NIL
75 Points
Joined November 2013
Hi there.
It is not really advisable to cut short the expected answer contents. But yes, ultimately it can be reasonably presumed that students do have to frame answers on their own. Reasons being that not most of us are actually able to retain the language provided in the study material or practice manual.
The most important aspects are:
1. How appropriate our answers seem to the checkers in the context of the questions asked.
2. How much of the content of our answers actually match up to the key terms, the major themes, the correct reasonings/logic and the factual points that have been given in the resources we use and that we have been expected to retain as practical knowledge.
3. Our retention and writing abilities ad whether we practice the same.
The ICAI has not really paid attention to the form of answers that it has been suggesting in practice manuals and the suggested answers sheets. For a question of 6 marks, there would be an answer suggested for upto 2 pages; while for another question of 4 or 6 marks, the answer would be surprisingly short in merely points. This reflects a significant disparity in the vision of ICAI for the kind of performance it expects from students and the answers that it actually provides as referential resource. In fact, a lot of the content in the Audit and SM study mats of ICAI is not even needed. Even in the IT mat, contents revolving around the same topics like Business Process Automation (BPA), Business Process Management (BPM), security threats in an IT environments,etc., have been scattered across the chapters. How on Earth will a student synthesize the contents that really matter for exams? They are not precise. Why would any rational being be motivated to spend time on reading or learning about abstract contents? This is one of the reasons we don't prefer the official study mats. If ICAI would have really been concerned, it would have paid attention, and not merely keep getting money for the books it issues; which most students dont even check. Who cares as long as the money is coming in?
In the Audit practice manual, in the initial sections there must have been a question revolving around the auditor's responsibilities towards fraud or inherent liimitations of audit or whether the auditor is really liable in case he misses out on any existent fraud. The answers given therein, were unnecessarily lengthy. Absolutely impractical. ICAI does not understand the difference between an 'answer' and 'study content'. The latter is meant to be referred to and studied, while the former is meant to be produced and presented.
That, on the part of a highly respected and important body as ICAI is really disappointing. The students shall definitely be expected to do their bit. But if contents to the questions in the Suggested Answers sheets and the Practice Manuals are simply extracted from the Study Mats and pasted away; that will never really help any student.
Hence, we are puzzled and keep thinking about answer lengths, formats and accuracy of their contents, but we end up in the range of 35s-55s.
To be honest, for now, I think it is best left to our writing abilities, the way we can synthesize contents in our minds for particular topics and how much time is actually spent on re-reading the resources.
For that, I think we ought to practice writing answers more; think about what we are going to write and then keep revisiting the resources for further polishing.
If we just think and decide about the kind of answers we would frame, but do not really practice writing them down; everything would go in vain.
So, adopting a one-track approach towards a subject like Audit which largely subjective as well as factual, could prove fatal for your results. We really cannot do that because if there is one thing that is really evident about CA exams, it is that the expectations and the results of various groups of people regarding the answers - are not uniform in any way. So you never know the approach or the mindset of the checkers. It is better to hammer our own preparations so well, that we are able to retain most of the relevant content and in the best shape possible, which would in the end make it easier for us to present good answers.
Retention|Relevance|Presentation|Writing Skills|Speed|Subject Coverage - Key aspects for answer writing.