Step up from F9?

Practice, Practice and then practice some more.

honestly though when i was doing F9 and asked for advice i was told in order to pass i need to get lock doing NPV, WACC and CAPM.

I did so much NPV questions that i was able to do it really fast in the exam. What they no told me is that working capital management is also key.

John’s lectures are really good so once you follow him and do all the questions in the kit you should be good. remember to also leave some paper questions to do in the last few days before the exam that practice really put you in the frame of mind.

I cant say much about P4, i will be sitting this in Dec

I think P4 is much more difficult but doable..
Time pressure from F9 multiplied by 2, the questions may have larger scope, and there are more practice-based questions, and sometimes the question does not suggest you the method required f.e. question does say “evaluate … ” but not stating “NPV” or other method. It’s up to you what method to choose. Second example – question is about hedging choices and you have to decide which method to use – lock in rate, options, futures etc.

I think foreign currency related topics are much more difficult.
For F9 it was sufficient to learn few schemes to do these questions – NPV + inflation + taxation, basic hedges, Market Valuations, CAPM, Working Capital Management plus some article-based knowledge f.e. about Islamic finance and after practicing these all the questions from Practice & Revision Kit seemed alike and doable in 3 hours.

On P4, we need to learn much more, you need to know theory and I think there’s no universal scheme to do these questions. You can have some NPV, but sometimes you need to apply other techniques like Option Pricing, but it’s less predictable (f.e. in June that was nothing about Option Pricing in decision making but previously it used to be very often topic). You can have question about a merger, a flotation, a disinvestment and you have to apply the techniques there. Your knowledge must be very wide and it cannot be limited only to the answers for typical questions.
Plus use your calculator in the effective way – the calculations to do are usually much more complex.
I’ve learned a lot, June was my first attempt but I think I failed and start to prepare again for December. I’ve done do much, but I don’t think it’s enough and it’s Professional Level so expectations are much higher.
Time constraint can make you more nervous, especially mandatory questions full of information can take you so much time…

It’s doable.. good luck..