Fresh UFE Advice for the 2012 crowd
Considering that a google search for "UFE advice" still points to an article where I complained about shoddy treatment at the hands of PwC, it seems only fair to point to some current UFE advice by a more recent writer.
Check out this post on quants by Tomasz Popiel, a young CA from Ottawa who started the UFE Blog. Tomasz wrote the UFE in 2010, which is a half decade after I did, so I'm glad to see someone picking up the torch for the cause of young CA students, since the further removed you get from the exam process, the less new information you can share. As of today there's nine pages of post since only July. He's on fire, and the tips keep on coming. Hopefully you've already been following his tips, but if you haven't, well, there's still a few weeks left to improve your case writing game.
Ironically the quant post I'm linking to is in many ways timeless: though Tomasz points out that in the 2011 UFE the Board of Evaluators lamented that candidates' numerical displays of quantified accounting wonder were falling - i.e. "quants weren't happening as often as they should, or as well as they should" - that sounds like the same problem we were blasted with ages ago as well. Perhaps some things never really change.
'The Board noted that too many candidates seemed to spend 20 minutes deciding on whether or not to invest in Toronto's overheated condo market, when they could've made a decision in just 5 seconds based on the client's current income, savings, and willingness to put up with diesel fumes from GO trains.'