My ACCA journey: 12 exams in ~1.5 years

Hey all, this month marks exactly one year when I became an ACCA member.

Took some time to recover, but now, when the dust has settled, figured to share my story.

I’ve spent many hours reading this forum and picked up a lot tips (which helped me out massively!), hence this post will be my own limited contribution.

Disclaimer: I’ll be describing the approach that worked for me. None of the points listed below will work for everyone and was written mostly with an intention to share a story rather than provide learning advise. Also, it now has been more than 2 years since I’ve started so information may be outdated.
You’ve been warned!

TL:DR
=======
-Passed 10 skills/professional exams in 5 sessions (+2 knowledge prior)
-All first-time passes. Only relied on textbooks, official ACCA material, practise tests and OT lectures (no paid ones)
-Combinations:
AA
FR+TX
PM+FM
SBL+SBR
APM+AAA

-Spent 4 weeks studying for each exam (starting 2 months ahead of each session). Was working full time, hence had to study during weekends and after business hours.
-Key advice: do take time to study past exams and ACCA articles. The latter actually contains most of the information needed to nail certain topics and are very well structured!
-Key advise #2: you can definitely do it! 🙂

Long version:
=======
I’ve started ACCA journey back in September of 2019. Wanted to move as fast as humanly possible while maintaining a little bit of sanity and social life.

Started off with a bumpy ride though. I have MSc in Finance hence figured I could get exemptions from the first 3-4 papers. But nope. The only exemption I got was F1 (BT), hence needed to pass everything else. Bummer.
Also, was working full time at Big4 at the time, yet more in a Risk/Consulting role, hence my exposure to accounting was limited.

Applied Knowledge:

1. MA
Started with MA thinking it will be the easiest and boy oh boy was I wrong! Given that I had literally no experience with management accounting, most of the concepts seemed completely alien and new to me. I had 3 weeks to prepare.
Tried watching OT lectures, reading BPP books, doing acca and BPP practice tests. All haphazardly as I didn’t have the routine at the time.
Not sure what worked but somehow I got 78 and was happy that it was over (for now).

The only piece of advice I can share – know your variances!

2. FA
Again, thought it may be easier as I had some accounting exposure. Wrong again. You need to know the basics and know them well.
Again the same approach: BPP books + practice tests + OT videos + acca practice tests. Had ~3 weeks again, scored 65.
Here I’ve figured that the consolidation exercise is extremely important and spent a lot of time practices all possible scenarios.

Overall in Applied Knowledge tier ACCA official tests helped me the most. Then BPP practice tests. I’ve used OT lectures to clarify concepts if something wasn’t clear, but mostly relied on BPP textbook for that matter.

Applied skills:
1. AA
Given my work at Big4 I had exposure to audit and (more or less) the required mindset.
Most of the audit slang was familiar to me and I actually found this exam quite easy.
Went straight to BPP practice tests with a limited exposure to books or OT videos. Sat exam in December 2019 and received my passing score in January 2020.

What worked very well for me is to go through as many practices tests as I could and prepare a list of audit risks, responses and controls (but you do need to understand them!). Be very careful with this approach – I mostly got lucky and this is not a learning strategy! Only use as a last resort.

2. FR + TX
Decided to tackle FR + TX in March session of 2020.
It’s an unusual combination, but somewhat worked due to completely different learning strategies (TX – memorizing mostly).

For TX I mostly identified core personal and business tax rules and tried to memorise as many as I could. Prepared a test on quizlet app with 100+ questions and went through it nearly every day during my commute, lunch break, etc.. It was a tedious task, but helped me out. Barely passed with 59 though…

No magic bullet for FR – spent time working through BPP practice tests and past exams. Consolidation is extremely important again, but same as with FA – the number of possible scenarios is limited hence I tried to do as many as I could to start noticing core principles in various cases.
If I could change anything here, I would probably do FR straight after FA and combine AA with TX.

3. FM + PM
Just when things seemed going my way – pandemic hit and June session got cancelled in UK… This caught me off balance a bit. Figured to that I’ll have more time (6 months instead of 3) but ended up wasting time till July to start studying…

Was actually surprised how MA helped with PM (shouldn’t in hindsight). If I need to do it again, would try to minimize the gap between these two. Again – know your variances and know them well!

I also found FM exam quite interesting. Spent a lot of time studying valuation methods, practicing NPV calculations across various scenarios. For me this was the only exam where 4 weeks wasn’t enough as I didn’t feel comfortable in several areas.

4. LW
Was putting this off as long as I could, but figured to tackle at the end of 2020 if I want to proceed to a strategic tier. Barely passed, even though I enjoy law, material seemed very dry and too theoretical. Got some completely unexpected questions during the exam, so the only piece of advice I can share is to expect anything (as meaningless as it seems in the book).

By the end of October, 2020 I was done with all skills + knowledge exams, hence could start with Strategic Professional.
As strange as it sounds, I’ve actually found this part to be easier compared to previous ones.

What helped here was mostly going through the past exams and reading articles on ACCA website. Barely used OT or even BPP textbooks for that matter.

1. SBL + SBR
SBL was a weird one. I had some consulting experience, hence most of the concepts seemed straightforward. Figured I should be able to get a good mark, but only scored 59… Unsure why, but was too busy to care at the time.

SBR while difficult in general, was reasonable. Spent some extra time on pensions, but overall the main strategy was to study past exams and try to understand the logic of sample answers. BPP practice tests helped a lot!

2. AAA + APM
Given my unexpected luck with MA and PM figured to push it even further with APM. By this point I’ve actually stated to appreciate and somewhat enjoy the management accounting.
What helped a lot was preparing list of items that should be in a report as well as KPIs and benchmarks.

AAA – same strategy as with AA. Tried to work out typical scenarios, risks and audit treatments. Felt that audit experience helped again.

Again – a risky strategy in both cases and I don’t recommend it. Overall, the questions seemed to “make sense” as odd as it sounds.