Every CA student who is appearing for CA Exams understands the importance of going through past question papers and CA mock test papers. But what many students fail to understand is that it should be done in the correct way. There is no point just going through these CA mock test question papers and just merely looking at the answers. There is a particular way to go about practicing mock tests. Let’s see how to go through with it.
How to go through Practice Mock Exams?
Before we get into exact details of how to do mock exams and practice questions paper, let’s first examine the purpose of practicing the CA mock test papers. The main objective of doing mock tests is to foster a habit of deliberate practice.
Now to make you understand deliberate practice it is quite different than regular practice. Regularly practicing the syllabus is like mindlessly going over the same topics over and over again. It is not very effective and useful. Deliberate practice on the other hand is more mindful, purpose-driven, and systematic. Successful people and experts in their fields use deliberate practice to perform better and achieve excellence.
What sets the successful students apart and well above the general student is their mental toughness and willingness to do the right thing to be successful. Their mental toughness is one of the winning factors. When you practice CA mock test papers over and over again, you learn to analyze and study your strength and weakness. This gives you an opportunity to go through your flaws and work on them. This is what deliberate practice is about, working on your shortcomings purposefully and systematically to overcome them.
Mock test papers for CA plays an important role in exam preparation. Below mentioned are the few ways how mock tests can help you.
Time management-
Taking a CA mock test series over and over again gives you an idea about the real examinations. Over time you learn to answer quickly and swiftly, you also properly distribute time to use according to your need, Instead of getting panicked while giving real exams. It boosts and increases your speed to finish your exam in time.
Provides in-depth knowledge about the combination of diverse topics –
We have the practice of studying theory as a story. The mock test gives us an idea about how questions may be asked from those long passages which may be combined from different interconnected topics. This is very important for papers like law, audit, etc.
Gives us an understanding of the question paper –
In mock exams, we get a clear knowledge of the exam pattern, marking scheme, any changes from it, etc.
Helps in the association of topics –
In exams students often find trouble in differentiating between topics and get confused about which question is from which topic. Giving CA mock tests benefits them in identifying questions from different chapters and topics.
From the moment you register for the Foundation exam till the time you give exams you get four months of time to prepare for Foundation exams. You should try and complete the portion in three months and assign the remaining one month for revision and mock tests.
This is how you should proceed going over your practice mock tests –
You need to go over practice exams in a well-organized and planned way. You shouldn’t just go over them for the sake of it… as that would be plain old regular practice! You shouldn’t just read the answers; you should try the exam by simulating the real exam setting as much as possible.
You need to solve CA mock test papers as close to an exam setting as possible. Generally, the CA exams are conducted in the afternoon in between 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. So, during your study time, set aside a day to take the exam. In fact, it’s most beneficial if you set aside these three hours from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.! Make sure that you will not be interrupted during these hours. Lock yourself in your bedroom if you must! You should follow the exam guidelines as much as possible. That means no phones, no other notes except for pen and paper (or calculator or whatever is specified!) Then go over and solve the exam. Write out your responses as precisely as possible. Don’t forget to time yourself too. Set a timer to ring when the time is up as per exam time.
Once time’s up, take a breather to relax and get yourself a cup of coffee.
Then you should check your answers. This is also very necessary. It’s best if you have a teacher or someone that you know and trust to go through your answers and correct them. They will help you recognize your weak points and guide you on how to write your answers.
If you don’t know any teacher or don’t want anyone to check your answers. Then check your test strictly using suggested answers.
It’s important to emphasize that the self-evaluation of your answers should be very rigorous. Many students fall into this trap: they think they’ve done well on their practice tests and scored good marks and get startled when they are actually taking up the test! The trap is that they’ve marked themselves lightly on their practice exams! Fair but strict. This is how you should check your own answers.
After checking, you’ll get an idea of where you are. Breakdown your strengths and weaknesses. If you’ve made some goofy careless error, make note of that too! Try to understand why you’ve made that mistake so that it doesn’t happen again. This is what deliberate practice is. It is meant to be hard. It shouldn’t be too easy!
Once you’ve made a note of your strengths and weaknesses, give a bit of time going over your weak areas. Don’t ignore your strong points too! After some time has passed, take up another mock test.
Go over it the same way. Don’t forget, keep a record of where you went wrong and whee you are right. Go on doing this for as many CA Mock test papers as possible. You will then get a fair idea of what’s expected of you.
