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Passed with 68% first time. I moved from AFM to AAA as I failed that twice, so just thought I’d be better off with a change. I can’t advise anyone on what to do but I can tell you guys how I studied for AAA.
1) Watched all the videos. I think you can do it in half a day.
2) Created a basic spreadsheet with all the exam questions form the Kaplan kit, split as per the real exam, so Section A and B questions and just created about 15 exams from all the questions, you may have some exams that are only question B questions, but the goal is to get 1 or 2 exams done a day and definitely 4 done on the weekend.
3) For the 1st attempts, make sure you really read what the questions are asking and copy the answers down in your own short hand, so you get used to what the marker is looking for. For example, a Section A question that asks for an analytical review will offer 6 marks just for the ratio calculations relevant to the question for both current and prior year, as well as another 4 marks max for stating the materiality and a trend calculation. Add that to 4 professional marks and that’s 14 easy marks. (Write the questions out on your answer sheets. This makes the review phase much easier)
4) 2nd attempts involve you doing the questions, but try to focus on answering the questions as best you can. Some of my exams took 5 hours as I had tea breaks and lunch/dinner. The reason I did it this way to to get my brain thinking and hopefully remember bits of information to add to the answer. Then go through the answers again and add bits you missed. After the second attempts, you should have basically completed the exam kit twice now and should have around 50 pages of exam questions and answers to review.
5) Final Stage – Pick or create 5 exams, 2 you found quite good to do and 3 you failed, for example, I think the question I had the most difficulty with was Magnolia, maybe Hyacynth. All I would do is read the answers to that question everyday, picking up the key points and guess what a very similar question came up in my exam. Also, attempt all the past exams and specimens. The good thing here is that the exam kit if full of past exam questions, so you are really doubling up.
IMPORTANT: When it comes to marking your own exams BE RUTHLESS. If there were 3 marks for an answer and I felt it wasn’t exactly right, I would give myself 1.5 or 2. Basically throughout all my exam practice, I hardly ever got over 55%. You’ll find that you will get a lot of marks between 44 and 55% doing this, which will keep you focused on learning new answers.
6) Pre exam: For me I had an issue with audit procedures, which could easily be worth more than 15 marks in an exam. I recorded myself stating procedures for specific situations I was worried about not remembering (No longer than 10 minutes) and would listen to it in the car or just before I did a practice test. So, I would listen to that on the way to the exam centre and read the answers to the questions I had trouble with just before we had to pack our bags away(Magnolia, for me)
This is brutal, you will feel mentally drained, physically tired and worried, especially if you try to have some down time, thinking you’ve wasted a studying opportunity, but, if you do the above, there is some slack in the processes.
Good luck.
Passed. 70% first time. I did feel it was a really easy exam but the time pressure was insane.
I did it with Kaplan exam kit and text book and Open Tuition lectures.
In my opinion you need the following;
1) Time to study the syllabus properly. I work, so took 6 months to study rather than the normal 3 I take.
2) QUESTION PRACTICE!! This is so important. Normally I give myself 6 weeks of question practice but for this one I had 3 months. If you do that you get a sense of what the question is asking for and how to relate it to the the case study
3) Watch and re-watch the professional marks videos. These count for 20 marks in the exam and you need to know what you are supposed to be doing when asked to evaluate, analyse, etc.
4) Read the marker’s comments on ACCA. They tell you what they are looking for.These 4 things will get you through this exam 8/10 times. If anyone is thinking about what they should do after this exam. I’ve done APM and it’s very similar in style.
GLA
Bit confused about this one. It felt really easy, but, 4 hours for me was not enough. I could’ve done with another 45 minutes. Hopefully I did enough to pass.
Q1) Corp Gov – Pretty easy to get 7/8 issues with board
Q2) Ethical issues with releasing book as is – Being sceptical of the ‘expert’s’ views + perceived lack of commissioning and review committees is what I wrote for 2b.
Q3) S,A,F. I did mine as Financial and Non Financial, only because that’s what the question asked. This was more a non financial cultural one as well as stating there was no where near enough financial data to assess the company’s performance.
Q4) Internal controls issues and how to handle them
4b)Website – Focus on Attract and Retain customers. CRM, 6 Is for this one
Q5) Table on how various elements of the company are viewed and actions. Can’t remember what I did here, but it was done in the remaining 4 minutes I had left. There were about 10 marks for this so I imagine it needed some notes with it.Just typing this up makes me see how easy it was but for some reason, I just didn’t have enough time. Annoyed with is if I don’t pass.
GLA
Passed first time with 67% and not quite sure how I got that as section C was horrendous, especially the NPV with probabilities, but hey ho, another one down.
GLADon’t think there is. My experience is that I’m booked on F7 in June, which is my final skill exam and the booking portal is allowing me to book the professional papers. I would sit F4 staright away if I was you as it’s probably the easiest paper to sit.
This was an ok exam. I felt sections A and B were pretty good and the 2nd question in Section C about TERP and debt/equity was ok too. The really annoying thing wasn’t so much that the NPV question in section C was with probabilities, which is actually harder than a simple probability calculation, but that the question isn’t taught/looked at in any detail on any of the provider sessions. I actually did attempt to practice a very similar question in the Kaplan exam kit (The only one in the entire book) and it seemed so long to answer, I made the decision that it was unlikely to come up. Not one of the best decisions I ever made.
The most annoying thing about this exam is there was hardly anything on Working Capital and nothing on WACC or even a section C question on business valuation/assessment.Oh well, not too confident on passing, but, I never am.
GLA
Not sure if this will help, because it basically means you need to cover the whole syllabus, but you will defo get inheritance, cap gains and vat in section B. Make sure you know business cap gains.
Section C: Most likely a difference question of employed vs self employed for the 10 marker and I got a corporation tax question, including losses and a personal income tax question. The one common thing in section C for me was that they all needed a capiatl allowance working, which, if you know how to do it, accounts for about 9 marks out of the 40 in section C.Good luck.
64%, 1st time pass. Really happy with this, because I didn’t have the time I normally have to study properly, so took a chance on not really studying corporation cap gains and shares, etc and pretty much my whole C section was on that, so pretty relieved.
Hi,
I will be taking this exam in March. What types of questions are likely to come up in section C?
Thanks.
Section A and B were awful for the most part. Some of the MCQs I know I answered incorrectly because I flagged them and went back to them but was shattered as I could’ve done with another 20 mins.
Section C was pretty straight forward. One of the questions was very similar to the Kaplan interim exam question on relevant costs and the other was assessing an education provider’s performance mainly with non financials. I think I did ok in them, but imho, I would probably need 70-80% in Section C to pass this exam.
