By Shan Tariq CPA, MAcc
Getting straight to the point in your case responses can save you time and earn you points on the CFE. In this blog post, S. Shan Tariq provides his case writing tips. Shan is a Senior Analyst in Valuations Practice at EY in Calgary. He passed the September 2021 CFE and is currently pursuing his Chartered Business Valuator (CBV) designation.
Before responding to a case in CPA PEP, I took as much time as I needed to read the case thoroughly. If there was something I didn’t understand, I didn’t allow myself to get stuck on it because it’s better to score less on one assessment opportunity (AO) and do well on others than perform very well on an AO and miss or fail the others.
Addressing assessment opportunities
After reading the case thoroughly, I divided my time equally between all the AOs. As I went through my responses, some AOs would take less time than allocated, which compensated for the AOs that would take me more time than I anticipated. Some people will allocate time according to priorities right away; I did it as I went. Find the way that works best for you.
I also tried to use bullet points as much as I could; if I felt that a certain part of the case response asked for advantages and disadvantages or anything that could be expressed in bullet points, I used them instead of writing whole sentences. This saved me a lot of time.
I also tried to answer all the AOs that I was confident about first, which made me go through a lot of AOs quickly. Working on my AOs this way meant that I had ample time to do my research and draft a satisfactory response to the ones I was less comfortable with. It’s also important to remember that it’s okay if you don’t know anything about an AO. There are many other candidates writing, and not all of them know everything. Try to make your responses stronger for the ones you do know. However, ensure you also put in a fair effort for the ones you’re not comfortable with.
Additional tips
Some of the most important tips I learned from my mentors and experience were:
- Make it easy for the marker to mark your exam. The person marking your case won’t go out of their way to find out the logic behind your reasoning, and they won’t dive deep into your numbers to figure out how you came up with them. Make sure your responses are logical, coherent, and easy to check. One way to accomplish this is to ask yourself whether a third person with little knowledge about accounting standards would be able to comprehend what you just wrote.
- Reference everything. Building on the point above, make sure you’re referencing any exhibit or work you are including in your response. If you provide an exhibit but do not refer to it, the examiner won’t know which AO it pertains to.
- Finally, remember that if you are finding a case difficult, there is a good chance that many writers are also finding it challenging. So don’t stress too much; do your best to stay calm and use your best judgment to respond to the case. If you’ve made it this far in CPA PEP, you can pass the CFE!
The views expressed in this post are those of the guest writer, Shan Tariq CPA, MAcc. Please refer to cpawsb.ca for the latest guidelines from the CPA Western School of Business.
