CA Final November 2026 Paper Analysis Live: Financial Reporting Was Lengthy and Application-Heavy; AFM on November 4

Financial Reporting vs May 2026: more MCQs for the same 30 marks, Ind AS 103 again the biggest topic

A mark-by-mark count of the Financial Reporting paper by GradeHunt, an online CA test-series platform, compares it with ICAI’s May 2026 paper:

• More MCQs for the same marks. Part I had 23 MCQs for 30 marks (16 of 1 mark and 7 of 2 marks), against 15 MCQs of 2 marks each in May 2026. That meant more reading per mark.
• Business combinations led again. Ind AS 103 carried 24 of the 114 marks printed on the paper (Part II prints six 14-mark questions, of which students answer five), and Ind AS 32/109 carried 15. Together that is about a third of the paper, close to May.
• Less computation in Part II. 48 of the 84 printed Part II marks needed calculations or journal entries, against 58 in May.
• New areas. Ind AS 12, 16 and 40, 41, 37, 1, 10 and the applicability rules had no marks in May and carried 45 marks this time, while Ind AS 116 fell from 10 marks to 5.

“The content was fair. What made FR long was the reading in Part I,” said CA Mamta Arora, faculty at GradeHunt. For AFM on 4 November, she advised students to budget time by marks, not by question.

GradeHunt’s count is based on a student-shared copy of the paper. ICAI has not yet published the official paper or suggested answers, and GradeHunt is not affiliated with ICAI.

No paper today; Advanced Financial Management (Paper 2) is tomorrow at 2 PM

There is no CA Final paper on Tuesday, 3 November. Paper 2, Advanced Financial Management, is on Wednesday, 4 November, from 2 PM to 5 PM, with reading time from 1:45 PM. Carry your admit card and a valid photo ID. We will add the AFM paper analysis here after the exam.

Paper 1 Financial Reporting (2 Nov): application-heavy Ind AS paper, moderate to tough, lengthy

The first paper of the session, Financial Reporting, was held on Monday, 2 November. Students quoted by Careers360 rated it moderate. Coaching platform Zeroinfy, which reviewed a student-shared copy of the question paper, called it moderate to challenging, with heavy calculations and real time pressure. Neither is an official ICAI assessment.

Pattern: 30 marks of MCQs and 70 marks of descriptive questions. The MCQ part had 23 questions: three case scenarios (Questions 1 to 13, 18 marks) and 10 standalone MCQs (12 marks). In the descriptive part, Question 1 (14 marks) was compulsory, and students had to attempt any four of Questions 2 to 6.

What was asked, as reported by Zeroinfy:

• Question 1: a business combination of two companies into a new company, with purchase consideration and the new company’s balance sheet (Ind AS 103).
• Compound financial instruments (convertible preference shares) and offsetting under Ind AS 32 and 109.
• Property versus investment property (Ind AS 16 and 40), and current and deferred tax (Ind AS 12).
• Onerous contracts (Ind AS 37) and fair value of biological assets across several dates (Ind AS 113 and 41).
• Revenue allocation between a product and after-sales service (Ind AS 115), leases (Ind AS 116) and events after the reporting period (Ind AS 10).
• Short theory on cybersecurity, automation in financial reporting and professional ethics.

Where students lost time: the business combination question, valuing the compound preference shares, the tax question and the multi-date fair value question, along with case-scenario MCQs that needed working rather than recall.