KASNEB CICT common mistakes
KASNEB CICT · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Treating the accountancy questions as pure arithmetic: writing a final figure for a ledger or trial balance question without showing the double-entry workings, contra entries, or the balancing figure.
Candidates revise by drilling final answers and assume the marker only wants the number, so they skip the T-account layout and narration that the marking scheme rewards. Under time pressure the working is the first thing dropped.
What to do instead
Practise every ledger and trial balance question in full columnar form until the layout is automatic: date, particulars, folio, amount, and a ruled balance carried down. Time yourself so the layout takes under two minutes, leaving the arithmetic as the only variable. Mark your own attempts against the layout, not just the total.
Confusing capital and revenue expenditure, and treating a capital item as a revenue expense (or vice versa) when preparing the income statement and statement of financial position.
The distinction is introduced early and candidates memorise definitions without practising the borderline cases (installation costs, legal fees on acquisition, major replacements, repairs that extend useful life). Exam wording is deliberately ambiguous.
What to do instead
Build a one-page decision test: does the spend create or enhance a non-current asset's earning capacity, or merely maintain it? Apply the test to twenty past-style items, including van painting with the company logo (revenue) versus fitting a new engine (capital), and note the double effect on profit and asset value for each misclassification.
Mixing up the treatment of items in the statement of cash flows, particularly placing interest paid, dividends paid, and tax paid in the wrong section, or using the direct method headings when the question requires the indirect method.
Candidates learn the three-section structure but not the classification choices permitted by the standard, and they do not read whether the examiner has specified a policy. The indirect method's reconciliation of profit to operating cash also trips candidates who forget to remove non-cash items.
What to do instead
Memorise a fixed classification table (operating, investing, financing) with the common contentious items and the policy note the examiner expects. Then redo three full statements from scratch, starting each time by adjusting profit for depreciation, profit on disposal, and working capital movements before touching the investing and financing sections.
Answering ratio-analysis questions by calculating the ratios only, with no interpretation, comparison to prior year, or comment on causes and limitations.
Candidates see a calculation task and stop when the number is right, because interpretation feels subjective and they fear writing something wrong. They also run out of time after the arithmetic.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed three-sentence template for every ratio: what the ratio shows, the direction of movement against the comparative, and one plausible business cause plus one limitation of the ratio. Practise until interpretation takes the same time as calculation, and always state the formula used so method marks are secured even if the figure is wrong.
Ignoring the time value of money: comparing investment projects by summing undiscounted cash flows, or ranking mutually exclusive projects by internal rate of return instead of net present value.
Candidates who are weaker on discounting avoid the discount tables and default to payback, which is simpler. They also misread whether cash flows are stated before or after tax and depreciation.
What to do instead
Drill the four appraisal methods on the same cash-flow set so the ranking differences become visible. Always discount to present value for the final recommendation, state the discount rate and treatment of depreciation (non-cash, so excluded, with capital allowances used instead), and note NPV's superiority for mutually exclusive projects because it measures absolute wealth change.
Miscalculating working capital and the operating cycle, especially treating depreciation as a cash cost or double-counting an item between the current ratio and the quick ratio.
Working capital questions combine several ratios and candidates rush the inventory, receivables, and payables day counts, mixing 365-day and 360-day conventions or using average rather than closing balances inconsistently.
What to do instead
Fix one convention per exam and write it at the top of your answer. Rehearse the cycle as inventory days plus receivable days minus payable days, and check that each ratio uses the same balance basis. For liquidity, remember the quick ratio strips inventory only, so a prepayment still counts.
Describing a control weakness in an audit or governance question without naming the specific control that is missing and the risk that follows from its absence.
Candidates write generalities such as 'there should be proper controls' because they have not learned the control vocabulary (segregation of duties, authorisation limits, reconciliation, physical safeguards, exception reporting). Generic answers earn little credit.
What to do instead
Learn the control categories as a checklist and force each answer into the pattern: weakness identified, risk arising, control recommended, and who performs it. Practise on scenarios such as a cashier who also posts to the sales ledger, where the answer must name segregation of duties and the risk of teeming and lading.
Confusing the roles of the board, the audit committee, and management, or answering governance questions by listing principles without applying them to the scenario given.
Governance material is conceptual and candidates memorise lists of principles, then reproduce them regardless of the facts. They also conflate independence of non-executive directors with the executive role of running the business.
What to do instead
For every governance scenario, assign each party a one-line mandate before answering: board sets strategy and oversees, audit committee oversees external audit and internal control independently, management implements. Then answer only what the scenario asks, citing the relevant principle by name and applying it to the named individuals.
Treating information systems questions as definitions only, so answers on databases, networks, or controls never explain how the mechanism works or what fails when it is absent.
Candidates memorise acronyms and short definitions because the syllabus is broad, but exam questions increasingly ask for explanation, comparison, or application to a business process.
What to do instead
For each core topic (normalisation, backup types, access control, network topologies, e-commerce payment flows), write a two-part note: how it works in three steps, and one failure it prevents. Test yourself by explaining it aloud to a non-technical listener; if you cannot, the definition is not yet usable in an exam answer.
Spending disproportionate time on one long calculation in Section A and leaving scenario or essay questions in later sections unanswered or answered in bullet fragments.
Candidates allocate time by question order rather than by marks, and the first heavy numerical question absorbs the budget. Panic near the end produces unstructured notes instead of full sentences.
What to do instead
Before starting, write the marks per question beside each number and convert to minutes at roughly one minute per mark, reserving ten minutes for review. If a calculation stalls, leave the workings you have, move on, and return only if time allows. For discursive answers, use a short plan of three or four headed points so every paragraph carries a mark-bearing idea.