Technique

Hello Ken,

I have been practicing questions for the past month and finding myself crossing the time limit each time. I give myself 9 minutes to read question 1 (which Im capable of and also to annotate the points), 20 minutes to plan my answers and 68 minutes to write the answers.

My main problem areas are in planning and writing answers.

There are so many points in question 1 and different points in different paragraphs on different pages can sometimes link together.

How much detail should I go into for 1 mark? Should I give reasons for every sentence I make?

For example, I am currently considering an acquisition of Co A:
Approach 1:
“Co A has experience in working with people in country X and also has effectively worked with the regulators and government. Such would be valuable to me when entering a completely new country.”

Approach 2:
“Co A has experience in working with people in country X, which will be valuable to gaining knowledge about the local culture, allowing better employee management and advertising.”
&
Co A also has effectively worked with the regulators and government, evidenced by the praises made by those parties towards Co A. Healthy relationships with government can lead to organisational success.”

Which approach would you follow?

I am currently using the approach 2 to plan and answer questions and I will still have about 2-4 points not included in the answer sometimes. It seems to me that the exam answers often (not always) use approach 1, but I am afraid that such answers would be too brief to gain any mark.

Question 2:
When you are required to calculate financial ratios, would it be safe to assume that 2 set of ratios (co A and industry) are worth 1 mark?

Question 3:
I notice that some exam answers do use bullet points.
For example:

“…………….the proposed acquisition will be feasible because of the following reasons:

– <point 1>

– <point 2>

– <point 3>”

Each points are about 2 to 3 lines long. Will this be acceptable?

I apologise for asking so many questions.
Hoping you could help me on these, thank you so much, Ken.