ACCA Exam Tips – December 2010

Please Note Tips should not be relied on – they are only intelligent guesses.

Their only purpose is to give you suggestions for topics to concentrate on in your last few days of preparation.

Do not exclude other topics from your overall preparation.

Tips for ACCA F1 – F3

No exam tips available – Multiple choice questions cover entire syllabus

Tips for ACCA F4 Corporate and Business Law (Eng)

1 Interpretation of statute

2 either rules relating to acceptance of offer (16) or question on terms (25)

3 either agency (49) or partnership (50) or (55)

4 veil of incorporation (57)

5 directors (87) (96)

6 auditors (89)

7 employment (41 – 48)

8 typical question 8

9 types of investment (69)

10 liquidation (95)

(numbers in brackets are Questions to practice from BPP Revision kit)

Tips for ACCA Paper F5 “Performance Management”

1 Variance analysis – mix & yield

2 Learning curves and Target costing

3 Divisional financial and non-financial performance

4 Throughput accounting

5 Decision making under uncertainty (maximin etc.)

Tips for ACCA Paper F6 “Taxation” (UK)

F6 is very predictable so no tips as such Practise as many exam standard questions as you can. Make sure you do to time.

After the 15 minute reading time you have 1.8 minutes per mark. If a question is split between part (a) 10 marks and part (b) 10 marks then only spend 18 minutes on part (a) and then move on to part (b).

Look at all the requirements of the question, can you answer an easy parts first, for example one part maybe standalone and on something very straightforward, so do this part first You do not have to answer the questions in the order they are set, if question 5 is the easiest do this one first.

Question 3 will be the hardest so leave this until last but make sure you leave 36 minutes to answer it. Do not panic if you can’t remember something in a question, don’t spend too much time trying to remember it, have a go or even guess. Then you can move on to other parts of the question. Above all you need 50% to pass, so find the marks you can do. There will always be more than 50% of the question which is examining core areas of the syllabus, only a few marks will be fringe areas, but you do not have to worry about these as you can find the 50 marks you need to pass.

Tips for ACCA F7 Financial Reporting (INT)

Q1 Consolidated Statements of Income AND of Financial Position – question
Pedantic ( 31 ) subsid, but no associate

Q2 Preparation of Financial Statements – any of the questions from the BPP
revision kit (5) Winger through to (13 ) Pricewell AND questions 24 – 26
Telenorth – Partway

Q3 Cash Flow AND report (71 ) Bigwood

Q4 Provisions and contingencies (51) Promail

Q5 Impairment of assets ( 21 ) Advent

(Numbers in brackets indicate questions to practice from BPP Revision kit)

Tips for ACCA Paper F8 Audit and Assurance (INT)

1 Sales system internal controls and weaknesses

2 Corporate governance

3 Analytical procedures perhaps with reference to trade payables and accruals

4 Sampling

5 Audit reports, perhaps combined with events occurring after the reporting period

Tips for ACCA Paper F9 Financial Management

1 Inventory control calculations + written on Miller-Orr cash management

2 NPV with inflation and tax + IRR, payback period, accounting rate of return

3 Business valuation, with WACC and CAPM + calculation of asset beta from equity beta

4 Foreign exchange risk – forward contracts and money market + written on other methods available

Tips for ACCA P1 Professional Accountant

Dominant director question, corporate governance ( 46 )

Kohlberg ( 54 )

Gray, Owen and Adams ( 41 and 44 )

Deontology and teleology ( 40 )

Internal and external auditors comparison ( 29 )

Corporate social responsibility ( 52 and 50 ( not part e ))

Nominations committee ( 10 ) and risk committee ( 23 )

Tips for Paper P2 June 2010 exams

Question 1

Consolidation  – cash flow ( favourite ) foreign ( possible ) or “traditional” ( less likely ) 35 marks.

Other 15 marks ethics or environment

Questions 2 and 3

Typical questions from P2 – probably one report to directors about a specific IAS ( possibly Revenue – but could be anything! ) and various problems which the directors are facing. The other covering a variety of IAS / IFRS and a comment about proposed treatment.

Question 4

Current issues. Check out Graham Holt’s article on SMEs from April Student Accountant ( ? ) and Lisa Weaver’s article from the October edition on leases, deferred tax and management reports

Tips for ACCA Paper P3 Business Analysis

Question 1
Company appraisal/generic strategies, strategic clock; Ashridge portfolio display

Questions 2 – 4
Project management especially project initiation document and project manager
The strategic use of IT Company structure, culture and ethics

Tips for Paper P4 Advanced Financial Management

Section A

– WACC and discussion of different methods of financing

– Business Valuation

Section B

– Option pricing

– Foreign exchange risk management

– Discussion about the merits/risks of quantitative easing

Tips for Paper P5 Advanced Performance Management

Section A

– Preparation of budget and actual profit statements
Importance of non-financial performance measures

– Report on divisional performance – discussion of trends from several years accounts
RI / ROI / EVA calculations

Section B

– Decision making under uncertainty (maximin etc..)

– Transfer pricing

– Reward schemes

Tips for ACCA P7 Advanced Audit and Assurance (INT)

q1 Business risk tied up with financial statement risk ( Hydrasports )

q2 Going concern – theory ( Audit Reports ) and scenario ( Cinnabar )

q3 Scenario and then “Comment on the matters you should consider and
state the audit evidence you should expect to find” ( loads of questions in
the revision kit like this )

q4 Ethics – 3 or 4 ethical issues ( Bartholeme ) and / or money
laundering (Dedza ) ( Naze )

q5 Audit reports – critically appraise ( Pluto ), ( Cleeves ), ( Axis )

Words in brackets refer to questions in the BPP 2010 revision kit

Tips by other providers (BPP, Kaplan, LSBF):

F4, F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, P1, P2, P3, P7