IRR Mystery!

By the sounds of it you are confident that you fully understand the procedure for calculating IRR. This is what is important for the exam, not whether you get precisely the same answer as the marker. To answer your question, most likely the ACCA will give you 100% in this instance.

There will always be slightly different answers with IRR, whether this be due to different assumptions about the number of decimal places to use, the d.f’s chosen, etc.,

Overall, what the marker is especially looking at in F9 is the approach you are adopting with your answer – he wants to see that you actually understand what it is you are talking about! The marker loves “argument”, especially well presented argument.

Whether you happen to achieve the same numerical answer as the examiner is often immaterial or irrelevant! It has to be said that quite often students waste valuable time searching for the correct answer in the exam.

It is much better if you can practice outlining your logic, your assumptions, your layout, your knowledge of specific procedures, etc in as timely and as neat a fashion as possible….. always being mark-time aware.

Perhaps to refresh your feelings about what good EXAM TECHNIQUE entails would be helpful to the situation you have described here…. Good Exam Technique does not necessarily mean finding the right answer …. !

Hope this helps,

Regards, Kevin Kelly

Hi,

Your questions are good questions but quite difficult to answer in this forum – they are in effect a mini revision lecture in themselves.

The guidance I tend to give students concerning your questions on the discursive parts of the exam goes something like this;

(1) Make sure that you study ALL of the syllabus …. that you have a good overview of the syllabus. This is especially important for the THEORY parts of the exam, and remember the THEORY WILL cover 50% of the available marks.

One way of obtaining this OVERVIEW of the syllabus is to work your way through ALL chapters of the OT Lecture Notes.

When you have done this you should then practice answering as many past theory questions as possible, watching that the length of your answers corresponds to the number of marks available (ref. EXAM TECHNIQUE). For example, 5 marks available might suggest building your answer around 5 main points or headings…..and no more!

(2) 50% of the marks are available for calculation parts. Here you should rehearse your APPROACH to the main topics or syllabus areas that usually are examined; Investment Appraisal, Cost of Capital (especially WACC) Working Capital, Financial Analysis, Foreign Exchange and so on.

Their is no magic formula I can give you. BUT what is important is that you have a well thought out APPROACH, LAYOUT (or what I call TEMPLATE) for each major area of the likely numerical questions, as above. Then you must practice YOUR approach against as many past ACCA F9 exam questions as possible, comparing your approach to the MODEL answers. In this way you build up SPEED and CONFIDENCE in your methodology.

The EXAMINER tends to look for a good OVERALL understanding of the syllabus and the questions he sets reflect this – they can be on any area of the syllabus. This is especially true of the theory questions he sets.

Have a close look at the structure and the SPREAD of the exam questions as you prepare/study. What all of this amounts to also is that “question spotting” is a wholly unwise strategy for F9.

(3) Finally, you MUST be prepared to answer ALL PARTS to ALL questions in the EXAM … even if you think you have nothing to say. I strongly advise you to practice writing an answer to a question part that you believe at the outset you know nothing about…you’ll be surprised what comes to you!

Finally, be sure to work you way through ALL of the OT video presentations as well as the OT Lecture Notes. Then keep going over as many past papers and Revision Kit questions & solutions as you can.

Hope this helps. Good luck, Kevin Kelly