New to CTA

Hi,
I have just applied to register to be a CTA student with CIOT but would really appreciate some guidance please.
I have recently qualified as an accountant with ACCA and want to go on to do CTA but I don’t know anyone who has don’t the CTA qualification so would like some advice from anyone who has done it themselves.
I can apply for exemptions for the awareness papers and also the principles of accounting cbe, which I believe leaves me with 5 papers: the law cbe, ethic cbe, two advanced technical and one application and professional skills.
I have ordered the manuals for the two cbe’s. Would people advise to self-study these or buy an online course?
Regarding the other three papers, I’d like to study taxation of individuals, taxation of owner managed businesses and inheritance tax.
Does anyone have any advice on;
A) Which papers I should take for which exam type? I.e. if some topics more beneficial for either the technical or application exams.
B) Which method of study to use. I self-studied a lot of my acca papers but I understand this is a huge step up and from the difficulty of these exams I am assuming self-studying would be off the cards. I would appreciate anyone’s advice on courses they purchased etc.

Thanks so much to anyone who takes the time to respond.