Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist(CAMS) certification is a highly sought course to start or develop a career in Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism Financing Sector. So, are you still wondering whether the CAMS is worth it, the answer is yes if you are going to start a lucrative and respectable career as an Anti-Money Laundering Professional. At present, most of the countries’ regulatory bodies are putting greater emphasis on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism measures. The reason for this is that governments have realized that, in order for criminal activities to foster, the illegal money should flow smoothly between actors involved in unethical acts. So you need to cut the veins that support regulating illegal money.

Top 5 Mistakes to Avoid While Preparing for CAMS Exam

How to Answer Questions in CAMS Exam with High Accuracy? 

This designation has weight my friend that is going to increase your professional reputation as well as the size of the wallet. CAMS exam is quite a tough nut to crack. But with proper guidance, you can easily pass this exam with flying colors.  

1. Understanding Objective of CAMS Certification:

Many Candidate usually jump immediately towards devouring the CAMS study guide and other reference materials after they registered for CAMS exam without first understanding what CAMS degree is all about. Your objective should not be only to PASS CAMS exam. You need to understand the CAMS Study Guide gives you mere information only or just concepts. For e.g., It says that you need to do risk assessment and have policies and procedures in your organization. In order to pass this exam, this concepts may be enough but not in your job situation. Let’s say if you pass this exam but do not know how to design ECDD form for high risk customers or you are unable to  proper tune transaction monitoring to identify suspicious transaction in your job environment then , well that just leave a bad taste in your mouth.

So you have to understand this, CAMS certification is does not make you ultimate AML/CFT professional. This is just beginning of your AML/CFT career. Even ACAMS promotes CAMS as basic course in Anti-Money laundering. So mere passing this certificate should not be your goal.  We have found that many candidate purchase CAMS dump to practice as many question related to CAMS exam, just to pass this certification. So, do you think, did they really earned this certification. Therefore, when you study the CAMS study guide, you need to be able to relate concepts in CAMS study guide in your day-to-day job. You need perform gap analysis and think how these concepts can truly help to improve AML/CFT posture of your organization.

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2. Resources:

First thing first, the CAMS registration costs about USD 1000. After the registration, ACAMS will provide you with an ACAMS Training portal, where you will receive all the materials necessary to pass the exam. You will receive, CAMS study guides in pdf and audio format, flashcards, a summary module for each chapter of CAMS. But, how to use them is an art. One method is to just scan through the whole study guide once. Then, revisit the study guide again, this time listening audit format simultaneously. It is well known from scientific research that when you can use more senses while learning, we can understand and retain that knowledge better. For the above case, if you also take notes while studying the guide as well as listening, you are using all your three senses: Visual, Auditory, Feeling. Now, talking about Flashcards and summary module, we suggest you use them at the time of review only.

Besides the study guide, it is highly recommended that you go through FATF recommendation and Wolfsberg Principles as listed in chapter 2: International AML/CFT standards of the CAMS Study Guide. This is because most of the content in the CAMS study guide is derived from these standards and principles. Since the study guide contains high concentrated information in just 300 pages. AML/CFT is a very vast concept and referring only to the study guide may not be enough to clarify all the ideas mentioned in the guide. Moreover, you may want to go through Egmont Group Financial Analysis Cases, this will prepare you for the scenario-based questions that are usually asked in the CAMS study guide. If you want to pass CAMS easily, you may want to join our live online cams preparation class. PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR MORE.You can also learn so much about money laundering and terrorist financing by watching various documentaries and movies. They are educational, interesting and helps you to remember things for a long time. For e.g, documentaries like “Cocaine Cowboys” tells you how small the city “Florida” was changed totally due to drug trafficking and money laundering that lead to the introduction of the first Money Laundering Act in the world. Movies like “Infiltrator” show you how offshore accounts, as well as legitimate banks, are used for money laundering. Also, there are TV shows like “American Greed” which show real-life incidents of money laundering, fraud, how they were executed by perpetrators, and how these criminals were apprehended.

3.Perseverance is key

We are not going to lie that CAMS is easy. You will fail if you are not adequately prepared. We have found many people have not succeeded in their first attempt when they have ventured this exam on the basis of their job experience and mere luck. Therefore, we suggest you give this ample time, at least 3 months ahead of the appearance exam, you may want to go through all the resources we have suggested above. The rest is up to you.

 4.The Clarity in Concept:

About 90% of question is scenario-based, like what two things you will do when you are faced with this situation or that. Therefore, gaining knowledge about the different concepts is not only sufficient, but you should know how to apply it. Therefore, you should understand all the material concepts of the study guide. Repetition is the key here.

5. Notes preparing:

Everybody has their own style of learning. In whatever case, the essence of note-taking could not be disregarded. It is better to prepare a note of each topic in soft copy like in word file rather than in hard copy which will provide you with benefits of portability. The sample of notes is given in the picture below. This sample note can be downloaded free, please scroll down to find the list of our products that will better equip you in your endeavor in passing the CAMS exam. Also, we have just launched SIORIK CAMS EXAM PREPARATION KIT that provides you with all the needed resources like STUDY NOTES, Reference materials including FATF, Wolfsburg, and much more, also you can take mock tests, similar to real-life exam scenario. This kit will be just enough for you to pass this exam, saving you a lot of time and effort. Further, you have also the option to purchase only cams study notes for all chapters of the latest version of the cams study guide here.

There is no need to stress the importance of the mock test.  It is advised that before,  going through the study guide, you first attempt the mock test on chapter 6  to assess your current level of understanding about a different aspect of anti-money laundering and combating terrorism financing. Then, after completing your study guide, at the time of the review phase, re-do the mock test. This is from the experience of our Sr.consultant that what marks you are scoring in the Mock test at the review phase, you will be the scoring if not equivalent but more in your actual CAMS exam.

7.Exam Technique:

Everything said above, boils down to only one thing, how to pass or get a higher score in the CAMS exam. You will have 4 hours to solve the 120 questions which are more than enough. You need to answer 75 questions correctly out of 120 questions to pass CAMS. So, it is not 75%, but 75 right answered questions. In percentage, it will come about 62.5% only. CAMS exam is tricky most of the time as almost all multiple choice answers look valid. One technique is that you go through once the question and its multiple choice answers and then again re-read the question thoroughly to select the right answer. People usually miss the right answer when they read the question only once. Similarly, other techniques, especially for a long scenario-based question where you need to spend a little bit of more time, you can mark this question as “Marked for Review”, then attempt all short questions first and revisit these questions later. This way, you will have ample time to understand these questions properly to make the correct decision. So, how about testing yourself, for preparedness for the CAMS exam. Download our  Mobile App here, it will test you with exam similar questions and provide you with an explanation for the wrong answer. Also, it comes with a lot of other useful features to help you in the journey of acing the CAMS exam.

That’s all about preparing and undertaking CAMS exam. We hope that this article has been useful to some of you. Best of luck to all of you who have embarked on this journey to become CAMS.

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IMPORTANT NOTICE!!!

Chapter 1: Risks and Methods of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

Chapter 2 : International AML/CFT Standards

Chapter 3: Anti-Money Laundering/Counter-Terrorist Financing Compliance Programs

Chapter 4: Conducting and Responding to Investigations

Other Article in this site that you may find useful:

SIMPLIFYING OVERALL AML/CFT PROCESS IN YOUR ORGANIZATION !!!

UNDERSTANDING GoAML!!!

ABOUT AUTHOR: Kiran Kumar Shah https://learnwithsiorik.com/tutors/