Hi Nilesh,
As everybody unanimously agree to it that Study Material has all the things you need. I think (I may be incorrect in my understanding) the problem is that it is difficult to mug things up and hence it gets difficult to remember what is written in the book.
Try with the following advise and let me know if it works. In case it doesn't we can work through each chapter and topic. This might help our friends as well.
Assume that you are a "Director of Information Technolgoy" in one of very big company and now you have got a responsibility to deal with IT for this organization. You will have to define company strategy, governance objectives, risks and finally appropriately work with the Information Technology and Information Systems. To perfectly manage the IT and IS, you need right amount of controls and audit mechanisms. However, you cannot audit something about which you do not know much. It is like, asking you to ride a bike when you do not even know how to start a bike.
First chapter will make a lot of sense when you read it from the perspective of a senior management person. But if you find the first chapter difficult, start with the second chapter and skip this one to the last.
Second chapter is a carry forward of Information System Concepts from CA-IPCC Group II ITSM subject. The course of IPCC was revised recently and hence this was not the case prior to 2014. But you can still pickup latest IT book from IPCC course (read it on ICAI website if you do not want to buy) and go through it once to build some basic concept and then read the second chapter "Information System Concepts".
Then Chapter 5 (Acquisition, Development and Implementation of Information System (SDLC) can be picked up. Since it actually talks about how an information system is analyzed, developed and implemented in an organization. How it takes a form of project ("A project is a temporary endeavour which has a definite beginning and end") and the methodologies used for implementation?
After Chapter 5 your IS is implemented and working in company, now skim through Chapter 3 and 4. Read them and they will make a lot of sense.
Chapter 6 is most important. Auditing of Information System. You must not read this unless you get the hold of Chapter 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Chapter 7 and 8 are a bit technical in nature. Guidelines by means of Acts and Regulations for internal controls and audit requirements. Also the overview of security standards.
Chapter 1: Now you can go through the chapter 1.
Chapter 8: Emerging Technologies. This is the one chapter which doesn't require much explanation but you may need some imagination to remember them.
We can talk about revision and when to do it, but if you want to score (this is a scoring subject) you need to write whatever is written in study material (may not be exactly same language), since it is very difficult for an examiner to go out of the book and ask you the question about it. For example, you will not get a questions like: Why an Information System is usually an n-tier architecture? How will you achieve high availability in case of mission critical applications?
These are just my two cents in terms of how to prepare for this subject and it may and may not work for you, but it is worth trying. You can always write back for understanding a particular topic and I hope I will be able to explain the terms.
All the best!
Thank You,
Anurag
PS: I hope my first post in the forum is helpful in nature !!!
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