How to pass GSL (Global Strategy & Leadership)
So you have finally reached your final CPA subject. Yeah! You don’t actually need to understand how to pass GSL because it’s all text and stories. A bit like E&G. If you just lock the door at least 4 weeks out from exams and read like crazy you will be fine. It’s all about the pre-seen case anyway, just do a good analysis (or borrow someone else’s) and you should be able to answer every question thrown at you.
We have heard this idea from lots of students. I’m sure there are a few people that get through with this approach. But the majority of you won’t. You will fail. And there’s a simple reason. You don’t understand the frameworks because you haven’t applied them (even if you have read them).
Watching versus doing with the CPA GSL exam
Imagine reading everything there is on how to drive a car – but you never actually get in one to practice until the day you take your driver’s licence test. How confident would you feel without applying the driving theory first?
The study guide is trying to squeeze (or maybe ram) into your head a lot of concepts and frameworks. Where the study guide falls short is that it doesn’t provide nearly enough examples for you to apply the concepts to. If you want to know how to pass GSL you have to focus on application so you have to stretch your thinking to outside the study guide (this doesn’t mean learning new ‘theory’ from outside the study guide…read on to find out what we mean…).
CPA exam study – magic tricks or hard work?
“Oh no!” you say. More work? Not really, most of you do it every day. You read the news. Now I agree there is not as much GSL to apply on whether Collingwood has a list to make the Grand Final this year; or how big a brat Nick Kyrgios really is; but try the business section and examples are jumping off the page. Slater and Gordon is going to potentially go broke over its failed move into the UK market? Which PESTEL factors have had the most influence here? In Australia, Woolworths has finally admitted what we already knew, its hardware business Masters is a disaster. Which strategic drivers did they fail to understand properly and using the 7-S framework, where did their implementation fall short?
It’s actually not that hard to analyse news material every day. It also will impress your boss when you want to be considered for a project team or promotion. In GSL you have to understand the external environment at step one or you will conduct a poor analysis. The same goes for your career or opportunities will pass you by.
Steps on how to pass GSL
OK. So how do you get through the study guide? Unfortunately the reading part is unavoidable. However a lot of our students give us feedback that if they watch our short knowledge clips first, then read the same part in the CPA Study Guide, they can absorb the study guide much faster. It should make sense, you can absorb visual content 60,000 times faster than text. Yes, not 60 but 60,000 times.
Also – better make the point now. Your chances of passing or getting a good mark in GSL if you study in a 5 hour blocks or all weekend are much lower than doing it in small chunks and regularly. Again, this is not my theory, it’s based on a lot of pedagogical (science of teaching) theory which I’ll write about in another blog.
Now the CPA exam is based on two cases so you would think people would practice studying two cases? But, most people again don’t do this!! Worse still, they will read Chasseurs (which is a good case), then go straight to the answers and try to work backwards and learn theory. That’s nuts. It doesn’t work and never will. That’s why we provide you with two detailed GSL practice exam cases and give you the chance to apply your knowledge, and then we provide you with detailed feedback.
CPA Australia also give you two GSL cases on a plate. Dakz – compression sports aparrel, and the Australian Travel Agency Industry. They’re free, on the CPA website, so you use them!
http://www.cpaaustralia.com.au/cpd/releases203102014.pdf
And finally, an important part of how to pass GSL is to then build a robust and thorough template for exam. Yes, at KnowledgEquity we provide one to our Exam Ready ($250), Bootcamp ($295) and Full Focus ($450) students but it won’t save someone if they haven’t learned the concepts and frameworks. And when you have to build one yourself you will embed that learning.
Cheers,
Chris.
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