Useful for isca

Final 895 views 6 replies

Guest

Analysis of Various souces to study ISCA and choosing the best one....!

Study material : the best book as everybody says but it is very difficult to revice a day before exam.

practice manual is useless as it does not cover whole content, in some chapters not even 30% of syllabus is covered. we cant fully depend upon practice manual,

dinesh madan - these books present everything in lucid n easy language but they do not cover whole syllabus, but the far more important thing against these books is that they change/convert the language of headings, and in ISCA headings are the most important thing. esp. main headings, as there are many topics whose meaning is almost same but the points within those topics are very different. i am not able to recall any examples but believe me this is a big problem with these books.

I would recommend- read only study material, read it as many times as possible(3,4,5,6...) mug up headings and also remember the exact topic to which those heading belong.

M. Valecha can help you in remembring the headings but do not try to remember all the codes given as it will create more confusion as there are hundreds of small small topics in isca.

one more thing that valecha may help you to figure out is which questions are of 8 marks and which one can not be asked for more than 4 or 5 marks. in every ques there first part is of 8 marks and the other 2 are of 4 marks. give more stress in mugging up the headings of 8 marks questions. ex. there are topics with 10 or more sub headings, these are the 8 marks question and those with 5 or7 or maybe 9 headings can be asked at most for 5 marks.

word of caution- do not depend fully on valecha as you can not survive on vitamin capsules one needs real food, here capsules is valecha's book (as only headings are given) and real food is study mat.

STUDY METHODOLOGY -

never ever start isca from chapter no. 3 which is Control objectives, this is the leanthiest and most difficult one, FOLLOW THE SEQUENCE:

IT act.,
ERP,
BCP,
1st chapter,
security policy.
then complete SDLC and others.

there is one more chapter, i think with "audit" in its name, this chapter relates to COBIT CoCo etc. leave this chapter, simply leave this chapter, i am writing it again, leave this chapter, this one is impossible to learn unless you are exceptionally good at mugging up.

if you dont have much time then in the chapter of control objectives you can leave the middle 50-60 pages which relates to' controls applicable on SDLC' and ends when topic of encryption start. remember the sections of IT act. try to remember the words used by study material for headings. dont focus on 'learning by understanding' but simply 'learning by reading as many times as time may allow you'.

Source : caclubindia.

Replies (6)

Pooja Garg

Bcom

67 Points Joined October 2015

Excellent tips
Just wanted to ask whether i have to produce each & every word exacttly from Study Mat ? Because thats impossible when it comes down to 4 months ??

Guest

Example of how to create and use story technique :

in Isca chapter 1 is corporate governance.

I took word "corporate" do you rememer there is movie name corporte, its Bipasha Basu's film. I have associated entire chapter 1 with bipasha basu. Link everything with her. With her Car, her driver, she ws shooting at a location. imagine and put the points in ur story. you will recall same points in same sequense once u link them with a story. this is the best technique to remember ISCA.

For chapter 2 its Information system i used Microsoft company as story heading. I took bill gets explaining all concepts to his staff, like what is TPS, what is MIS, ES etc. imagine that you are sitting in the meeting hall and Bil gets is standing in front of you, and you are observing everything. see with ur eyes, and you will remember everything. Take anything u like, just like any person in ur life, in your colony, city, fb take anyone and associate with that person.

Guest

Remember:

1) You have to complete the subject in continuation. Do not do 50% syllabus and then take other subject, its complete waste.

2) First take scanner, dont go chapter wise but go year wise. solve first May 2015 questions of all chapters then go for Nov 2014 questions. By this way it would look small and you will be covering entire syllabus and not focusing only on 1 chapter.

3) At start of the study just complete the scanners. except LAW and ISCA. dont do scanner. buy munish bhandari and for ISCA purchase this book by vishal sarogi it is available online also.

4) do good planning from now. and see that CA final exams require luck also. In some attempt only past exams questions are asked and in a attempt all new questions may be asked, it depends on ur luck, bt if they ask past exam quesitions then you should not leave this golden chance.

So 10 exam papers are most imp. it has high probability, 60% questions are based on past questions. so do scanner. Purchase all scanners as soon as possible. and then go for summary module and at last for main module.

effective steps to prepare in examination manner for any subject:

1) scanner 2) summary module 3) main module 4) take old question paper print outs and solve them 5) study by using a story technique. dont pressurise ur brain by putting info but just learn by association.

One most imp thing to save any chapter / entire subject in our Hard disc (brain) :

Associate all study with a story. Link everything with a known thing. example in dictionary a new word meaning is given with some known words. we understand that this means that. so we interlink these two words. just link it and save your precious time which is being wasted in memorising anything.

Pooja Garg

Bcom

67 Points Joined October 2015

Will it be possible to finish isca in 4 months?

Guest

yes offcourse. with story technique its possible to complete within 20 days. very less text is there. what takes lot of time is only the remembering all points.

So time is required to create a story only. Once your story is created its a work of few minutes only.

Krishna Prasanna

200 Points Joined August 2012

No need of following any other reference book or ICAI study material,simply follow practice manual as well as the ICAI Audio podcasts and slides(PDF),you can gain more knowledge than any other book.But don't forget to maintain running notes,listen to the podcast and write the content in the note book from the slide,the podcast follows the pattern of slides as it is.

It gives you writing practice and you can gain good knowledge over subject.

Remember your articleship,those who did risk based internal audit of a bank can easily grasp these concepts or those who observed SOP in a manufacturing industry can also understand easily.Also those who had seen the mock security drill in banks can easily understand BCP/DRP.Also observe the Fukushima Nuclear Plant disaster,you can easily understand what is BCP&DRP

Except Chapter 1,remaining chapters are easier,so concentrate on remaining chapters.Chapter 1 is more of philosophical approach of the business I.e. governance,COBIT is an alien topic for all.

Unit-2 IS concepts was studied in IPCC,so not at all difficult.

Unit-3 BCP&DRP -care has to taken to understand the topic with no. Of exams that happen outside the real world.

Unit-8 technologies also studied in IPCC

Unit-5-ADI of IS, SDLC studied in IPCC a little bit exten provection of IS is also easy to

unit-7 Regulatory issues is all about law governing Information technology in India.Legal terminology has to be understood thoroughly.

Protection of IS is not much difficult.

Besides these material suggested by me,practice manual,suggested answers are must to crack ISCA paper.

Source:I passed IT/SM paper twice (in 2 attempattemtsts) when the new syllabus was changed in this manner only.

Also,no coaching center will impart as much knowledge as ICAI podcasts provide.