ACCA Exam Tips – December 2011 exams

Please Note ACCA Exam 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)

Numbers in brackets indicate question to practice from BPP Revision kit

Precedent, ratio and obiter (6)

Consideration (24)

Terms (28)

Lifting the veil (63)

Resolutions and meetings (84)

Redundancy – explanation and rules (48

Auditors – qualifications, duties and powers (94 and 95)

Invitation, offer, counter-offer, scenario

Directors’ appointment and removal (88)

Alteration of Articles and binding force (69 and 70)

Compulsory and voluntary winding-up (98)

Shares and debentures (75)

Bribery Act ( Student Accountant article )

F4 tips from Kaplan / BPP 

Tips for ACCA Paper F5 “Performance Management”

Target costing / Lifecycle costing / Environmental Management Accounting (short written part)

Multi-product cost volume profit analysis

Budgetting (written part) / Time series / regression analysis

Planning and Operational variances

Performance measurement – financial and non-financial / Transfer pricing

F5 Tips from Kaplan / BPP

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.

F6 Exam tips from Kaplan / BPP

Tips for ACCA F7 Financial Reporting (INT)

q1 Consolidated balance sheet with subsidiary and associate

q2 Preparation of SoFP and SoI ( maybe Statement of changes in equity
too ) after making adjustments to trial balance or draft accounts

q3 Cash flow ( probably with an element of interpretation )

q4 Development expenditure – chat and short calculation

q5 IFRS9 – 10 mark chat

F7 Exam tips from Kaplan / BPP

Tips for ACCA Paper F8 Audit and Assurance (INT)

Q1 Inventory; stock count; computer assisted auditing techniques

Q2 Internal audit v external audit; parts of an assurance engagament

Q3 Corporate governance

Q4 Going concern and audit reports

Q5 Sampling

F8 Exam tips from Kaplan / BPP

Tips for ACCA Paper F9 Financial Management

1 Valuation of shares using PE ratio and using the dividend growth model (including using betas and using asset beta formula)

2 Investment appraisal – replacement and/or capital rationing and/or lease v buy

3 Receivables management (whether or not to offer discounts)

4 Part a) Rights issue and effect on some financial ratios
Part b) Foreign exchange risk management

F9 Exam tips from Kaplan / BPP

Tips for ACCA P1 Professional Accountant

q1 Internal control problems, role of the Chair, the contribution that neds
can make to corporate governance

q2 Corporate social responsibility – why and what

q3 Internal auditors and their role in managing risk

q4 Ethical problems – possibly a money laundering situation

possible question – instead of any of those last three – a numbers question

P1 Exam tips from Kaplan / BPP

Tips for Paper P2 exams

q1 Vertical group, maybe a “D” shape, Statement of Financial Position,
some ethics or corporate governance

q2 Accounting treatment, possibly complicated inventory or substance over
form – but it could be any IAS / IFRS / Framework-based question / Reconstructions

q3 “Various IAS accounting treatment” ( 3 or 4 different IASs rather than
a specific one as in q2 )

q4 Role of IFRS, the need for and an understanding

P2 Exam tips from Kaplan / BPP

Tips for ACCA Paper P3 Business Analysis

Q1 Normal appraisal and advice. Perhaps with takeovers and expected values

Q2 Marketing, particularly pricing

Q3 Project – project initiation documents and gateways

Q4 Strategic use of IT

Q5 Strategy and people

P3 Exam tips from Kaplan / BPP

Tips for Paper P4 Advanced Financial Management

Section A
Big investment appraisal / cost of capital calculation
Managing interest rate risk

Section B
Managing foreign exchange risk
Capital asset pricing model
Written on quantitative easing

P4 Exam tips from Kaplan / BPP

Tips for Paper P5 Advanced Performance Management

EVA

Non financial performance measures

Information needs of different business structures

Different approaches to budgeting; beyond budgeting

P5 Exam tips from Kaplan / BPP

Tips for ACCA P7 Advanced Audit and Assurance (INT)

q1 reply to an email from a partner about a new audit assignment /
assurance engagement planning exercise – maybe where there was a suspicion
of fraud last year and a change in management

q2 an ethical problem with conflict of interest implications

q3 roles and contrast of internal / external auditors, the need for and
justification of an internal audit function

q4 criticise an audit report

Make sure to read Lisa’s article from October 2011 student Accountant about “Completing the audit”

possible question – comment on the matters and identify the evidence you
would expect to find in the review process of an audit file

P7 Exam tips from Kaplan / BPP