Hello All,
Here are some tips on answering Essay questions which I'm sure you must have read or seen already, so this is for those who haven't appeared for any exams till date,
1. Essay questions comprise of either 12 or less than 12 questions.
2. They are mix of theoretical and calculating questions.
3. Theoretical questions are mostly asking for defining something like define NPV, IRR or Payback or Zero base budgeting, transfer pricing etc..
4. Some theoretical questions ask you to differentiate between 2 things like difference between common shares and preferred shares, NVP vs IRR, ABC Costing vs Tradition Costing etc.
This is how I attempted my essay questions for Part 1 and 2.
1. As soon as I was presented with the essay, I didn't even think of reading it, coz I knew it would take away 5 min to read & understand the scenario & later when I see the questions, I would again have to search for the answer in that essay again.
2. Hence, I skipped reading the essay as soon as it appeared and straight scrolled to the questions.
3. The questions about definition and difference between Object A and Object B are not something which is related to the essay so I answered them first quickly. AS they didn't even needed calculation.
4. There will also be questions where first part will say to calculate some measure and second part would be define that measure. example, calculate the IRR from the essay given and define what is IRR. Again, in this situation I answered the definition first as that was not related to the essay.
5. Best part about the essay part is you can see both the essays and their questions without even submitting the answers. So if I saw there were 12 questions, I quickly went through all the 12 questions in a glance and saw if they had which define or differentiate mentioned on them, so that I can answer them without even reading the essay.
6. Once those were done, then I looked at the remaining questions to see what kind of calculations were they asking me to do. But this time I saw the remaining questions essay wise. Like If I am attempting to answer 1st essay then after the theoretical questions are done, I read the remaining calculative questions from that essay.
7. When I understood the questions requirement, I then read the essay and highlighted the important things i would need to calculate for a given question so that I don't have to read the entire essay once again to search for the terms.
8. Most of the times, the essays are very lengthy so once you start highlighting the important terms that are needed for calculation, you can straightaway focus on them rather then searching for those terms again by reading the whole content.
9. When I was answering the theoretical questions, I jotted down all the important points that I could remember about that term on the screen where I needed to type in my answer. I didn't stress myself out thinking what else could i write. But i just moved on to the next question.
10. Once all the questions were attempted, I always had 5 minutes remaining for the essay to get over. This 5 min I utilized on thinking what else could I add on the definition part or differentiate part questions so that it becomes little more lengthy.
11. So if I was asked to define NPV or may be Common shares or Absorption costing, at the end when I had 5 min left, I would go on to add more content which I knew like adding few lines on what NPV is better then IRR. what is the difference between NPV and IRR, may be what is the difference between Absorption costing and Traditional costing, may be difference between common shares and preferred shares. But making sure that I was writing the right stuff. This would make the examiner know that you don't only know the terms but you also know the difference between 2 terms and you know them quiet well. Again, you can write extra lines only when you have extra time left and no other questions left to answer and when you know what you are writing is correct.
These tips were quiet long but I hope this will remove the fright associated with answering essay questions.
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Jay Chowdhury, CMA | FMVA
Mumbai India
jaychwdhry@...------------------------------