 Marks : Nov17)

As we all know the syllabus of costing is very vast and also the paper comes out to be lengthy and tricky enough to depress you, still you can score good marks, may be by applying some methods during preparation :

1.First of all, let me tell you that assume you won't be having any choice in this paper as the last ques would be of theory and attempt that only at the time you have no idea of what to do in practical and you sure about the theory question.

2.Doesn't matter which classes you opt for studies, learn the basic concept of the chapter and the problems in it.

3.Start your preparation with OR as this would be easy and quick to complete.

4.You will have to compulsarily do PM for both Cost and OR as this will give you the idea of questions that struck the papers.

5.Make a short compiler for your conceptual understanding during studies so that it will help you during the final hours before exams.

6.Many would suggest you to go only through PM as it has lot of questions but believe me, if it would be the targeted paper (as it happened in May 2017) people will sweat who believed only in PM. I repeat, do clear your concept first. No doubt PM will help you, but only for more practice.

7.The part C of PM should be done and revised properly as the compulsary question of 20 marks mostly covers that part.

8.Also, I think itz better to solve 50 questions twice rather doing 100 sums only once, as practicing the same stuff for more than once build up the confidence.

9.Do past year papers and RTPs for sure. Even if you are short of time, skip the low weightage chapters and look to the papers for sure as this will give you the idea of how thorough you are with the subject. If possible, do papers just after you complete first revision.

10.Practice questions at home in writing atleast once for each type of sums, doing audit of your notes won't work.This will also save your time during exam that would otherwise got waste due to thinking about format and making wrong tables and lines in the answersheet.

11.The paper is going to be lengthy, so do complete your solutions in 25 to 30 minutes and if you cant leave that and jump to next. Step marking is there so better to answer as many questions as possible.

Hope it will help you, thanks and good luck :)

5) Yogendra Kumar Sharma (89 Marks : May18)

As I scored 93 in SFM and 89 in AMA in CA finals, so I thing I can help you in making a good strategy to clear these two.

See these are two are practical subject so the most important is clarity of concept, here I will explain few point…which you can take and make your own strategy as study strategy depends on person to person.

Here I am considering the old course you can arrange accordingly if you need suggestion for new one,

1. Subject level strategy:

a. Categories the entire course in 3 or 4 categories based on similarity of concept in chapters like

i. In AMA

•  Category one (Linear Programing, Transportation, CPM, PERT and LCT simple say chapter no 11 to 16) however the concept is not 100% same but you will find a basic similarities in these chapters and this portion will help you to secure at least 35-40 Marks (even More)
•  Category two (Method of costing Like standard costing, Service sector costing, budget simply say chapter number 4-6 and 8) this category will help you to secure 15-20 marks.
•  Category third (Pricing Chapter 3 and 7 and also include chapter 9 here) this will give at least 15-20 marks coverage.
• Category four (Chapter 1 and 2) these are most lengthy chapters and will help you in secure at least 35-45 marks.

b. Try to start with a category which is lessor tough and simple for you so that you can go smoothly.

c. Make your own short notes for all concepts and steps that you applied in different types of question, this will help you a lot in revise the entire course.

d. Try to do these two subject during different time periods I mean never run these two during a single time slot. You can do any other theory subject with one of these.

e. Solve the SM and PM along with RTP of last 3-5 attempts.

2. General Tips

a. As presentation of answer is more important than exacts solution of any question, so you should do practice with old paper and mock test papers.

b. You should do practice for time management also as paper will be lengthy, where time management is most important.

c. You should revise the entire course for at least 3 times, as per your time schedule however I would suggest time which will requires for these revision

i. First Revision 2-2.5 months

ii. Second revision 30-40 days

iii. Third revision 15-20 days and finally exam day revision

d. Try to solve old paper and Mock test paper in exam scenario i.e. just like examination in single sitting and in 3 hours only.

For this practice you can take help of your friend or family members in evaluation of your answers. You should learn from your mistakes in this practice.

e. Finally you should attend the Mock test exam organized by institute.

Hope this will help you…

All the best for your exam and future…..

CA Final Free Resources Link :

AMA Free PDF |  AMA Free Videos | Revision Test Papers | Mock Test Papers

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