[kitcat]

Gosh – ok – then that is pretty challenging. Maybe a good reason to do the OBU to at least give a competitive edge to the ACCA qualifications – employers are always looking for things to differentiate people.

I wonder if the lack of suitable jobs in your country will eventually discourage people from doing these qualifications. It’s a shame really.

Best of luck with your studies.

[kitcat]

Well it hasn’t exactly changed my world 😉
I’m already an SVP in a large bank so this hasn’t done anything job wise – I think the ACCA was more important career wise for me. But I’m the first person in my family ever to get a degree which I think is pretty cool! And I’m now doing an LLB and was able to enter on a graduate entry route – not because of my ACCA but because of the OBU.

So all things considered I think it was worth it. Why do you think I’m lucky?!

Are you submitting yours at the moment?

[kitcat]

I failed in my first attempt because of my presentation slides! The feedback they gave me:

******
Your presentation slides are too full and the writing is too small. A more professional looking presentation would restrict each slide to a number of bullet points which are more summarised than the current content. The font size should be a minimum of 16. You should also include more diagrams and charts to break up the writing and improve the overall look of the slides: the ratios could easily be presented graphically.
******

Keep each slide to just a couple of bullet points and maybe a picture or too. Think very basic!!! My powerpoint ended up looking nothing like anything I would do at work – looked like a child did it! But it passed 🙂

[kitcat]

@mahmoudraya – definitely do not do that! My friend failed for making that assumption – even if you embed the formula in word for example it’s not enough. I suspect they print out most of RAPs and mark it like that so they may not even know there is a formula there. DEFINITELY DO the screenshot – it will only take a minute and you won’t risk failing for something as annoying as excel! I would say do more than one example as well – I showed a Graph, a basic formula and a goal seek function. This was my very first page in the appendix.

Good luck

[kitcat]

Hi @hasanali95

I can’t share a copy of my excel sheet with you as that breaches OBU rules but I’m happy to give you the gist of what I did. I submitted one page as the very first page of my appendix and provided 3 separate examples of where I had used Excel in my RAP. I labelled all three of them with what they were e.g Example of Graph, Example of Formula and provided a screenshot for each. e.g in a formula example where I had divided one number by another I showed the formula bar.

The graph and goalseek examples where obviously screenshots of me using those functions.

I hope that helps.

[kitcat]

Hi @ashna07 – What was the feedback from the examiner ?

[kitcat]

definitely use big fonts on the presentation slides – they failed me the first time for not using a minimum of size 16 font!! I’m still secretly raging about that but I’m sure I’ll get over it one day 🙂

As rizu says – follow the guidance notes very closely. If you do something as simple as missing out a sheet proving your excel work you will fail the whole RAP.

Good luck guys

[kitcat]

@lebriville what did the examiner say ? Did you fail on the main RAP or the SLS/Presentation slides ? If it was the latter that should be a relatively easy fix and definitely no need to do your project again.

If you failed on the RAP – I guess it depends what the examiner said. I doubt it was so bad that you need to do a full rewrite.

[kitcat]

@princefury007 in the UK Degree Classifications are as follows:

1st Class
2nd Class dividided into:
– Upper second (the higher of the two)
– Lower second
3rd Class
Pass
Fail

You have a 2:2 which is perfectly respectable. In OBU – your mark is determined based on F4-F9 inclusive and the grade you get on your RAP (if you are on the borderline)

[kitcat]

Kang – what was the feedback from the markers ? Did you fail on something different the second time ?

[kitcat]

@herewego – you got a 2:1 (upper second) – congratulations 🙂

[kitcat]

@Atif you must be so stressed – sorry to hear that.

Don’t be offended by this question but I assume you wrote the whole paper yourself ? As in, you didn’t use one of those paid for services that writes it for you ? Did you look at any other RAPs as you were preparing yours ? Hopefully it is just a case that you accidentally left out some references or quotation marks. I think there’s a massive difference between an innocenent mistake like that and someone who has actually cheated or got someone else to write their paper.

I hope you hear back soon and let us know how you get on.

[kitcat]

You went the portal. Not even sure if they send emails? They didn’t when I failed in march!!

[kitcat]

I can see my letters now too. Got a 2:1. I’m in the same boat as a previous poster – under the old syllabus I would have got a 1st but here I was guaranteed a 2:1 regardless of my RAP grade. 1st would have been amazing but I can’t complain.

I’m so happy – I failed on the first attempt for something really minor so I know how people feel today if it hasn’t quite gone to plan. Get your head down right away and make those changes. Listen to every single bit of feedback the marker gave you, address every point and don’t overlook anything.

Congrats to everyone else who passed – woo hoo!

[kitcat]

@cocopops – because the results aren’t officially due until Sep 25th UK so I guess in at least 8 hours.

Most here assuming what they see on the screen when you change dashboard to results is the actual outcome – ie. in your case you have passed. I guess will know for 100% sure tomorrow. Really hope that is correct! As mine says pass!

It is a bit weird how OBU seem to drip feed part of the results.

@omerpk – I thought that about OBU. For example – I wanted to get some data from the bank of england for my project which wasn’t in the public domain. They will provide for academic study but you need a university email address. OBU offers that to full time students as soon as they enrol but only to ACCA students once the course is passed. Does kinda feel like were second rate citizens ! but honestly – if my pass really is a pass I don’t care! hahahah

[kitcat]

if you look back at previous results forum topics this does seem to be a theme. Looks like results come out a day early (this is only the second time results have been available on line to view). They seem to load the results – if you’ve failed you can immediately access the markers sheet and get the feedback – that’s what happened to me in March. If you’ve passed then you see congrats you’ve passed and links to those letters but they don’t load until the official results day.

But as I said earlier – I am desperately trying not to get my hopes up and convince myself that I need to wait until tomorrow but given this time 6months ago I saw fail, and now I see pass, I can’t help but feel a little more optimistic……..

[kitcat]

@rooster197812 – especially if there were any extenuating circumstances in that 8years that would have delayed you restarting the studies. I’d be the same – no harm in trying – but prepare for the worst answer.

[kitcat]

@rooster197812 that is such a shame if the result is valid (still a day off official date).

Will they not budge at all ? I know there is a 10year limit but you did submit before the deadline and there’s only some modest changes by the sounds of it. I’m not trying to make you feel worse, but it sounds incredibly harsh if they wont let you make the corrections.

And you’ve definitely hit the 10yr limit ? I think lots of people were given extra time when syllabus changed a few years back, but I could be wrong.

If you haven’t passed – there are lots of other options. I’m looking at University of London International Programmes. The degrees in some cases are 3years part time at home study – very reasonably priced and the academic direction set is from some great universities (like London School of Economics for the Economics Bsc).

Anyway – good luck on your P2 + P3 papers – you are very near the ACCA finish line

[kitcat]

The fact that no one is reporting a fail makes me even more anxious that this is not real.

I desperately hope it is 🙂

[kitcat]

@kwame23

I failed on my Presentation slides so here are some tips to try and save you from the same fate!!!!

– Minimum size 16 font. DO NOT go smaller or you will fail. Based on the examiners wording I failed primarily because of this.
– I used 12 slides and they didn’t comment on that so I am assuming that is an acceptable amount of pages
– Use pictures / diagrams / colours – examiner said I didn’t have enough even though i had about 8 pics / diagrams across the presentation
– I had one slide with 6 bullett points on (each 1 line only) – they said this was too much detail
– If you use numbers in the slide to highlight key points – the examiner said these should be presented using diagrams and not words / numbers

It is so hard for me to comprehend this type of presentation because in corporate world this would be considered totally unprofessional, yet here they say this is the only professional approach. Even if your slide looks good, change it to follow these rules. Do not deviate!

Good luck!
Cat

[kitcat]

Zain – yup the presentation – I’m laughing about it! Such a funny thing to fail on!!!! I’m actually quite surprised that something as minor as the font size is a reason to fail a degree paper. But no disprespect to OBU – if those are the rules, those are the rules

[kitcat]

Hi Zain – I failed the SLS for the following reason:

**********************
Your presentation slides are too full and the writing is too small. A more professional looking presentation would restrict each slide to a number of bullet points which are more summarised than the current content. The font size should be a minimum of 16. You should also include more diagrams and charts to break up the writing and improve the overall look of the slides: the ratios could easily be presented graphically.
**********************

I work in a very large bank and have to do lots of presentations to senior MD level management and if I wrote a presentation in size 16 font they’d look at me like I’d gone nuts! I guess I missed the part in the guidance pack that said it had to be >= 16font! Also the most bullett points I had on a page was 6 one line points. What they are describing sounds like a presentation a child writes! I guess I’m just too corporate these days!!

But no point getting hung up on it – the marker said in their comments that it is a minor change and to just resubmit so will probably do that in May. My overall grade doesn’t affect my Degree classification so nothing to lose in terms of resubmitting and it seems quite a straight forward process.

Good luck to everyone else!! Lots of passes here on this board which is great 🙂

[kitcat]

mimi90 – well if you’ve failed on that basis, I’ve failed too! I had a few graphs and a couple of tables with data in it – clearly from excel. Not sure what else i could have done on that front to be honest! Less than 24 hours to go – fingers crossed.

[kitcat]

2 days to go!!!!!! OMG !! Who else is really nervous ?

[kitcat]

Hi Nati

Your final point at the bottom – do you mean this is your third attempt at being successful at the RAP ?

If so – what was the feedback from the markers in your first submissions ? Did they advise that you needed to use additional models in your analysis ?

[Author]

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