As you’ll probably know by now, each CIMA exam under the 2015 syllabus is very different to those seen previously.

From personal experience, preparing for the CIMA exams was already a challenging and frustrating task without these new changes.

However, what also remains is that passing the CIMA exams is still extremely rewarding and the ultimate benefits of the CIMA qualification have never been greater in terms of your career and income growth.

With this in mind, I’ve done the hard work for you and taken the time to research the best CIMA exam resources out there online and I thought I’d share my top ten with you today. These are the resources I have personally tested and reviewed and would use myself if I were sitting the exams right now.

1. CIMA Mock Exams: If you want to be best prepared to PASS your CIMA exams, there is simply no substitute for tough, challenging exam standard question practice, sat under exam conditions.  Simply put, most CIMA students fail their exams because they lack the exam technique needed to deal with the time pressures and style of questions that you get in the real exams.  These mock exams will simulate your actual exam and give you key pointers as to what you need to work on and improve upon ahead of the real thing.

2. CIMA Pre Seen Analysis:. If you want to be guided through the minefield of information that you get in the many pages of pre seen material for your case study exams then these series of videos are for you. Perhaps most valuable of all, the video series covers the most likely issues that you’ll be examined on and how to deal with them. Ultimately this video series is a real time saver and eye opener.
3. CIMA Revision Questions: These help overcome an often fatal mistake that CIMA students make. What many candidates do is to read through and make notes on every chapter of their study texts without testing themselves on what they have just learned. It is critical that with the knowledge fresh in your mind, you do not move on to the next chapter of your study text until you do a number of questions on the previous chapter to test that you truly understand in your head what you have just gone through. Without this exercise you will end up cramming in question practice just before your exam date and testing yourself on topics you haven’t covered in weeks or months – this leads to much stress and overwhelm.

4. CIMA Study Texts: It saddens me that despite the change in CIMA syllabus, the usual suspects are still providing long, old fashioned study texts that explain things in a convoluted way and overload students with information which is often not applicable to what needs to be learned for the exams. However, thankfully the study texts here are easy to follow and explain things in a logical manner, concentrating on the essentials to pass your exam whilst still covering the whole syllabus.
5. CIMA FM Study Notes: This is definitely the place to go if you want further explanations on the technical knowledge you are required to learn. These articles are often written by top tutors and walk you through some tough subject matters using a step by step approach.
6. CIMA Wall Planner: I can’t stress enough the importance of having a study schedule and sticking to it. Time and focus are often the enemy of the CIMA student and so this is a great resource to help you plan your studies around key exam dates in the calendar and factor in your own work and personal commitments.
7. CIMA Connect: Whilst I’m not a big fan of CIMA connect per se, once you get used to navigating around their system, this is where you’ll find a lot of really valuable resources from CIMA, which are vital to your exam preparation. The exam guides and the pre seen material are particularly crucial resources to use.
8. CIMA Facebook Page: This is a great resource for two reasons. 1) It’s where CIMA announce a lot of their news and updates, 2) they often have question and answer sessions with top tutors on each paper which give some great pointers ahead of your exams. Just remember not to full into the temptation of using Facebook too much as this can easily distract you from your studies.
9. Kaplan Knowledge Bank: This is a cool resource which provides short, easy to follow explanations on many key topics and terms that you should know as part of your CIMA studies and your general accounting and finance career.
10. BBC Business Website: Very often what can seem a complex topic that you come across in your CIMA studies can become clearer once you see it in action in the real world. The BBC website is constantly updated with business stories which are applicable to your CIMA studies and indeed with the new case study style exams, you can really impress your examiner with your business awareness.

So there you have it – my top ten online resources that will arm you with the knowledge and skills you need to pass your CIMA exams first time but also help you to become a better all round accountant.

Question: Have you found any other useful resources for your CIMA exams recently? Do you think they would help fellow students? If so, it would be great if you could share them by leaving a comment below.

Thanks

Matt