ACCA Exam Tips – June 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 Supreme Court article in January Student Accountant  or /ratio/obiter/reversing (June 05)

2 Meetings and resolutions – special resolution, special notice, special business (Dec 08)

3 Company secretary (June 05) or difference between executive and non-executive directors (June 08)

4 Debentures – ( fixed and floating ) (June 04) or comparison of debentures with shares (June 08)

5 Agent authority (Dec 01)

6 Employment law – explanation of unfair and wrongful dismissal  (Dec 07/ Dec 08) or difference between employed and self-employed (June 08)

7 Tort and remoteness of damage (Dec 07)

8 Usual question 8 – contract law with invitation, offer, counter-offer, option period, breach – advise the parties

9 Partnership  / liability of partners (June 08) / (Dec 08)

10 Insider dealing (June 09) or Money laundering (Dec 05)

Tips for ACCA Paper F5 “Performance Management”

Question 1

ABC

Question 2
Linear Programming or Decision Theory

Question 3

Budgeting written + preparation of flexed budget

Question 4

Mix & Yield variances

Question 5
Divisional performance measurement + transfer pricing

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)

1 Consolidated Statements of Income and financial Position with subsidiary and associate

2 Preparation of a company’s financial statements from an adjusted trial balance

3 Report on a company’s performance including ratio calculations. Maybe with a relatively straight forward cash flow

4 Construction contracts

5 IAS 8 on prior year adjustments and changes in accounting policies

Tips for ACCA Paper F8 Audit and Assurance (INT)

Sales system/receivables, including audit planning.

CAAT

Analytical procedures

Reasons for qualifying – Clarity statement

Events after the period end

Ethics and risk/client acceptanc

Tips for ACCA Paper F9 Financial Management

WACC / NPV / IRR
Debtors Management / EOQ / overtrading
Business Valuation etc (Q54)
Foreign exchange risk

Tips for ACCA P1 Professional Accountant

1) Something to do with External and Internal Actors – Student Accountant Article from August 2009 . Scenario involving chair who is also chief exec, too few neds, domination by one person and ineffective other board members. Role of Corporate Governance and critical commentary about why this company fails and how it could improve. 5 marks worth of definition about transparency and integrity

2) Report ( or memo ) requiring identification of business risks and recommendations of how to best manage those risks

3) Role, function and responsibilities of internal auditors and maybe a comparison with external auditors

4) Scenario question with some very questionable ethical activities – maybe incorporating problems for both directors and auditors

Tips for Paper P2 June 2010 exams

Q1 Foreign Consolidation, such as the questions Memo, Ejay and Rybi from the Revision Kit

Q2 & 3  Multiple IAS Questions (with multiple parts in a question testing various IASs: Revenue. Earnings per share, Contingencies, Share based payments, Financial Liabilities)

Q4 Recent IFRS for small and medium enterprises (May Student Accountant article)

Tips for ACCA Paper P3 Business Analysis

PESTEL/SWOT/BCG

Quality – CMMI

E-business/e-commerce/e-marketing

Ashridge portfolio display matrix

Prahalad and Hamel – (resource-based v position-based strategy)

Tips for Paper P4 Advanced Financial Management

1 Big NPV involving calculation of WACC using CAPM (gearing and ungearing betas), possibly a foreign investment needing forecasting of exchange rates,
2 Financial appraisal of a business (from sets of accounts) and calculation of Z-score (in which case formula will be given)

Section B:
3 Foreign exchange risk – futures and options
4 Either interest rate risk (futures and options), or possibly Option Pricing (share options and delta hedge)
5 Written question – impossible to guess, but possibly – “Quantitative easing”. What is it? Why do it? Risk involved in doing it?

Tips for Paper P5 Advanced Performance Management

A
1) Financial & Non-Financial Performances Measures (Including Preparation of Budget/Actual Profit Statement)
2) Learning Curves / Target Costing

B
3) Residual Income / Return on Investment / Economic Value Added
4) Written question on problems with Budgets / Behavioral Aspects
5) Decision Making and Probabilities

Tips for ACCA P7 Advanced Audit and Assurance (INT)

Q1 Audit risk ( 12/02, 6/03, 6/04 )

Q2 “Matters to consider and evidence you would expect to find / audit tests to be performed” ( 12/01, 6/02, 12/03, 6/05, 6/06, 12/06, 6/07, 6/08, 12/08 )

Q3 Going concern – Article from March Student Accountant ( 6/02, 12/08 )

Q4 Ethics ( Pilot paper, 6/02, 6/03, 6/04, 6/05, 6/06, 12/06, 6/07, 6/08, 12/08, 6/09 )

Q5 Audit reports including environmental issues, groups (Pilot paper ) and key performance indicators ( 12/08 )

Probable that “Clarity Project” will be in the exam somewhere, either directly or indirectly.