CIMA student, Athenkosi Biko, failed Strat ICS in February. Luckily, he is an IBTC student and could make use of our Pass Assured Promise. Athi returned to the exam room in May and left a champion!

Here, in his own words, is his CIMA story and road to success.

“I have always dreamt of being a qualified finance professional and originally started studying towards a CA(SA). Sadly, life got in the way and I had to abandon my studies and start working. First, I was a call centre agent. I then moved into accounting and product control within financial services and banks. It was here that I learnt about CIMA. After some research, I realised CIMA was the route I had to go. I had finally found a global qualification that combined both finance and business.

While studying I enrolled at IBTC Professional Business Education and attended their Strategic Case Study classes. The classes followed a different format to your traditional ‘knowledge dump’ lecturing. Studying for the Case Study exam requires a reasoning and application approach. The candidate needs to know the material and how to apply it. My lecturer, Kuda, understood this.

I thought I was ready, so I booked and wrote. I failed. Let’s face it, failing is never fun, but giving up just wasn’t an option. That’s the thing with CIMA, you need to keep your head down, keep going and not lose momentum. It’s hard to get back into the race if you stop running. I didn’t fail by much. I was literally a few marks short of a pass. I realised that I knew my subject, but my delivery required work. Luckily, I could make use of IBTC’s Pass Assured Promise. So, I booked again for the May sitting, wrote and passed.

My CIMA journey is almost over but I have grown in my career and as a person. I have learnt to balance technical, business and people skills in each task I complete. I can now look at a problem from every angle and solve it holistically. This helps daily in my job as a Finance Business Partner, to me this is priceless.

My advice to anyone thinking of studying CIMA? Do your research. Only then will you realise the real value of a CIMA qualification and how it will change your life. With CIMA the sky really is the limit.”

Study CIMA with IBTC
All our CIMA courses are Pass Assured. To study CIMA with IBTC go to www.ibtc.co.za and click on the book now button. Alternatively, you can call Robert on 0861 111 411 and he will gladly help you get started.

Key takeaways

We stand and fall by our ability to get you to pass first time. We're so confident that you will pass the ACCA Exam first time that you can come back for free if you don't. Our secret lies in our student support, study guides and question practice. By following a few simple guidelines, you can make our promise work for you. With over 10 years' experience in preparing students for their exams we have learnt a lot about study techniques. We've seen what works and what doesn't.

Using our expertise we have developed a formula - a so called secret sauce if you will - that gives you the best chance of a first time pass. If followed correctly we really believe you will pass first time. In fact, we're so confident in this belief that you can come back for free if you don't pass. This is our Pass Assured Promise (PAP) and it's available to all our students. We are so obsessed with passing that our pass rate is the key measure of our business. Our CEO, Nikki Maritz, illustrates this when saying,"Our pass rate is the number we are all chasing. It's even more important than our revenue figure.

We believe that you buy a pass from us, not a product."

So ,with that said, what's in the secret sauce?

The secret lies in the fact that no other college offers more question practice and student support than IBTC. Question Practice We strongly believe in the power of question practice and we find any excuse to talk about it. According to a study published in The Guardian, "Researchers found that students who did a practice test after a period of revision did better on the final exam than those students who spent their time only on revision."

The beauty of question practice is that it reinforces what you've learnt while helping you to identify your weak spots. It shows you where you need to focus.

Taking this a step further at IBTC we believe that the number of times you test yourself and the variety in your question practice is the real key to exam success. For best results you need various levels of question practice during your study process and the more you do, the better your chances of passing first time. We encourage our students to spend 60% of their time studying and the remaining 40% practicing. Study Plan The IBTC Study Plan lays it all out for you. It indicates when to go through your theory and when to do question practice.

It is designed to get you exam ready as quickly as possible.

Your Study Plan will provide you with what to study and for how long so you don't waste your time studying the wrong thing. Think of it as the road map for your ACCA journey. It will get you to your destination as quickly and successfully as possible. Hand holding We understand that you are human and sometimes all you need is a listening ear or a little motivation and a push in the right direction. This is why we walk your study journey with you.

We checkup on you regularity to make sure that you're staying on track. We notice when you a miss a deadline and we find out how we can help you make sure that doesn't happen again. Your success is our priority.

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