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Regarding learning outcomes, to be frank with you mate no one remembers any of the learning outcomes, at this stage it is all about passing your exams.
That said you should choose your options i.e (P4 to P7), based on what you do and what you may want to do in the future.
As an example I currently work in audit so had to take P7 (which is also a very nice paper by the way), and P4 as I hope in the future I will be working with DCF methods.
I disagree with @Elia-shar-ek with a few points:
“4. nothing comes out of syllabus ( unlike p5 )” – This isn’t true, there will always be something out of the syllabus. Case point: June 14 paper I did, Q1 Part 5 ii I think wanted you to talk about agency costs. Although that is in the syllabus it is very tiny. Also one of the options questions was about restructuring and I didn’t encounter a question like that before. That said, I still believe about 40% of the paper at least is predictable.
“2. extremely fluent in basic hedging techniques like swaps , currency swaps (even most difficult ones)” – I wouldn’t say this is extremely fluent, it is very good, and gives you an excellent idea of how things are hedged, but in reality hedging transactions are quite complicated in nature; but sure it gives you a good understanding.
In terms of learning outcomes, the main and biggest one is DCF and advanced DCF techniques and valuations of businesses (still DCF mostly) You would only take this paper if you prefer numbers instead of writing and/or you wanted to move into this area in the future. In my case it was for both reasons.
As I said for the options paper you need to be thinking to a little extent what you want to be doing in the future. If you want to move into tax at some point for example, you may actually want to consider P6 instead.
To highlight this, I have thrown away all my notes except for P2 (main accounting exam duh, lol), P4 (what I want to do in the future) and P7 (what I do now), and kept F6 (tax – just in case for reference in the future).
P5 supposedly is good for management accounting in the future, but based on what I’ve seen of the paper and my understanding of management accounting, the link isn’t that strong anyway. Most of management accounting to an extent still revolves around basic debits and credits, and creating budgets.
I think I will give my opinion on this since I passed P4 comfortably. Although I didnt do P5 I had access to all the lecture notes, lectures and revision notes as I borrowed from some friends to make a choice between the two.
As people have said, the choice will depend on whether you are strong with numbers (and prefer numeric papers) or wordy essay style questions (P5). It will also depend to an extent on how well you did at F9 the pre-cursor to P4.
Although there is a link between P5 and F5, it isnt as strong as F9 and P4 in my opinion.
I chose P4 personally as it plays to my strengths (i.e numbers more than words). The course material for P4 may be more tricky to understand but the exam is relatively straight forward.
P5 actually has one of the lowest pass rates for three very simple reasons:
i) the course content and syllabus is not that difficult to understand so conceptually easier so people underestimate the exam and dont put enough effort into it
ii) people think it is “F5 with some P3”. It isnt, although there a some overlaps its a complete different beast.
iii) the exam is difficult. Unlike P4 where it is very obvious what the examiner wants you do it, with P5 it is very difficult to know EXACTLY what the examiner wants. It is very open to interpretation. Unfortunately if you misinterpret, you basically get zero marks for that question and you cant bullsh*t your way through it.P4 is better in my opinion and I chose it for the following reasons.
i) you get lots of marks for methods even if the final answer isnt 100%
ii) you get marks for stating assumptions you took and justfying them even if its not always the case.
iii) you can practice for it, if you do ALL the past exam questions or go through a good Practice and Revision book such as BPP’s you should be able to pass the exams.
iv) you will know at least 45-50% of what will come up in the exam. This is because there is ALWAYS a hedging question worth 25marks, you can get a solid 15-20 marks there. There is ALWAYS a discounted cashflow question, you can get another solid 15-20 marks there, you can get the final 10-20 marks on miscell topics by studying the other areas really well.In summary:
P5: Easy course, difficult exam
P4: Difficult course, easy exam (if you practice enough questions and ask plenty of questions)Hope this helps.
Actually Mike I do believe you may be incorrect there. Based on the link below, UK paper will be based on IFRS, however it will contain slightly different IAS (auditing standards) than the international paper. There is also a large emphasis on insolvency which does not appear to be present in the Int paper.
After comparing the papers, it seems also UK paper is exactly the same with the exception that marks for questions will not be split, so you will have to use “skill” to understand where to get your marks as opposed to being told “this bit is worth 7marks”
Personally if it was up to me, id rather be doing the Int version as it is much easier in my opinion and the UK isnt worth doing unless you need/want the audit practice certificate (i.e that’s what you do as a living). The UK paper is much harder in my opinion but ufortunately I have to do the UK version.. sigh…
the consideration consisted of two elements, the share exchange which was already accounted for and the deferred consideration. To get the share exchange amount you just had to look at Investments in Sq as goodp said. The hardest part was discounting the cash element which the question stated was NOT accounted for. You should have got a goodwill of around 30.4mil.
I initially also go a negative goodwill but then did a sense check and thought “nah, this is compeltely stupid”. anyway, good luck with the results!