Three hours can spend months of work badly. These are the decisions that do it, and each has a rule you can fix in advance.
Exam-day errors are decision errors, not knowledge errors, and they share one property: they are made under pressure and are therefore best prevented by rules set in advance. Decide your reading-time strategy, your attempt order and your time allocation before you enter the hall, so that the hall requires no decisions at all.
What it costs you
Reading time used only to read leaves you starting the paper with no plan, which usually means answering in printed order regardless of what suits you.
Do this instead
Use reading time to decide attempt order, mark the questions you will definitely answer, and allocate minutes to each. Start writing with a plan already made.
What it costs you
A difficult opening question consumes disproportionate time and damages confidence for the rest of the paper, often producing a cascade of rushed later answers.
Do this instead
Start with a question you are confident about. It banks marks early and settles your pace before you meet anything difficult.
What it costs you
Sunk cost is expensive in an exam. Twenty extra minutes on a stuck question is usually a whole other question left unattempted.
Do this instead
Set a hard stop per question during reading time. When you hit it, leave space, move on, and return only if time remains at the end.
What it costs you
An unattempted question scores zero with certainty. A partial attempt with correct working notes or a stated provision almost always scores something.
Do this instead
Attempt every question at some level. Even the format, the applicable provision or the first two working notes will carry marks.
What it costs you
Unlabelled figures, missing directions on variances, and unanswered 'advise' parts are all recoverable in five minutes and are all commonly left uncorrected.
Do this instead
Reserve the last ten minutes for review, and use them on labels, directions and unanswered sub-parts rather than on rechecking arithmetic.
What it costs you
Switching approach halfway leaves an inconsistent script that is hard to follow and hard to award partial marks to, even where the second method was correct.
Do this instead
Choose the method, state it in one line at the start, and finish the answer in it. Note any alternative in a single closing sentence instead.
Still unsure about something? We're happy to help you figure it out.
Talk to usDecide your attempt order, mark the questions you are confident about, note the ones you will attempt partially, and write a rough minute allocation on the question paper. Reading without deciding wastes the most valuable fifteen minutes of the paper.
Attempt everything at some level. Marks are distributed across steps and sub-parts, so the first few steps of a question you find hard usually score better than the last few polishing touches on one you already answered well.
Have a rule ready rather than a feeling to manage. Move to a question you can definitely do, complete it, and let the recovered pace settle you. Panic in an exam is almost always a response to being stuck, so the fix is to stop being stuck.
Please note
These guides are study and planning aids prepared by Kartavvya, which is not affiliated with ICAI. Eligibility conditions, registration windows, fees, exam frequency and applicability cut-offs are set by ICAI and change between attempts — the New Scheme of Education and Training in particular has revised several of them. Always verify the current position on icai.org and in ICAI's announcements for your attempt before acting on anything here.
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