Practice manual is important but should not be the only!
As everybody knows, practice Manual is a compilation of number of questions from various sources such as past exam papers, previous RTPs and important questions for the specific attempt.
Being a practical subject, AMA is one of the most scoring and interesting subject of CA Final. But then it is similar to costing of CA Intermediate with a bit more enhanced syllabus so it simply depends on how much you like costing.
See, the practical subject required nothing but lots and lots of practice. Student can do practice of questions from anywhere even from some other teacher’s book but for that students need to first understand the concepts which can only be done by referring to study material. Thus, as per my opinion, practice manual alone is not sufficient to get an exemption. Students should also refer study materials before going through practice manual.
Also I would like to share the process I went through when I was preparing for this subject. So students may already know that AMA Practice manual consists of 2 parts-
Part1, Costing For the costing part, chapter 2, 4 and 7 are more logical and may take more time. My advice here would be to practice daily minimum 5 sums of chapter 2(decision making) as it is really difficult to complete this chapter in a stretch.
Part2, Operations research or “OR” For OR, understand all the concepts first and then do the sums. Lately ICAI has started asking more of theory from this area which is hard to attempt if you don’t know the concepts thoroughly. So scoring in OR is not the same as it was earlier where direct questions were asked.
Try to solve every sum of PM at least in rough. Also don’t ignore any of the chapters as you never know what they may ask and from where. Also try to solve as many mock test papers as possible. It helps a lot to equip your self with the pattern and type of questions. I would say, one should choose PREPCA test series. Their bird’s eye view gives a comprehensive analysis of your preparation chapter-wise. Moreover, their counselling sessions are also great!
One more important thing that students need to follow is not to ignore the theory part at all. You don’t know where the practical sums can come from but the theory will definitely come from the questions given in the practice manual.
Thank you for reading