It's quite common to take a break from your studies but we know that it can sometimes be a challenge to get started again. We can help you reflect and design a strategy that will put you on the right path to ACCA membership.
What's your goal?
You've already made the fantastic decision to invest in your future by choosing ACCA as your route to becoming a qualified finance professional. And when you've been away from your studies for a while it can be useful to think abolut your original motivations for joining ACCA.
Think about what your overall goal and then take time to consider your exam strategy and how to plan your route through the exams to achieve it. It can help to get back to basics and ACCA will be with you every step of the way.
Returning to study can be an excellent opportunity to reflect on your previous exam experiences and think about what you'll do differently this time.
Try and think about your whole learning experience and how effective it was. Be honest and objective and think about the positives along with any negatives.
If you have been away from study for a long period of time, it can be a good idea to work little and often, building knowledge consistently as you go. Don’t leave things to the last 2/3 weeks – this approach doesn’t work with professional exams.
A large part of moving forward is understanding where you are now. A key resource for this are the self-check quizzes on the Student Virtual Learning Centre. These are designed to help you check and refresh your underlying core knowledge for a range of Applied Skills and Strategic Professional exams and are an excellent first step in exam preparation.
There are some general planning activities to work through before getting into the detailed exam session planning. First of all it’s worth looking at the ACCA pathways videos to make sure you are taking exams in the best order to suit you. Then use the ACCA Compass planner to visualise your study year and take a snapshot of the likely planning, learning and final revision time required to successfully attempt the exams.
Once you’ve got an idea of the exam and exam session that you’re working towards you can move into detailed exam session planning. Do this by working back from the exam date and thinking about how much time you will study each day.
Your study schedule will depend on a number of factors including how many exams you're taking, your work commitments, whether you're in full time or part time study as well as your other life commitments. Your study will be more productive if you can stick to your plan - but be realistic and review this each week to see if you are meeting your goals.
One of the best ways to motivate yourself is to commit to booking an exam. As well as giving you target to aim towards, once you've booked an exam, you'll start to receive a series of learning support emails. These weekly, tailored emails will signpost the core support resources and activities that you shoud be completing each week as you count down to exam day.
Next steps
