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Eventually passed AFM, third time lucky!
Finally an affiliate – it was a long journey. Many thanks to OpenTuition for providing invaluable resources which helped me a lot along the way.
@Mateusz: You can apply for an administrative review but the general consensus is that it makes very little sense because they would just re-calculate the marks but wouldn’t review the exam again. As far as I know, each marginal fail (a little less than 50%, not sure how much exactly) is checked three times. I was also tempted to apply for that because I had 49% in the December session but eventually decided it’d probably make more sense not to spend the money and just prepare for the next attempt.This is my last paper, and it was a retake at that and I got… 49%. Previously had 46%. You can imagine how gutted I am. But I’m not giving up yet!
Passed with 55% – very happy about that as this was my first attempt at the exam (I failed another one but that’s a different story).
Actually, I expected a higher pass mark as I completed the exam in full and was quite confident about my answers, but considering that a lot of people repeatedly fail the exam for seemingly no reason, I’m not going to complain about that.
I actually switched from AAA to APM after I failed AAA quite disastrously. To me, APM is far more manageable (and far more interesting as well) but it obviously depends on the person.
Failed with 45%. I actually expected a total disaster because I completely messed up the hedging question, left out some written bits due to running out of time, and spent way too much time on the NPV question due to struggling with the CBE exam format and the formulas not working in the spreadsheet…
Now, my strategy will be to prepare for the CBE format as much as I can and to start with section B (I did that with APM and it worked). It’s good to have a fresh mind when you approach a hedging question because you can easily get bogged down in details and spend too much time on it.
Overall, I’m relatively comfortable with the material but I’m not good with corporate restructuring and capital reconstruction or with company valuations. I’m quite sure at least one of the topics will come up in December…
In the end, 45% may not sound that bad but it’s for sure very far from good!
I sat APM and AFM. Whilst I was quite happy with APM, AFM was totally disastrous for me and I’m quite sure I failed epically with that one.
I didn’t really hold out much hope that I’d become an affiliate but now I’m totally sure that I’ll have at least one exam to pass in December, providing the December session won’t get thwarted by covid-19… That would really be a shame.
I didn’t receive the email and judging by the tone of the official answer, this means that I have failed unless something unusual has happened. I don’t think it’s wise to count on that (all the best to others though!) – at least I’m less anxious now, however, I will be really gutted on Monday if I find out that I’ve failed both APM and AFM.
I sent another message and it… disappeared. Maybe I had written that for too long…
What I can say is that I didn’t receive the email so I don’t hold out any hope for becoming an affiliate. I was almost 100% sure I failed AFM, though I was relatively happy with APM.
Judging by the tone of the official reply from ACCA, there is very little chance for those who didn’t receive the email, so I won’t count on it (all the best to others though!).
And congratulations to everyone who has received the email! I know from experience how hard it is to get there.
@Iryna: Impressive!
I’m pretty happy with the results myself. I have passed SBR even though I barely wrote anything for question 4 and my performance in the other questions was far from good, to say the least.
I however failed AAA as I had expected. It was just 33% so by no means a marginal fail. I intend to do much more timed questions (well… I just read questions and answers last time, to be honest), revise my exam technique and revise the way we are expected to answer questions. I’m not sure if this will be enough of a change, but I’m not switching to a different paper yet.
It would be too long to explain everything but in short, I’ve decided that AFM and AAA are the best combination for me, and I could benefit from studying for AAA more than APM. Maybe I’ll become an auditor at some point too. Rather unlikely but I don’t rule that out. Besides, I’ve passed F4, F7, F8, P1 and studied for P2/SBR – and all of that is tested at AAA.
As a side note, I actually enjoyed F5. It was probably my favourite exam from the Skills module. F6 was by far the hardest to learn but probably F8 was the hardest to pass.
I’m very curious of what the global pass rate for SBR is for the December session. If it is still at around 50% then either waffling is tolerated much more that for P2, or the pass mark was scaled.
By the way, I’ve disabled the option to receive text messages with exam results. No more extra stress! Tomorrow morning is just as good, and I’ll be wide awake and ready for work.
I took SBR and AAA in December.
Honestly, I don’t expect I’ve passed either of them, so any pass will be a nice surprise. That’s probably the reason I’m not totally obsessed with waiting for the results, even though I’m feeling a bit nervous at times.
I’m not even that mad at myself because SBR was insanely hard and not really what I had expected, whilst AAA seemed pretty reasonable but it’s always very difficult to pass. It was my first attempt and given that I’m not an auditor and I’m not very good at written papers, I don’t expect very much.
I have yet to take AFM. My wishful thinking is that I could finalise all exams in March but I’m not sure if I can handle three professional exams at one session. And I also have my job, which is still my priority over finishing ACCA.
Also, it was technically a sale and leaseback transaction. I wrote something about them but not too much. Really struggled with time to write.
Overall, I’ve felt the exam was pretty unfair, to be honest.
Whilst you could possibly defend question 1, question 4 is absolutely indefensible. Was this really trial sat? And by whom?
I recall I read a few times that current issues were going to be tested less in SBR than P2. Not only is that not true in the slightest and they were featured just much, but the questions were basically knowledge based rather than principles based like in P2! And they were all compulsory for good measure.
I suspect the next few sessions will be just as hard if not harder, I’m afraid. ACCA clearly does not intend to make the qualification any easier than it was, and this is basically to offset the fact there are just 13 exams, not 14. The first paper could just have been a gift for the brave…
Also, P2 was a very challenging exam but you could feel it tested your accounting skills to the highest limit possible, and it was usually very fair (even though I marginally failed it). There was something prestigious about it. This one doesn’t feel like a real test of accounting skills but a weird exam which aspires to be practical and forward-looking but is it, really? Now, it is basically testing how many obscure areas of the syllabus you have covered, how lucky you are and how fast you can write.
I was reasonably happy with my performance (and I still am, really) and I got 46%. This is the first time I’ve failed an ACCA exam so I am a bit gutted. I had hoped I could put “first-time passes” on my CV, and have a bit more chances in the seemingly hopeless quest of searching for a job in the UK, which is my long-term goal. I mean, it was more of wishful thinking than anything else but still, I didn’t expect P2 to put an end to my dreams. If anything, I was more afraid of some other exams and much more dissatisfied with my performance in some past ones.
I actually even feel like requesting an administrative review because I don’t think the exam went so bad for me. Neither do I think I could get much better in terms of my understanding of the topics, or exam techniques. I just know my own limitations.
In my opinion, questions 2 and 3 are probably too much riddle-like to really test application of knowledge, especially given the time pressure. But, this is probably my frustration speaking for me…
All I can do now is congratulate the happy ones who are now past the exam. In a way, I’ve enjoyed studying for it, but it apparently doesn’t seem to like me!
From my experience though, cramming is often very helpful in terms of your exam results. At least it worked for me a few times. The problem is, it does harm to your health but so does studying ACCA as a whole, especially if you have a full time job and some responsibilities at home.
I also did a SWOT analysis for question 1a). I think it should work in this case. I messed up the definition of strategic drift a little, though I was pretty close – I described it as a ‘divergence from the established strategy over time’ or something along those lines.
For those who attempted question 3 – how did you find it? Do you remember what you spotted?
I basically chose it because I was even less prepared for the project management area. I was ready for smaller parts but not for a whole question devoted to that topic.
Overall, I’d second some of the above comments. The exam wasn’t bad but I chose hard anyway mostly due to very high time pressure (and of course, I could have prepared better).
As it’s my first session with professional exams (I sat P1 yesterday), I kinda feel I’m on the verge of giving up to be honest, even though I passed all fundamental exams first time.
The biggest problem is that I still don’t completely get the marking scheme as there are huge differences between ‘model’ answers from examiners, BPP or Kaplan and some tips on here or the technical article re: P3 marking scheme. For example, should introductions be included? Should they be concise or longer (because just dumping knowledge isn’t enough)? How can I ‘explain’ anything in short, concise points? It seems easier said than done. To me, ‘explaining’ always meant something longer and most importantly, understandable for the reader.
Another thing is that my handwriting is slow. I managed to attempt almost every part of the paper (except for those I had no idea how) but I still feel that’s an issue.
To be honest, I’m afraid I’d have to know every part of the syllabus, all technical articles and all responses from past questions *by heart* to qualify. That’s the only way to eliminate any ‘thinking time’ from the exam, and probably only that could allow me to finish everything on time and hopefully get it more than 50% correct. At least I’m fast with the calculator so maybe P2, P4 and P6 could be better if I’m well prepared for them!
Sorry for the rant!
