As you may already know I am attempting E2 and F2 in May, in the hope that I can complete Managerial level and move on to Strategic in November.

This week I am attending four days of lectures and hopefully at the end of them I will have covered all of the subject matter – and then I have two months of revision ahead of me!

I have however discovered a flaw in this plan – “Application”. Before my first Operational level exams I attended an exam techniques session where it was mentioned that at Managerial level the maximum amount of marks that could be gained by writing theory was 40% and to get the other 60% application would be required.

Well here I am now and I must admit I am a bit confused…..I passed P2 with 64% but there are a lot of numbers in P2 and I think that makes it a little easier to ‘apply’.

However, E2 is pretty much all words and I need to figure out how to achieve that magic 50% or even better more than that!

So, to get to my question (took a long time, I know). What are examiners looking for in an answer?

According to the CIMA verbs ‘Apply’ means to ‘Put to practical use’.

Does this mean relate to the scenario (if given) or does it mean relate to real life examples? And do these examples have to be relevant – for example if a question mentions toasters and kitchen goods do I have to talk about similar markets or would any industry example do?

Obviously this blog raises more questions than answers but I would be grateful for opinions from other students/members and if any of the examiners, or other experts would like to give advice it would be most appreciated….over to you!