FAE 2018

AtticusFinch86 wrote: »

Hi All,
I sat the exam last year and passed it reasonably comfortably so I thought I might be able to pass on a few tips and tricks I picked up along the way. There are still a few months to go so hopefully they’re timely enough to be of use.
Here are my tips…..(Note: I’m mainly speaking about the CORE below, but most of the tips apply to your ELECTIVE studies too)

BUILD A GOOD SET OF COMPREHENSIVE SUMMARY NOTES

Summary notes are vital. They should be give you a high level view of each topic within each super six area. Try and develop notes that you can both use in your final exams and that allow you to quickly review each area in the run up to the exams. In the last 7-10 days before the exam, I spent my days looking only at my summary notes. I only ventured elsewhere if I was having particular trouble with an area.

PRACTICE EXAM QUESTIONS UNDER EXAM CONDITIONS

You probably need at least 3-4 CORE and 3-4 ELECTIVE attempts under exam conditions to start getting your technique and timing up to scratch. It’s also a good way for identifying how often you refer to your notes and whether you have too much/too little info in your notes.

HONE YOUR EXAM TECHNIQUE & TIMING

Technique and timing are absolutely vital in the FAEs. The exams themselves are not particularly difficult, it’s the timing that will cause issues. You need to be rigid with times, if you’re spending too long on an indictor, move on. Practising exam questions under time conditions will help with this.
I would argue that the first 60 minutes are the most vital of the exams. In this time, you should be reading the paper once and highlighting each indicator and relevant info. On the 2nd read of the case, you should be jotting down the key points you’ll be making in relation to each indicator. At the end of the first 60 minutes, you should hopefully have read the paper twice, have highlighted the indicators and key relevant points and have a number of discussion/bullet points for each indicator. For the rest of the exam you will mostly be fleshing out on these points (bar some exceptions e.g. where length calculations are required).
When I was trying to perfect my technique, I would partially attempt every paper I could get my hands on. I would spend the recommended time reading the case (say 30 min) and highlighting the indicators and other key relevant info. I would then spend the next 30 min (30 min for Comp day, 15 min for Sims) re-reading the case and jotting down the bones of my discussion points & conclusions for each indictor. After the time was up, I’d read the solution to understand how reasonable my attempt was likely to be. (I think I attempted at least 20-30 papers using this method, in addition to any past exams I attempted).


USE YOUR TIME WISELY

Use weekends and days off to tackle the chunkier items e.g. attempting and marking past papers under exam conditions.
Use afternoons after work to tackle items that don’t require the same amount of mental effort e.g. sorting notes, summarising lengthy notes, reviewing exam papers and solutions. In the 2 months before the exams, I would practice papers at the weekend under exam conditions and during the week I would just read a Sim a night and spend an hour identifying indicators and outlining the points I was likely to make

TIME TO RECHARGE

Leave yourself plenty of time to recharge. If at all possible, make sure the bulk of your work is done before the last 2 weeks of the exam. At that point, you just want to be leisurely reviewing summary notes and case solutions for 4-5 hours a day. You should also be able to take a day or two and study-free, otherwise you will be mentally fatigued going into the exam.

TEMPLATES & TECHNIQUES & LISTS

Make sure to develop lists (various KPIs, Advantages of IT, Advantages & Disadvantages of outsourcing, Features of strong CG, etc.) and templates/techniques (Box Approach, Right hand corner approach, Approach’s for ethical issues, Approach for FR issues).

Anyway, I’ll post more info if it springs to mind. If anyone has any specific questions then feel free to ask.
I’ve attached my summary notes for the 2017 FAE exam. It was my bible for a long time. I spent about 4-5 months preparing these so they’re quite comprehensive. They should cover pretty much the entire syllabus. If you know everything on the attached I can’t imagine you could possibly fail (assuming there have been no major changes in the syllabus between 2017 & 2018). The attached is only a high level view of all Super Six and APM areas so they don’t get overly technical (but then again, unlike the CAP 2 exams, the FAEs are not very technical in nature at all).
The attached should also contain all the lists and templates I brought into the exams and an outline of the exam approach I used to tackle each case.
Hopefully it’s of some use. Good luck with your exams

NOTE: Apologies, the files are too big to attach so I've posted the dropbox link to all 3 of them below. Hopefully you should be able to access them, if not, let me know

ACASlayer wrote: »

Why thanks.

Like, can we not discuss important topics, like what exactly is an Outline Systems Specification and do we have an example of it that we can reproduce?

ACAguy wrote: »

Do we have actual solutions for the ICD cases?

How does everyone find them?

McGaggs wrote:

I've gotten a hold of the case in question for the OSS. I've skimmed it and I don't see an example of an OSS. It's not coming up anyway, so let's not worry about it.

Ponyface wrote: »

ACASlayer wrote: »

My tip would be to accept you won’t be passing and just do a steady plan to get everything covered for the resits.

Seriously why have you such a chip on you shoulder? We are here to help each other out. This advice would make anyone panic!

ACAguy wrote: »

Could someone please attached the lagan case day solutions having a problem with the website

ACAguy wrote: »

Any chance someone could attach the claddagh case solutions yet again IT issues