P5: tips and tricks / thoughts about the exam during final revision

Hi,

I’m taking P5 for the first time next week. I wanted to ask people if they have specific ideas/approaches for tackling questions next week, or a strategy?

My message below is a bit long with lots of thoughts and questions, but the P5 paper really makes you think about a lot of things that can go wrong. It’s a challenging paper, but also interesting.

Generally on the one hand I am quite optimistic about the paper, but on the other hand know that it’s very easy to mess it up. Otherwise the pass rates wouldn’t be in the 28-35% range since 2010.

I’ve actually found the study quite ok, and found it really helpful when I practiced the same question twice (or three times). More often than not, I took the wrong approach (or long-winded approach) when I first attempted a question, or I didn’t watch out for the tricky parts (e.g. budgets, NPV vs. EVA/RI/ROI; deciding whether to use cash flows or accounting numbers; ignoring that I’ve actually been given the data and don’t have to calculate it; ignoring an appendix until it’s too late; using too many ratios).

When I’ve practice the questions again after a few weeks, I’m getting my answers 80-90%+ correct and taking a better approach – and watching out more for variable vs fixed costs, or whether to be calculating unit costs and contributions or focusing on the total amounts.

I mean, there really is no “one size fits all” approach to the questions. I wish the papers were that extra 30 minutes longer so you had a chance to “process” it. If I spend too long “thinking”, I’m struggling for questions two and three. Chartered Accountants Ireland give students 4.5 hours for their APM paper (which is long, but feels right given the standard of analysis wanted).

So my biggest focus for final revision and next week is to “read the ****ing” question. I’ve actually found the exam questions surprisingly clear in stating what approach you should (and shouldn’t) take. You just get a lot of information to filter, and maybe the examiner expects a lot in exam conditions for that 50% pass.

I don’t understand why people are criticising the papers for being unclear. What is unclear are the tricky bits that the examiner puts in to make you think (e.g. I saw MIRR in one question – which I thought was P4 only – and depreciation calcs using annuities etc, which for me are quite random and unfair in an exam scenario.) But the scenarios flesh out the (a), (b) or (c) part requirements quite explicitly.

Overall, I know if I rush into a question, I will probably mess it up. Patience and 5-10 mins extra thinking time seem to make a big difference.

How are people getting on with their study with a week to go? Any tips or suggested ways to tackle questions?

The only type of question I haven’t practiced are variance-style analysis questions. Apparently it’s a core topic, but I haven’t seen any quick calculation based questions. It seems you just have to understand operational and planning variances in theory.

So anyway, any feedback would be great. I want to think positive for this last study week and focus on what I can do, and not what can go wrong, or complain about how unfair the paper is 🙂