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My main advice to those who failed is read the examiners articles that have been released today on the SBL June sitting.
When I first sat this exam I thought it went ok. Then I came onto the open tuition forum and saw lots of comments that really made me doubt myself and my answers. Things for example like many saying they’d ignored the grid format in q5 (which I had pain stakingly used) .. it made me kick myself at the time. And Q2a about how the scepticism view should have been aimed more at whether we should be sceptical of the comments of the expert reviewer. And many people using Models like Tucker’s and SAF which I had avoided. Needless to say I felt very sure I’d failed.
But reading the examiners article they have mentioned all of these points saying they were weak choices and did not score well and it turns out my original feel for the exam going quite well was actually spot on.
Read every examiners article after you do the corresponding past paper. So many times they mention not falling into the pitfalls of models and explaining how candidates misinterpreted the requirement. I can’t stress enough how important the examiners articles are for this paper.
I studied for this in 4 weeks with a Kaplan text book, open tuition videos and ACCAs past papers and exam articles along side a full time job. I knew I’d left it too late (I couldn’t even get on a tuition or revision course as they’d already all started) but didn’t want to miss the sitting and I’m glad I didn’t give up! There are some amazing resources out there so make use of them! 🙂Passed first time with 63. My journey is over. No fails, although I was sure this one was going to be my first. The exam did feel odd I wasn’t sure what to make of it I but im glad it’s over. 4 hours is too much.
It’s wierd because I do remember seeing something like that in my initial read-through.. but then we I got into the question I vaguely remembered it but couldn’t actually see it anywhere I checked a few times to try and find where I’d first seen it. Now to have someone on here mention it too gets me thinking, is it possible it was written in the little italic bit where it says what the professional skills marks are for
Q1 was 14.
Then 2 a I think was e10
Part b was 6.Then 16 for Q3
Q4 a was 12 and b was 10
Then 5 was 12
But I’m afraid I don’t remember the professional skills mark breakdown
Think I might have been the only one that spent time on 2b and I wish I hadn’t as I ran out of time towards the end. I agree the question was poorly worded I just wrote about how the criticism of his articles should have been picked up if they’d carried out due diligence on new authors. Also said you could actually internally review the foot notes and quotes to ensure they are genuine and quoted by sources other than oneself. Also to maybe consider more than just one external reviewer as historians can have difference if opinion.
Agree I hated that layout for the last question I kept page portrait and was completely squashing in my recommendation. Plus it specifically said to write the notes in the sections of the table not afterwards like you would with presentation slides. It was an odd choice I feel my answers may not have been readable or in depth enough.
Agree that nothing in the paper was that ground breaking. The time was just incredibly tight.. I’m hoping I e done enough to pass but will kick myself if I’ve a few marks off as just simply better choices like ignoring the layout at the end would probably have served me a lot better.
First attempt at this. Passed 77% I can’t tell you how sick i felt opening the email. As I had felt this was a weak exam for me. For those giving it another go June dont be discouraged. I prepared for this in six weeks only using the Kaplan study guide, the exam kit, and the free online ACCA videos on Vimeo. This exam is so much more technique based than the others don’t get bogged down too much in the learning the stuff just jump right into past question debriefs and review each chapter area as you’re going along.
I just have SBL left to sit in June which I hope has some cross over areas with APM as I have left it a bit too late. But I will use the same strategy. Past questions alongside the study kit from day one
I started with Q2 as in brief review of the 3 questions I for some reason felt this was my best area. Regretted that later when running out of time and rushing q3 which once getting into it seemed much easier.
I don’t think I took the approach most here have said they did evaluating each product group for ABC. Instead I went for something a bit more like past paper question Dibble March/Jun 16 part b. The question had mentioned improvement to strategic planning so I went down the customer and product analysis route drawing things like more accurate pricing and costing etc from the scenario. In hindsight I probably wasn’t detailed enough. But as it had specified ABM rather than just ABC alone I got the impression it wanted more than just whether ABC was appropriate for each product which in past paper dibble was part A.
Its likely I got this wrong and won’t know until the examiners article comes out. But I would definitely recommend viewing that past paper as to me it was the most similar to the Q2 this sitting.
Hi have to agree with @lukman94.
The 35% ratio given clearly had the calculation method after it stating (debt/debt+equity) which means that the debt is 35% of total capital, therefore equity is the remaining 65%. It is the opposite to how it was calculated in the Iron chicken past/specimen paper which did use (debt/equity).
I’d say if you have sat P4/AFM this was a pretty common check you’d look for when calculating the WACC. Not to mention the full WACC formula is made up of [equity/debt+equity]Ke+[debt/debt+equity]Kd-1T . Essentially the second party of the formula is the 35% (you then just had to multiple for the Kd adjusted for tax)
It did seem a bit unfair though for those that hadn’t maybe sat AFM to switch it up like that following the 18 specimen. However i doubt there was more than one mark available for this, so I wouldn’t fret.
I found Q1 of the paper quite doable, and Q2 and Q3 reasonable, the issue was definitely time. Whilst in Q1 the scenario was roughly in the order or the questions making it quite easy to follow through and answer bit by bit, I found that Q2 and Q3 seemed to have me jumping back and fourth in the long text wasting quite a lot of time and getting a bit lost in the information.
fingers crossed to everyone.