How to ace this nightmare? CA Foundation Business Law Paper

CA Foundation is the first step in the professional journey of the CA course. As a mentor, the most frequently asked question by the students and their parents/guardians is that they are having issues in Mathematics (Paper 3 Quantitative Aptitude) and then they are also failing in Business Laws.

For Mathematics, as I'm not a faculty for the subject, so a detailed break down would not be possible from my side but yes, one advice that I can give to the students is that, you have to see this paper in parts, like; Business Mathematics, Logical Reasoning, Statistics and the Godfather "CALCULUS". When you break it down this way, it becomes really easy now to ace these small parts and take some calculative risk and practice MCQs as much as possible and get through. For non-mathematics background students, it can be a bit more challenging though but still you've to understand the rules of the game if you really wish to be in the game. You've to understand that the entire paper is not pure Mathematics, it has parts that can be broken down into pieces and conquered.

When it comes to Business Law paper, the problem gets grave due to the following reasons;

• It is a subjective paper
• It is for the first time students will be reading Law as their core subject
• There is huge GAP between how students prepare and present in the test and what actually ICAI expects
• Due to online classes and web based learning, they lack writing practice
• Choosing multiple materials and not having the right guidance and strategy for preparation

So here, I'll try to help you on how you can ace this new subject, what all are the materials to follow, what is the right strategy and how to do writing practice and get through. So let's begin!

Expectations of the Institute: Filling the GAP

It is never easy to comprehend the expectations of ICAI but we cannot let it go like this. ICAI is known for breaking its own trend and making everyone around awestruck.

Here are some points we need to understand to fill this GAP of what we think and what ICAI thinks and expects;

• Section Numbers: Mark this in BOLD, section numbers are not needed at the first place. I've seen students going crazy behind learning section numbers and thinking that they've known everything around. What is more important than section numbers is the content of the law; what exactly the section or provision talks about, is more important than the number. Reading the text of the law is more important than just cramming section numbers. ICAI will never award full marks for only quoting correct sections without relevant theory of the law.
• ICAI Material Language: You cannot learn everything the way it is presented in the ICAI module but what I'll suggest that you'll have to try getting closer to it for getting good marks. This will happen with multiple readings and no other medicine can cure this disease. There are two thing; your understanding of the text and actual text; you've to be somewhere in the middle to get those apples.

Materials to follow

Here is the list of materials you've to stick to when you are preparing for Business Laws;

• ICAI module
• Get a new Scanner (that has all PYQs answered as per ICAI suggested answers)
• RTP of your attempt (I'm assuming all PY RTPs will be covered in the scanner)
• MTP of your attempt (I'm assuming all PY MTPs will be covered in the scanner)
• A chapter wise summary of Important Case Laws for handy revision ( I would suggest that you do a little bit of hard work and take a base list from internet and tweak it a bit as per your requirements by adding some more details to it as and where required)

How to prepare and do writing practice?

• Understanding of the law is the first step and you'll have to go through the entire module for that.
• Once you're done with it, try doing the back questions and then come to scanner and see how ICAI has asked questions.
• Bring your preparation to Q&A format and do multiple revisions.
• Try attempting questions and self-evaluating your answers using the scanner and suggested ICAI answers.
• Understand the type of questions; primarily there are two types of questions that are asked; one is direct questions and the other is case based questions.
• Focus more on the provisions, read the questions properly and understand the requirements of the problem and then read the solutions.

Last Words

I've tried to cover everything but there is something I'll discuss in my other article. It relates to answering of case based questions. I hope this article helps you in kick starting your preparation for this new subject and not being scared of it anymore. Feel free to get in touch for any genuine queries on my LinkedIn profile and Instagram; I'll try to revert.

Wishing you good luck and all the success in your professional journey!

Kindly excuse me for any typos.

You are awesome!

Aashish Sachdev