MyCIMA

what books should I start studying with?

Posted: Wednesday 26 May 2010 by Botir Atayev
Replies : 5

Hi,

I have just finished cert level and planning to start the operational one. Apparently, there are three pillars with three papers each starting with operational level which are E1, P1 and F1. However, there are so many coming up when I search for one. For example, from P1 to P9 or E1 to E8 and so on. 

I would really appreciate if anyone could explain whats what, which books I should buy first and how many cima books are there in total.  

Thank you 

 

Books

Posted by Elisabeth on Thursday 27 May 2010 09:44

Hi Botir,

I have moved your query to the new 2010 syllabus discussion board. The old 2005 syllabus board has reduced traffic and you may wait a while before you receive a response.

I suggest you download the full Professional syllabus for a better understanding of the qualification structure:

Operational: http://www.cimaglobal.com/Documents/ImportedDocuments/OperationalLevelSyllabusJuly2009.pdf

Management: http://www.cimaglobal.com/Documents/ImportedDocuments/ManagementLevelSyllabusJuly2009.pdf.pdf

Strategic: http://www.cimaglobal.com/Documents/ImportedDocuments/StrategicLevel.pdf

T4: http://www.cimaglobal.com/Documents/ImportedDocuments/TOPCIMA2010.pdf

You can purchase the Official Learning Systems online via the CIMA Publishing webesite (www.cimapublishing.com), Amazon, Tesco books or eBay.

I hope this helps!

Best wishes,

Elisabeth
CIMASphere moderator

books to use

Posted by NellyC on Thursday 27 May 2010 10:59

Botir,

I have just sat my first two exams E1 & P1 this week.  I have sadly learned the hard way some experience regarding the books to use.

I would advise in the strongest possible terms NOT to buy the 'CIMA approved' study texts from CIMA Publishing.  They are full of errors and are not easy to follow.  Luckily my employer was kind enough to pay for me to buy the books for P1 from BPP to help me.

 Many of my friends, and their colleagues all say BPP is the best.  I would certainly recommend them myself, but would say buy anything but the Elselvier ones from CIMA Publishing.  There is actually a website set up to correct the multitude of errors and a lot of comment on this forum about how poor the books are. 

 There are a few companies that sell books, the main ones being BPP and Kaplan.  I gather the Kaplan ones are of high quality too.  Typically there is a study text and exam question books, there are also "online classrooms" you can investigate for yourself.  I am considering this route for my next set of exams.

I hope this has helped.

what books should I start studying with?

Posted by Stephen on Thursday 27 May 2010 12:37

 

Botir,

I would recommend either Kaplan (which I used for P1) or BPP, although the kaplan book was still not full proof regarding errors which was a shame, they even went so far as to mention the nemesis word "ACCA" instead of CIMA, in one of the first pages when they were explaining how to prepare for the exams, I think it was in the revision kit !!!! (also thought their passcards were appalling!!!), you really have to laugh when they let errors like that slip through!!!!

Whatever you do please stay well clear of CIMA's "Official Books" from Elsevier, unless you want to not only study the paper but also correct all the errors in their books!!!! you will be visiting the elsevier website for corrections in their textbooks quite often if you obtain their books!!!! how they are still allowed to get away with it is beyond me.

 

Syllabus change

Posted by JaneKL on Thursday 27 May 2010 13:40

Botir

The reason you are finding ones title P1 - P9 is because the syllabus changed this year and they are the old 2005 syllabus.

Whatever books you buy, make sure they are the CIMA 2010 syllabus (P1&2, E1&2, F1&2).

Which books to buy may depend on a few things. How are you studying? Are you going to enroll with a training provider and attend classes, or perhaps buy a home study kit? Or are you going to learn from the text books alone?

There are a lot of home study students on the forum who can give you better advice than me.

books

Posted by Romesh on Saturday 29 May 2010 19:57

From what I have gather through personal experience and from discussion on these boards, the quality of texts in decending order are:

1) Kaplan

2) BPP

3) CIMA Official