Thank you for your suggestion. I will start to do 2 cases a week in the coming few weeks and see whether I can improve.

Wow, thank you so much for your response to my post. I will keep practicing and hopefully will see the progress week by week.

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Did one more case last night. It is a 60-minute case. Please feel free to drop me some lines if you have any suggestions or experiences to share with me!!

1) For PMR section, I identified 3 accounting issues - rev rec of services, capitalization of website developments and RP disclosure. Nailed on this section.

To save my time typing all the criteria, I quickly copied and pasted from the handbook the criteria first, then typed relevant case facts " this criterion has been met due to the fact xxxxx". At the end, I concluded, "based on the analysis above, xxx should be recognized/ capitalized/disclosed.... ". And mention whether adjustment is needed or not, if yes, what's the impact on FS and some of management's concerns.

2) Audit issues: based on case facts, audit planning has started, therefore, I only talked about risks associated with the 3 PMR issues identified and specific procedures designed for specific assertions. As I did not have enough time to start a new section, I kind of listed risks and procedures right after my discussion on PMR issues.
I checked the solutions, which did talk about planning, factors for risk increase/decrease, adjustment to planning materiality and a few other obvious risk areas (e.g. inventory). So I missed a big component on assurance section this time:(

3) Internal controls - I only had time to talk about 3 issues in the format of WIR. I find that not typing down the key case facts when doing the outline is slowing me down when I start writing the case, coz I could not find the key case facts I need immediately. Might be due to the time pressure, my mind did not function as it usually does. It almost went blank when I struggled to find my key case facts. If I had 5 more minutes, I could have finished another 2 issues. It might be safe to get a C to talk about 5 issues, with implications and recommendations. I am way too slow on this section.

Overall, time management is an issue. And I need to find the right approach to do planning and outline that works for me. I am struggling to locate and extract key case facts because my outline is not detailed enough. If I do a very detailed outline, I will run out of time to write the case. Need to keep practicing and find the right balance....更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

Attempted two more cases, and have summarized a pattern for PMR and Assurance.
PMR:
1) What does IFRS/ASPE say about a certain topic...
2) Jot down case facts to check whether IFRS/ASPE criteria have been met
3) Conclude based on step 2
4) Impact on FS and/or key concerns of the client

Assurance:
1) Factors that will increase or decrease RMM;
2) Materiality - on which basis (pretax income or else, and why - mention who are key FS users)
3) Approach - substantive, or reliance on control, or a combined approach
4) Procedures - for accounting issues identified in the case, must design specific audit procedure for certain assertions
Review client's draft FS, give audit procedures for items that are material, either by $ amount, or by nature (e.g. financial covenants, ratios,,,)

Reviewing MDM and Finance quants this week.

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Another week has passed and I have come to understand why everybody is saying, "you are getting introduced to SOA case-writing". It does take a few or quite a few attempts to know and understand what skills and techniques are needed for SOA. Just like writing TOEFL ibt, native English speakers might end up with a very depressing mark if they are not trained to have the required skills.

I worked with my study buddies and have detected a few blind spots:

1) I was trying to give a complete and comprehensive answer in all issues I could identify. And this is definitely a big No-No for SOA exam. SOA expects students to give a general answer, mentioning some key components for any given topic, integrating case facts, uses needs with technical knowledge. And it is the key reason that I could not finish my case on time.
2) In my debriefing, I was following the debriefing materials and almost re-wrote the whole case with full details afterwards. I missed a big part of debriefing which is to develop a flowchart for every topic I have worked on. My re-write up is too lengthy and time-consuming. Though the technical review is still necessary and helpful if I don't know it well.

The learning process is becoming more of a fun. The Densmore training materials are indeed very practical, thorough and helpful.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

The busy season has just been over as of last Friday. No more weekend overtime:) !!! So I could only squeeze out enough time to do one case a week in April. During March, my work schedule was just crazy like hell. Did not do anything back then. Even now, with a full-time job, I can only do my SOA prep after my daughter goes to sleep. Wish I was job-free.

I am now feeling a lot more comfortable with the reading, planning and writing pattern. So will speed up after this weekend. Have started to develop my flowcharts for PMR topics and summary of audit procedures. My debriefing is getting faster now. I did not know that it also takes time to learn how to debrief properly:)

Like you said, I want to be well-prepared before SOA starts in June. By then, SOA will be a daily technical review/reinforcement and case-writing practice. If I was still learning tons of new technical stuff in SOA, that would be bad.

Thank you for your sharing and advice!