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hamda2018 wrote:Are opentuition’s materials what helped you to succeed, or you were studying hard?
I made notes from Open Tuition notes and then fully focused on past exam papers. I found these final 4 exams easier than the previous ones, mainly because you don’t have to rote learn every single thing in the book – it seems to be knowledge along with common sense that gets you through these professional ones so focusing on the huge text books is of little help.
Make sure your answer is clear and in a format the examiner asks for.Passed first attempt 62%! The exam was kind. That’s my final exam done. So so happy after all these years. For anyone who still has exams to go, keep at it, the end is sweet and the time spent is all worth it x
I also remember a question on quality cost areas and then at the end realised I didn’t even open appendix 2 with quality cost figures in lol although the question seemed to ask for a generic description for the quality cost areas. I wasn’t too sure how to go into much detail about the figures even when I did see them?
Same. I mentioned EVA, as they only had ROCE. But I did also mention the board not wanting much change. You just don’t know what the best thing to say is.
This exam really confused me – the whole studying for it was confusing. In the exam kit for example you’d get two questions both asking for benchmarking, but when looking at the answers one would say ‘figures should be used to compare’ yet the other question which was virtually the same would say ‘students should not have used figures to compare but instead just speak about the relevance of benchmarking’ …in the exam you don’t know which avenue to go down when the question is just ‘evaluate the relevance of the benchmarking exercise’ – do you use the figures to do comparatives or just talk about relevance of overall benchmarking? So confusing.
As they say “if you don’t write exactly what is being asked for you will get no marks”.The exam itself I felt had relatively easy questions such as BSC and target costing – but hard to pin point exactly what is being asked for because during tuition you are told time and time again that the questions can be confusing and you need to read them so carefully and it’s not just about the theory, but under exam pressure your brain does not do things in that structured way lol.
I suppose it’s a hard qualification for a reason – and the hard work is worth it in the end.
Ahhhh so annoying that you can’t use paper to make notes. I have done that in every single CBE I have sat and I find it so helpful. How are you meant to use a scratch pad on screen to quickly jot down notes or calculations…really annoyed at this part. What a shambles. Why does this even matter to them? So what if people write down what questions come up, most people remember them anyway. Stupid ACCA
ikenna24 wrote:Where did you apply SFA?
I mentioned SAF in response to the question about the proposed small office sale and whether it made sense. I can’t remember the exact question but there was enough information to discuss the suitability of it, acceptability (including financial analysis) and feasibility. I remember mentioning the staff maybe not wanting to relocate to larger office based in busy cities too.
I thought the exam was ok, the only bit I didn’t really attempt in detail was the last question with the slides, and even though I used 40 minutes to read and plan, I probably wrote way too much in some questions, just in case other points I made were irrelevant. It’s always hard in exams to keep a clear head. This one was more difficult in the sense that you had to keep referring back to the relevant exhibits and pull information out and expand on it, so remembering where key points were.
I learnt loads of models etc but the only ones I used were SAF, Lewin’s change and some of TARA when talking about risks.
Hopefully I made enough relevant points to pass 🙂This is exactly how I learnt, we use MARE (materiality, accounting standard, risk and evidence) and for most questions it worked well. But in the exam the time pressure just makes your mind go blank and I’m trying to write answers so so quickly to ensure I get it all done so have very little time to properly make notes or plan answers. It’s almost like I panic type and don’t think deep enough into the requirement. I suppose that’s why exams are difficult though, they aren’t meant to be easy.
I don’t even know where to begin with this exam. I commend those who can remember every question because I haven’t got a clue the second I leave the exam hall haha! I thought the audit risk question seemed harder than the practice past papers. The trickiest bit I think is reading through all of the information given because the examiner tends to put information relating to the same issue in different part of the scenario.
I think it’s hard to know exactly what the examiner wants – the question on data analytics threw me a bit because I wanted to write all I knew about DA but the response was to the audit engagement partner, so they would already know what DA’s is. I did find myself second guessing my answers through the exam and whether I was answering the requirement properly or going off piste.
It’s one of those exams where you can study study study until you have no studying left in you, and it’s still difficult because the amount of reading to do in the exam and the time pressure just makes your mind go blank and LOADS of stuff you learnt barely comes up.
Not too confident I have passed now looking back, but who knows!!
@nieffee said:
Rossacca…. I agree with a lot of what you have written. I too also took the average for the impairment as a punt.Always after the exam I realise simple things I feel I have missed because they seem so basic/automatic at the time. So I realised at no point have I defined an asset… I was just focussing on the standards around it all. Hope I haven’t thrown away too many marks like this.
I feel there were repeated sections in this exam such as provisions and held for sale. Which are areas I am happy with. So if what I done is right, really hoping I’ve done enough
Let myself down with some of the calculations. Bonds in Q1. Only answered half that questions. Sale and lease back. I couldn’t quite focus on the proportion I was after and mentioned nothing of control of the asset. And Q4! Wow. What a disaster. No idea how to calculate the pension ( weak area for me and praying it didn’t come up) and certainly didn’t write enough to justify the 9 marks (plus 2 for professional) for the impact on PBT
I do always find my concentration lapses towards the end, so Atleast I am relatively happy with the majority of Q1 and Q2
My last exam, really hoping I’ve done enough…. I managed to score 40 in December sitting and was really winging it due to a serous lack of knowledge of the standards, which this time I really feel I have a strong grasp of.
please be my last sitting!
I feel exactly the same about everything you said here. I felt like I was repeating answers about provisions and held for sale but maybe that was correct! I wish I’d have had a bit more time just to think about what I needed to write and structure it better, could have picked up easy marks by referencing the conceptual framework maybe.
I put Grommits too as most of their sales was in Grommits. Translated all figures to Grommits to work out foreign goodwill then translated the whole goodwill figure to dollars. Fingers crossed.
This was my first paper based exam and I have to say, computer based is SO much easier in terms of you can structure your answer a lot better and delete/re write. In this paper one I wasn’t even given any draft paper to write notes so had to go straight into writing the answer, which made it look messy at times and not flow well.
In terms of the exam itself, this was my first time doing SBR, I thought the first half of the paper was a lot easier than the second half. Not sure if I answered correctly in terms of Dinars or Grommits but worked out goodwill and the impairment etc and translation reserve. The last question about pensions seemed very odd – I’ve learnt a lot about defined benefit scheme but I don’t feel like this question was worth a good 25 mark answer. The main issue was time keeping, mind went blank towards the end and felt very pressured to quickly write so much in the time given!Passed on second attempt with 63%. This was the only exam so far which I failed on the first attempt and I have to say, this time round, the exam was a lot kinder and a lot more of what I was expecting. I work full time and had an audit at the same time as the exam so super proud I actually passed it!
I am now going to take a break and then sit SBR in March, giving myself more time than the usual 9 weeks to study it!!Tips to pass: I printed out about 20 past papers and did those over and over again, plus I started the exam in section C, got those done, then B then A – I finished with an hour to go and had plenty of time to re-read all the questions/answers so my biggest tip would be do section C first. Section A is always going to be a weird one and if you start with it, you will probably be a bit put off – there will be questions you easily know and some which are completely foreign to you but that’s fine and expected, as long as you try to smash section C and then make up some marks with B and A, you will be fine! Doing section C first made me more confident for the rest of the paper.
@therockky said:
How was the EOQ question? Because there was a trick included in the question I guess.. They had given overdraft percentage and i guess you need to include the cost of this overdraft into the holding cost of inventory..because of the reason of the lost interest on the capital(cash) tied up in inventory..I am not sure anyways..
Hmmm I’m not sure I saw an overdraft cost in mine? I probably wouldn’t have included it though because the annual order/holding amount was still the same 1.5m units, so the annual overdraft cost would have been the same. The only thing we were working out was how many units to order and hold each time, through the year and whether the bulk discount was cheaper. I may be completely wrong though 🙂 none of the past papers I did had any other costs in so it seemed like a pretty each question to me…but the examiners do always like to trick you so I could have missed it??
@fmexam1219 said:
Hello, it sounds like we got the same questions.For the one asking about the interest cover, i used PBIT/Interest and gearing was given debt/(debt+equity)
With the rights issue it meant that the gearing got better as there was more equity compared to debt. The interest cover also improved as the PBIT increased by 30%.
For the debt issue I had the interest cover going down as interest increased greater than the increase to PBIT. And I had the gearing fall as the debt was up compared to debt + equity.
Is this correct?
Also for the second question, the present value of buying the machinery and the lease. I was completely stuck.
The lease was 200k a year x 4. What was I supposed to do with this figure?
Then for the buying I was able to do the tax deductible depreciation but there wasn’t a whole lot on there either.Was I supposed to multiply these figures by a discount rate? I couldn’t see there being one given?
Cheers!
For the lease vs buy question, I calculated the buy like a normal NPV calc, with initial investment going out along with any costs then corp tax savings coming in, then TAD savings coming in with working scrap value/balancing charge or allowance.
For the lease, you would do the £200k going out each year, starting in T0 I believe as it said first payment at start, then tax savings coming back in – although I did get confused and couldn’t remember what year to start the tax in!!
The DF you would use is the 8.6% interest on the bank loan to finance the investment, at the after tax rate so 8.6% x (1-T), which I believe was 6%.It was actually ok…Section C was about EOQ/Bulk discount which was easy enough and worth 10 marks, capital rationing explanation worth 10 marks, working capital funding policy explanation and a lease vs buy. I was a little confused on where to put the tax implications for lease vs buy but I got the same answer as the post above so hopefully correct. Section B was a lot of foreign currency and some WACC q’s. Section A was ok too. I hopefully did enough to get a pass although already second guessing things I wrote/calculated!!
Good luck everyone!!!
Failed with 43% – wasn’t surprised tbh, even after sooo much studying, the exam was just questioned so unfairly in my opinion. This is the only exam I haven’t passed first time, but hey ho – on to the resit!!
Congratulations everyone who passed! 🙂
@africanmall said:
Passed with 54% , I practiced a lot but struggled to get higher marks… there was a lot of information to remember.. did everyone else find this paper easy except me?No, I found it really difficult. Even though I studied so much and knew a lot, I still found the exam really tough. The syllabus is so broad and they really can trip you up with little bits of info added in the questions, which makes you re-think your answer.
Failed with 43% – this is the first exam I haven’t passed first time, and I found the paper really foreign in terms of everything I studied and what actually came up (and I studied an awful lot!!) Previously studied with Kaplan. I am going to use Open Tuition for the resit and hopefully pass.
Fingers crossed!Congratulations to everyone who passed 🙂
@liamb said:
I think the 100% allowance in first year just means you just calc whatever the tax rate was of the investment (like 15% of £600k) and use that as a positive cash flow in year one – which made my NPV positiveAhhh ok, I did that so hopefully my answer was correct 🙂
@ajaved5 said:
I got that wrong, I started inflation at t1. What about the residual value undiscounted at 5%Inflating at T1 would be correct as far as I know. The figures they give are at today’s date so if it says £100 sales and 4% inflation T1 would be £100 + 4% then T2 would be £100 + 4% + 4% and so on.
