www.TOPCIMA.biz Reed Business School's CIMA T4 Case Study Website
Resources
On this page you'll find a range of resources which will help you in your case study exam.
The examiner's guidance
This is probably the most important document you can read prior to your exam since it is written by the examiner after the first two sittings of TOPCIMA. Here you'll find a range of information on the exam, the marking matrix and the expectations of the report. Note that although this is now a little out of date, some useful information is still in this analysis.
Nick Best's TOPCIMA Case Study articles
Nick Best wrote an article in August 2007's edition of PASS magazine focusing on what appeared to be the two key issues from students sitting the May exam; firstly prioritisation, secondly, time management. While you'll find much of the content of this article already on this site, you'll probably find the article as a whole a useful and interesting read. You can access this below:
In the September 2008 edition of PASS magazine, Nick wrote an article entitled Unlocking TOPCIMA, and in this presented my 8 Keys to passing TOPCIMA.
www.casestudyaide.com
This could possibly be your number one resource to get you through your exam. Its a free website forum. Not only can you see other student's views on the exam, but you can also pose your own questions and see what others think. This is also a useful site to "find a friend" who can mark practise papers and give you that vital exam feedback. A great resource and one you'll find of great use.
Further CIMA assistance and guidance
In addition to CIMA's guidance mentioned above, you'll also find other useful documents and guidance on the CIMA website. Below are those I think you'll find of most use:
Firstly, the official CIMA introduction to TOPCIMA:
You may find it interesting to see some of the past exam papers. In particular take a look at the unseens, to see the type of information that you'll get in the real exam.
If you buy the study kits from BPP or FTCKaplan, you'll find suggested solutions to these past papers. These are of limited use though. The first benefit of past papers is in practising your exam approach. It is probably best to pick on just one or two past papers and analyse the pre-seen and then sit the real exams to time. This is great practise. Ask a friend also studying the Case Study to mark these for you and give you feedback. Secondly it is useful to see the style of real unseens as these tend to be repeated from exam to exam. See the commentries on past exam papers at the following link to learn what the examiner thought:
CIMA also provide an online toolkit which gives you a range of exercises to do to help you prepare for the Case Study. These are all based around a fictional case study. If your exam is a few months away and you are looking for some early preparation work to get you ready for the exam, you may find these useful. They are not recommended for work close to the exam though which should be based on your scenario.
Useful theory
Theory is not your main focus in this exam. However, there are some areas of theory which are regularly examined or useful in this exam. Remember that you should aim to clearly use a minimum of 5 theories in your exam. Below you'll find a list of the key theories to revise. Click on any of these to get a link through to a website which will give you a quick reminder of the theory!
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