Writing the CBAP exam could be one of the most enriching experiences you can have as a business analyst. Preparing for the exam could be like a beautiful marriage between your practical knowledge/experience and the theoretical world of business analysis laid out by IIBA.
The journey begins – Planning
Once you have completed the application process and the application has been approved, you have one years’ time to write the CBAP exam, this is where most of us become casual and start thinking that we have enough time in hand to write the exam and keep procrastinating it till we are just nearing the line and have to write the exam in a haste.
In my experience once your application is approved always check for the probable month in which you want to write your exam (depends on your work load, priority, motivation etc.) and check on the Prometric site for the seat availability. Ideally you would like to work backwards, finalize your exam month and then start and pace your preparation accordingly. Thinking that let me begin first and then over a period of time depending on my pace I will decide for the exam date will never work, trust me you will never be ready.
Ideally you would like to give yourself 3-6 months of time frame (varies according to your experience/comfort/cramming capabilities etc.). My application was approved in April and like a novice I though let me pace myself up and then once I am up to speed I will write my exam but 3 months down the line I had just read couple of chapters of BABOK. That’s when it hit me that if I do not have internal targets in my mind I would not take this journey in full honesty. Checking on the Prometric site I decided that November it is, which meant I had precisely 4 months to work on my exam in full throttle.
Phase 1
I did a lot of googling and read through various forums to understand what veterans had suggested as CBAP preparation plan. To begin with I started with casual reading of BABOK chapter by chapter (dedicated and devoted time of an hour on weekdays and 2 on weekends – no distractions at all).
To be very honest BABOK is very plain, simple and dry book to read and if you are not a habitual reader it might put you to sleep very soon, so my advice would be to read it early in the morning when you are at your freshest best and have higher level of concentration. The motive in this phase of reading is to familiarize yourself with the BABOK, make a mental notes (also physical notes) of the concept that is totally alien to you. There would be a lot of things that would ring bell in your mind and would be quite easy to understand as you would have performed something similar in your BA career.
Once you have completed reading the BABOK, I would suggest to buy a copy of CBAP study guide by Watermark Learning (I am not a paid endorser, it really helped me to a great extent). Now go through the CBAP guide/watermark learning guide to understand the percentage of questions asked from each of the knowledge areas/topics so you would know where you have to focus the most.
Phase 2
So now you are familiar with BABOK, you know the exam areas pretty well and you have your study aid (whichever you decide to choose) ready this is when your dedicated preparation begins. My strategy in this phase was to read one chapter thoroughly from the BABOK and then read the same chapter from the watermark learning study guide, because this guide will help you understand the concepts with practical examples, have mnemonics for things you need to remember (from an exam standpoint) and finally have small exam at the end of the chapter which would be a great confidence booster (if you do well).
What I also did in this phase was to prepare physical notes of all mnemonics (things I needed to remember like input/output/tools etc. used within a knowledge area or an activity within a knowledge area). BABOK has a lot of hidden wealth within each of those simple sentences that you come across, so make sure to use highlighters to highlight those within BABOK or make a physical notes of them so that aids you (like a checklist) in the final leg of the preparation.
Phase3
Once I had completed reading BABOK (along with the study guide) and all my notes was ready and prepared, I started cramming things that were needed, I devoted an hour and half in the morning for my study where I would remember the stuff, repeat the stuff that I had remembered the previous day and also go through each of the BABOK chapters again (with special focus on my highlighted lines in each chapter).
Kindly note that you can lay your hand on a lot of material of the internet around mind maps/cheat sheet/notes/mnemonics etc. so I am not going to dwell on that too much, you are a BA, go and find a solution that solves your problems the best.
The Final Leg
Once you have sincerely read the BABOK thrice (at least), made your notes and have revised them, have studied the study guide in details and you are up with your cramming, you should realize that you are in the last and most important leg of your preparation. I gave myself around a month in this leg and my strategy in this leg was to write 3 full length exams per week and thoroughly analyse these exams over the weekend.
I used the question bank provided by Watermark learning. It has around 900 questions (valid for 1 month post registration) and has a very good interactive UI and analytical tool to analyse your results for each exam and over a period of time. It also has questions as full length timed test and questions grouped in Knowledge areas. The standard, level and the similarity to real exam question is pretty good but what it lacks is the questions IIBA asks you directly from the hidden lines of BABOK, also since the question bank is pretty limited, over a period of time in your nth iteration the exam become quite predictable.
So it is good to have 2 exam preparation sources, the other one I opted was from the BAmentor, this turned out to be a good choice for me because BAmentor exams tested a lot of the small (within the lines) questions directly picked from BABOK which forced me back to reading each and every line of BABOK more thoroughly for the fourth time. Believe it or not when you sit to write the actual exam there is a good percentage of questions which are quite confusing and would also make you realize how you should have read and understood each and every line carefully. This is where I felt so happy that I spent some money to buy the BAmentor subscription and it was totally worth the penny spent.
To summarize
- Decide first on the month when you want to write the exam, give yourself minimum 3 months of serious prep time
- Read the BABOK thoroughly at least thrice
- Buy a study guide to aid in your study along with a BABOK
- Make a note of all mnemonics, mind maps etc. and start learning them as there are quite a few
- Subscribe to minimum two exam simulators and just do not keep writing the exam but analyse thoroughly each of the exam that you write
- Be serious, be motivated and treat this as a pure learning process and I can confidently say that you will definitely love this journey and pass your CBAP exam successfully.
Kindly note: – The above is my personal experience/approach and decision and I do not endorse/subscribe to any particular approach, method and vendor.
Coming Next – The CBAP Exam Day