CA Final Topper Interview – Krishna Pawan Gupta – Rank 3

About Krishna Pawan Gupta – Rank 3

Q. How are you feeling after acing this year’s CA FINALS ?

Ans. I am feeling very happy. I was happily surprised when I came to know about it in the morning. It hasn’t sunk in yet that I have got All India Rank 3. I am overjoyed right now you can say.

Q. Is this your first attempt? What was your strategy?

Ans. Yes, I have cleared all my exams in first attempt. My number one strategy was to give importance to institute material, practice manual especially. Self study definitely, you can’t just fly on coaching material. Coaching classes may help you but self study is a must, you cannot ignore that. During your last preparation leaves, there should be no distractions. Your focus should be on your studies.

Q. Please share a bit about your family?

Ans. My father Pawan Gupta is a Chartered Accountant, he is been practising career accounting for more than 30 years now. He has his own firm Saharya and Associates. My mother is a homemaker. I have an elder sister who is a doctor. She specialises in the field of diabetes.

Q. What or who was your inspiration?

Ans. My father is truly my inspiration.

Q. Let’s talk about your academic background.

Ans. I have studied at St. Joseph school, Mumbai.
College – Narsee Monjee College, NM in SY B.com, in third year I moved to Patkar college.

Q. What made you choose CA as a career option?

Ans. I have seen my father, so growing up I always had that curiosity. I liked what he did and he was my first motivating guide. I also spoke to a lot of people and it is one of the best career options in India. I think it is a very respected profession.

Q. How did you normally balance studying with your social life?

Ans. During my last 4-5 months of preparation leave, I wasn’t very socially active. I was very committed to my studies. So it was only possible for me to meet with my friends once or twice a week . With my family, we always tried to have dinners together. Since we are all working so breakfasts and lunch was never possible but as far as dinners are concerned, we always prefered to have it together.

Preparation

Q. When did you start preparing for this exam? On an average, how many hours a day did you study?

Ans. This is not a 2-3 months preparation. Your preparation should ideally start as soon as IPC gets over. So my preparation started once it was over, its a gradual increment . That four month preparation leave is for revision, it is not for your first time. During the preparation leave 12- 14 hours a day.

Q. How did you prepare for each subject?

Ans. The practice manual helps which the institute gives you. They give what are the questions and answers; and they will tell you what has been the trend in the recent years for institute examinations. You get to have an idea. The institute material was a very good reference.

Q. Which was the most difficult topic while preparing for CA and how did you crack it?

Ans. The most challenging was ISCA (Information System Control and Audit) because we have worked with computers but we don’t have a detailed understanding of how the system works. So that takes a little effort to understand but it is a good subject, it tells you a lot about system manual. We all work on computers so we can’t just do away without knowing about them.

Q. How important do you think Articleship Training is from examination perspective? how did that help you in your exam?

Ans. Articleship training is definitely very important, it should not be ignored. Infact it builds a foundation, you won’t be able to understand the curriculum without it. You need to have practical knowledge about everything like stock market, what are the recent developments in accounting field. So for all of this Articleship helps a lot.

Q.Which books did you use to prepare for this exam?

Ans. Institute material should not be ignored. Practice manual from institute is a must for every CA aspirant.

Q. What are the most important topics for CA FINAL preparation that you think an aspirant should focus on?

Ans.

• For Accounts- Consolidation, amalgamation and Evaluation is given a lot of weightage
• For Finance- Forex, mergers and acquisitions, derivatives
• For Law – the whole segment on directors.
• For Audit-Standards and professional ethics are the building blocks
• For taxation- Amendments should be focused on
• For ISCA- Everything is very important and it is a very equally distributed subject.
• For Costing- You should have basic intelligence and practice manual as I said.

Exam Related

Q. According to you, how was the exam? Was it tough or easy?

Ans. It wasn’t very tough but it was a bit challenging. Institutes set a very high quality paper, they don’t usually repeat the question. They set new things which are not seen before. It was a bit challenging of course but I really like that.

Q. ICAI has introduced a new scheme. What are your thoughts on that?

Ans. From my understanding it is a good move. They are giving electives to students, they are letting them choose which subject you want to specialise in so they can study that subject. ICAI is moving with time, they realise what the industry requires. They know what the profession wants us to deliver, they keep with all these updates. So they are doing a fantastic job.

Future

Q. What are your future plans now?

Ans. After completing my Articleship, my future plans are to look for a suitable job that can give me a good professional experience and give me playing ground to grow and groom my skills. In the finance sector definitely.

Q. Any last minute tip for the future aspirants.

Ans. Keep your focus and be calm. Things might get rough at times don’t lose focus and keep on going. You will definitely have CA tag before your name soon.

THANK YOU

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