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I passed with 55% and I am now an affiliate, the link theory also worked for me.
To pass this paper, you must understand what is being asked of you, I read the article on audit procedures vs audit evidence, and this really helped me to understand the difference.
You audit procedures/evidence must be specific, so “check the board minutes” will not be enough, you have to also state why you are checking “check the board minutes to see if the sale of the asset was agreed” for example.
Question practice is so important in this paper, I learnt/revised the accounting standards through doing the questions as the scenarios tend to be the same with a few extra prize winning marks
Understand Q1, is it business risk or audit risk? I also found working through the answer methodically helps. Also make sure you are getting your professional marks on Q1, by putting a header (1 mark), introduction (1 mark), headings and clear paragraphs (1 mark) and conclusion (1 mark).
Q1 also kills your time, so you must move on when you time runs out, I believe you have to have a go at every requirement to pass, but others may disagree.
Good luck everyone in your resits, I know how awful it is to try so hard and fail, but you must keep going! It will be worth it in the end
Just want to add, I thought the Kaplan books were not very good for preparing for the exam, I attempted past papers and the style of questioning for Q1 was not reflected in the revision texts at all.
Question 1 killed me, I’m glad I started with it as it took me the 1st 15 mins to read and digest it! This is what I put, probably wrong!
Q1 a) Risks, adopted IFRS first first time, brands should not be recognised as an intangible asset so potential mis-statement (???), accounting policies may not be aligned, outnumbered on one of the boards, control issue, reliance on the work of the other auditors.
I kept confusing myself on the numbers to work out materiality, I ran out out time so missed intra company balances, think there was some forex that would need translating.
b) can’t remember the procedures I put
c) potential intimidation threat as they were asking us to recommend acquisitions, what if it went wrong? Did we have the skills to carry out the work, professional competence threat. The audit committee should not be asking us to write working papers for going concern, transfer of management responsibility.
Q2 quite a bit in here, staff clearly needed training and were not well led by the audit manager, who should attend a formal discussion with partner. Professional behaviour threat, assistants were acting for themselves (bonus) not in the interest of the company or audit firm. Self interest through fee dependency, firm would be doing audit, forensic investigation and now training on IFRS. Quality review at end of engagement was not adequate enough as these would have been picked up before audit report signed. Self review threat as they created the inventory count procedure and would of been part of the test of controls.
Q3 quite liked this one as I work in the public sector. Performance audit, review of operations to make sure that they are value for money, audit of performance info, review of the KPIs to make sure that they are reliable and an accurate statement.
Q4 I was seriously running out of time and couldn’t think, I tried to 1st assess materiality, was the accounting treatment right and then what I would expect to see on the audit file to support the information in the financial statements.
Think I have definitely scored below 50 on this one, so expect to be back in September!
I passed with 65%, my highest scoring P paper!
I failed with 35% last time, so if you have failed, please don’t give up. Question practice and exam technique are key. The answers in the back of the book follow a very logical approach so I mastered this technique. For example, inheritance tax questions, always start with CLT’s and then work to the PETs and then the death estate. You also get marks for stating what I always thought was obvious so didn’t bother in my previous attempt!
Group payment is for 51% groups, but I got it mixed up with instalments and pratted on about large companies and dividing the limit by 3 – WRONG! I did mention about offsetting payments and refunds to improve cashflow, so scrapped half a mark probably!
How does everyone remember the exam? I literally erase it from my brain the minute I leave the exam hall! haha!
Q3 part d(?) I got the group payment arrangements mixed up with installments, I did mention that refunds can be offset against payments saving cash, hopefully got half a mark for that!
I knew nothing about R&D tax relief, I racked my brains but couldn’t think of anything to say! 6 marks gone straight away!
Was Q2 part b(?) about CGT only? As I said it would be better to dispose of the boat now and possibly make use of the losses from the painting, but you would waste the AEA.
Question one was bad for me, I’ve never been very comfortable with incorporation and I literally knew nothing about R&D tax reliefs. Did anyone else get £18k dividends? I couldn’t decide if the taxable profits included his salary or not so I just left it off???
Question two was OK, bit of a surprise to see a big IHT/CGT question, I was expecting groups! I hate when the examiner says don’t tell me about the 7 years etc – dam! take away the easy marks! lol! So benefits I said were AE, gift value is frozen and the NRB is used against lifetime gifts first???
I went for Q3 which was tricky in places and I didn’t really know the group arrangements, think I went down the path for instalments, which of course is wrong, felt like I was making that bit up! Think I said the profits for the foreign company needed to be £117k with losses used of £63kish if they were going to maximise DTR.
Q4 wasn’t too bad, but I got caught out by the dates to start with, year end on the 30th April and him leaving the P’ship on the 31st Dec means you had to time apportion everything!
On Q4 part c, I didn’t understand why you had to do tax year 17/18, as we only had profits to 30/04/2017 – so I just used that figure??
What was question 4 part a trying to ask? The requirement didn’t make any sense, I talked about how csfs focus the organisation but couldn’t really come up with much else!
The scenarios were too long, when I picked up the paper I thought it felt thicker than usual (this is my 4th sitting)
I felt really prepared for this sitting but just could digest the scenarios quick enough, seriously thinking of switching to P7 now!
To be fair to the examiner, this wasn’t a bad paper, if I fail it’ll be because I wasn’t prepared enough or my answers were vague in places.
I felt the questions had a lot of reoccurring themes, ROCE mainly.
I got negative EVA but it was massive, think I did my wacc calculation wrong? I also saw a previous question where you got marks for stating assumptions, so I put that I assumed the tax in the accounts was the tax paid and that the capital already had the leases in it, as we were given no detail.
Q2 on BPR I thought was going to be a nightmare as my knowledge on the subject is sketchy, but the question seemed to guide you to an answer, at least that’s what I hope!
I was scribbling to the last second as I did Q1 last as it was the one I felt most confident with. I usually hate Q1!
Real lack of models in this exam though which surprised me.
@cpboon & @busbycat you no longer time out of ACCA, the rules have been changed in the last 6 months to make the qualification more fair to those that start at the beginning.
You now have 7 years to pass P papers, the time starts from the 1st P paper you pass, so anything you achieve up to F9 is technically ‘safe’.
this is from the ACCA website
“Under the new rules a seven year time limit will be introduced at the Professional level. Therefore, there are no time limits for passing the Foundation level exams as part of Foundations in Accountancy or for taking exams F1-F9 at the Fundamentals level of the ACCA Qualification. However, we do strongly recommend students take exams on a regular basis as this increases the chances of success.
Students will have seven years to pass the exams at Professional level (P1, P2 and P3 and two of the options paper P4-P7). If a student does not pass all the Professional level exams within seven years, they will lose any passes that were achieved more than seven years ago and will need to retake. The seven year time limit starts when a student passes their first Professional level exam.”
Faye – we had a leaking roof in Southampton, the dripping on the floor was driving me nuts! Fortunately it stopped when the rain stopped!
Did anyone else find it weird that the requirements were in the middle of the scenario, I opened the script and saw one page of scenario and though huh? where’s the rest, then found the appendix 1 & 2 on the following page, weird!
today exam was awful, I felt more confident about the Dec one and failed with 47!
Q1 I had no clue what I was really doing and I felt the requirements didn’t flow like they usually do. Couldn’t think of enough points to warrant 8 marks on the performance pyramid without actually describing what it was.
part b) I just went through each one and said if it was a good PI or not and how it linked to snorts aims.
I can’t remember the rest of the question, I felt like we were doing a lot for very little marks.
I done Q2, part a was quite nice, couldn’t think of enough points to cover part b that warranted all the marks.
I looked at Q3 and saw stakeholder analysis and thought yes! I can do that but then read part b of the requirement and was like no way, plus the scenario was so long, I would’ve never had time to read it!
Q4 wasn’t too bad, but I felt like I was repeating myself too much, so probably scored very low.
Roll on June!
This examiner is impossible, all he keeps on about is preparing us for the real world, but this exam is like me showing up for work on my first day and my boss saying you have to write a report for the CEO and you have an hour an half! Yeah right, never gonna happen!
@sammajamma1974 said:
I left a note for the marker letting them know how awful I thought it was! Not happyI was always told never write messages to the marker, you could have wrote something else in that time that may have been worth 1/2 or 1 mark!
Massively time pressured, each requirement seemed to have two to three parts to it!
Q4 seemed ok until you started working on it
I liked Q3
Paper was massively time pressured, I had to stop myself at 90mins on q1 and move on to the other questions, two and half pages of detail is way too much to try and digest!
Stakeholder treatment in Q1 i went down the mendalows matrix route, hope that was right!
Q2 and Q3 i struggled felt like i was making the same points all the time
I feel a resit coming on!