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@catsarah I am so sorry. I have had so many problems with ACCA and disability support it is ridiculous. One time they deleted my support requirements from my profile on a whim and I couldn’t sit the exam. Then they tried to push the blame onto me by asking me to provide evidence that they have had multiple times.
It took seven weeks of angry emails and a letter to the qualifications board to get so much as a half-hearted apology and they still didn’t really acknowledge what had happened.
The next time they deleted my other support requirement. That time I knew to watch out for it though, so I caught the problem in time. Still responded with what I can best describe as gross indifference.
(And that’s before you start on the invigilators. This time round they didn’t clock the extra time I get for stretching breaks and because I was in a side room they basically forgot about me.)
I agree though, every time I see an email come through about diversity or “the student experience” it makes me angry all over again. The worst thing is we have exactly zero power, because we can’t boycott our own professional qualifications board.
Have just passed my final exam after eight years of studying alongside having severe clinical depression. I’ve been fortunate in other ways – family support, finances haven’t been an issue, I’m generally good at exams – but repeatedly losing weeks and months to black chemicals swirling around my brain has made it very, very difficult (both in terms of my ability to study and my ability to keep up any sort of motivation)
I’ve kept going out of sheer obstinacy that I will not let this thing beat me, and victory feels all the sweeter at the end of it.
Keep going. One foot in front of the other. You CAN do this!
Other? Didn’t receive, passed, and still haven’t received.
I have had years worth of issues with the ACCA exams office so unfortunately I can’t say I’m surprised this has happened. Please do complain everyone, they will try and brush you off but that place seriously needs to sort out its s!$% and the more complaints they receive, the harder it is for them to ignore.
Passed with 60. Last exam. Trying not to be disappointed that I didn’t do better and focus on the fact that I am now DONE!
@saif2589 like I say, I didn’t have that scenario/ paper so you could well be right.
I’m talking generally, and in general it would be unusual for a charity to be operating on behalf of the public sector. It does happen sometimes, and when it does it becomes highly political.
But even in those instances the charity is not public sector in itself, and has a whole bunch of governance requirements to ensure that it is structured and run quasi-independently. I know this because the charity I look after the finances for falls into this category.
@saif2589 I didn’t sit the same paper as you so can’t comment on the details of the scenario that you were given/ whether your points were appropriate in context.
However it sounds as though in general you’ve focused too much on the government. Charities are *not* government organisations. There is the private sector, the public sector (schools, hospitals, local authorities etc) and then the charitable sector which is sometimes known as the “third sector”. The government regulates charities in the same way as it regulates lots of things, but that doesn’t mean it is directly involved.
(In fact, most governments rely on charities to do ‘good works’ specifically because they don’t want to have the hassle of getting involved in them, but that’s a political discussion for another day…)
@ac00020 hmmm, if a charity is working in a community, especially an overseas community, then I do think it has a responsibility to consider the needs and wishes of that community. How that would link back to the question of strategic objectives though is another question. A week on and the detailed nuances of what was asked in the exam are fading fast!
@avbosip Trustees aren’t principals, they are the agents with primary responsibility surely?
The points about environmental impact are relevant – the community being wider stakeholders – but charities don’t have shareholders or dividends.
My answer for that one focused on donors (as principals and therefore primary stakeholders) and their need to know that the money they donated was being spent effectively… in retrospect I probably needed a broader view, so considering the needs of the community, local governments, employees etc.. Hindsight is wonderful!
I didn’t realise that there were two different papers… I had the questions listed by cliffwong above.
I’m not going to lie, this exam was a real gift to me. I’ve only ever worked in the public and NFP sectors, and I do all the accounting for my current workplace’s charity! I’ve really struggled with the commercial focus through most of ACCA, so to be sitting my final exam and have it start with “you are the accountant for a charity…” was SUCH a relief.
Wearing a face mask for the full 4 h 50 (I get stretching breaks due to long term back/hip issues) was less pleasant. But I hear coronavirus isn’t great either, so…
That was meant to be a laughing smiley at the end but apparently the forum can’t handle it!
Congratulations to everyone who passed and keep going to those who didn’t, you’ve come too far to give up now xx
Is there anyone in the UK who did pass with a Kaplan textbook they’d be willing to sell me? I’ve got one on order, but I think I must have left it just too late before everybody was sent home and I don’t work well trying to learn at a computer. COVID-free texts preferred ?
@joewallace85 said:
am i correct saying, to calculate the value of the real option that could be sold, it was a put option? that’s the way I did it but thinking now that it should have been a call..No, you were right with put. Option to abandon.
@taimemalick said:
i see there are comments before the exam even started for me. This timezone thing is a big issue imo.So it’s currently quarter past four in the UK, our exam started at 10 and finished at quarter past one i.e. three hours ago. The first forum comment says 1:30pm, so it can’t have been made before you started otherwise you’d still be writing.
Maybe a forum settings/timestamp issue?? I’m not on best of terms with ACCA at the minute (long story) but I don’t think they’d’ve got that wrong because it would be such an easy way for people to cheat…
@kilmovee said:
The options really cost me time as I thought my first answer was wrong using the futures price and started messing etc with contracts etc oh I’m so annoyedAnd me, then I calculated the value of a put for the wrong project in Q1. I caught my error and redid it, but no time, no time.
I want to cry, my brain went completely blank and I panicked. I didn’t even put down anything for the interest swap, my instinct was that it would be of no benefit to swap with someone who has higher rates for both fixed and variable, but I must have missed something in the question because why would they even give that scenario??
Hoping I’ve picked up enough marks elsewhere to edge me over the 50%…
@ds3ce My main advice would be never to take a new paper at the first sitting if you can help it, lol
Fortunately for you that won’t happen!
I hated this paper. I didn’t finish which is unusual for me, but then I’m a numbers person and this had so many wordy questions. I ended up playing it strategically, making sure that at the very least I’d answered all of the easier bits to maximise those marks and cutting my losses where necessary \*cough\* second part of cashflow question
The one thing I did do last night was go through the ‘read the mind of an SBR examiner’ article on the ACCA website, and I ended up answering some of the questions slightly differently than I would have done as result. Whether that will have helped enough, time will tell…
@miraji Can’t remember how many marks, but the issues that were came up were intangibles (quite a bit, particularly development costs), the respective definitions of an asset, and what defines a business as opposed to an activity.
The questions were what you’d expect really – “discuss the differences between accounting treatments of xyz”, “would abc be acceptable under FRS102”, and the assets one asked you to compare definitions under current IFRS to proposed IFRS to FRS102. I could not remember that last one for love nor money.
I’m not sure whether this is what you meant, rajr1, but I found a really useful article that someone has written on exam technique here – https://opentuition.com/articles/p2/acca-p2-exam-technique/
If you’re like me and just get blind panic every time you look at a practice question then hopefully this will help us both!
Oh, also… (it won’t let me edit my comment above any more)
I chose practice questions using a random number generator. Partly because I’m a geek and that’s just how I roll but partly because it forces you to try questions you’d have otherwise avoided!
@ Nicola – Aaaargh, that is frustrating 🙁
I did lots of questions. Lots and lots of practice questions (I had a Kaplan exam kit, which I would thoroughly recommend). When I was marking myself I tried really hard to pay attention to what the mark scheme said it was looking for because they do often fall into a pattern after a bit.
