(Posted September 2024)
As you progress through the CPA Canada PEP Modules, case writing becomes more important. By the time you reach the PEP Electives, over 75% of the exam evaluation is based on cases and you can expect to write two cases for a total of 200 minutes. Therefore, learning how to write cases effectively is your key to excelling in the CPA PEP Electives and ultimately, successfully writing the CFE.
Here are some important skills to master as you work to level up your case writing:
Find the Requireds
The first, and arguably most important, step in case writing is to find the requireds. In other words, what questions do you need to answer?
If you don’t understand what you are being asked to do, you won’t be able to properly understand how to use the case facts you are reading. That’s why it is important to identify the specific requireds before you read the case. You can achieve this by scanning the initial text to find those requireds before you do a full read of the case. Highlight the requireds and document them on your plan before you start reading the case in detail.
Track Case Facts
Equip yourself with a highlighter to make any relevant quantitative data jump out in the case. Use your pencil to underline any key case facts and to make margin notes to identify where those facts are in the case. Write the page references for relevant information on your plan under each required. This will help you to be able to find the information when you go to write each required.
If you don’t track case facts as you read the case, you will have to go back to find those case facts again when you go to write each required. This will require some rereading of the case and time spent trying to find what you are looking for, which wastes valuable writing time.
Furthermore, highlighting and underlining the key case facts and annotating the case as you go with margin notes can help you better focus on your critical reading, enhance your comprehension of what you are reading, and assist you in retaining that information.
Plan Your Writing Strategy
Many students tend to jump right into writing their response once they are finished reading the case. However, by taking just a couple of minutes to plan your response before writing, you can greatly enhance your results. Planning your writing strategy accomplishes a few things:
- It gives you a brief moment to break up your intense concentration with reading from your intense concentration as you think and write your response. In essence, it gives your brain a meaningful break. This is important as it can be extremely difficult to hold your sustained concentration for an extended length of time.
- It allows you to step back and see how the various requireds could interact with each other. It is important to consider any points of integration. For example, if there are accounting issues to discuss, and then there are financing covenants that need to be assessed, it would be important to assess the accounting issues first so that you can incorporate any required adjustments into your covenant calculations. If you don’t stop to plan your writing strategy, you might miss those points of integration. This integration allows you to plan in which order you should address the required and will help you score Competent more often.
- It helps you to manage your time. Time management is a crucial case writing skill that many writers struggle with. Planning your strategy allows you to assess how much time you have available for writing and allocate it to the requireds. That gives you a plan for how to spend your writing time so you can be sure you will address all of the requireds in the suggested time for the case. That will give you the best chance of success for your response.
Manage Your Writing Time
We talked about time management above, but it doesn’t stop with planning your strategy. As you write your case, you need to actively manage your time so that you stick to your planned time allocations. This is important so that you don’t get caught up in a specific required and spend too much time there, running out of time for the other requireds.
Keep your eye on the clock as you write, making sure that you finish up your response for each required in the time you have allocated, so that you can address all of the requireds reasonably. Poor time management will lead you to score too many Not Addressed or Nominal Competence rankings, which will prevent you from passing the final exams for the PEP Electives.
Focusing on these key case writing skills can help you level up your case writing to pass the PEP Elective final exams. Our PEP EDGE courses can help you gain an EDGE on your PEP studies with our sessions on case writing approach, debriefing, and exam strategy.