Forum Replies Created
- Posts
Hi all, I wanted to share that I passed my last exam today, APM (Second sitting).
Finally an affiliate.I wanted to tell those that struggle with money that it is possible to do ACCA 100% Self Study
My approach was to study from free resources.
I bought a few BPP/Kaplan study text but for me this was a waste of time and money, as I could never approach those huge books.
I ALWAYS ended up downloading study text from Open Tuition at around 130 pages and read it as many times as I could.
Revision kit also did not work well for me, as I found those exercises too hard and demotivating. This is just how my brain works, I guess. I prefer to re-re-re-read OT book + lectures where necessary (A big Thank You! to Opentuition).
At professional level I also went trough the past exam papers, reading and understanding.
Another good resource that helped me a lot from F7 on is Youtube, especially Practice to Pass webinars, VIFHE free lectures and Steve Willis for APM.
I have also used the free materials from Acowtancy for SBR
Professional articles from ACCA are very good too (especially for AAA)
This sums it up
First exam December 2012, no exemption, last exam June 2022. 41 years old.
I have also got a degree via OBU, so the journey was worth it even more.To those still struggling along the way, if you focus and attempt the exams, eventually you will pass. Good luck to all of you! :))
And finally @brereank above, congratulations on your success, I found your story very motivating.
I think that the criteria for awarding the 20 marks should be very clearly defined, otherwise it risks adding further subjectivity to the marking process, as well as demotivating candidates.
Basically students will spend their 3 hours trying to achieve 80 marks, or 50/80 which few will. And then a marker will asess the entire paper to determine if the student was professional enough overall and pass or fail him…@ewasz I am also 40 years old (I’ll be 41 this year actually)
First of all, put yourself in your (future) shoes. When you turn 44, would it be better for you if you were ACCA qualified or not? Just imagine that you are 44 now and you’re an ACCA. How does that feel?Second, the pandemic is impacting us all. I registered for March exam last week, and 2 days later I was told that my daughter’s kindergarden will be closed for at least a week due to one of her teachers getting Covid (so now I’m looking at a best case scenario with work from home+young child+study maybe at the weekend). I am an immigrant from SE Europe 😉 to the place where I currently reside, so no family to help.
Anyway my point is that disruptions due to Covid will be constant from now on, should we give up our lives? I will continue, and when I turn 42 next year I’ll be ACCA member or affiliate.Hi guys, I just wanted to update that I have passed AAA and SBR and now registered for the last exam in March (hope to pass but with only 1 exam to go I don’t care if it will happen in the first or second sitting).
My journey is finally coming to an end!Passed 1st time and I was already getting mentally ready to book my March resit…
My tips: go “mark mining” by answering every little question for 3-4 marks as they will gather at the end@hhw93 the paper was indeed disastruous. I am 99% expecting a fail but enjoying my last weekend of “study break”. I have SBR and 1 more paper to sit hopefully this year will be my last as an ACCA student
@emwitton SBR and APM or ATX
Congrats on becoming an affiliate!It is certainly possible but a risky approach, I just passed AAA in Sept 2021 sitting, I did it because I wanted to clear one paper at least this year and I did not have the time to study for SBR.
I had purchased SBR textbook and exam kit from BPP and OMG when looking at those 900 pages I really doubted it can be attempted without major burnout (I also work full time).
I thought that AAA past papers practice will help me familiarize with the standards in a less painful way, without having to learn too many technicalities by heart.
It took me 2 sittings to clear AAA
My approach was this:
1. Print Opentuition lecture notes and read them enough times, until the content is very familiar
2. Study past exam papers answers
3. Watched OT SBR lectures on standards without following through on examples, just trying to familiarise myself with all the standards
4. Watch YT standards revision lectures to try and cover everything5. I also watched YT prepare to pass but I would say keep an open mind, I felt that exam questions departed from past examples and now it is more useful to attempt the exam with a fresh mind and look for opportunities to score any marks, rather than trying to apply rigid rules on how to answer a question.
On exam day:
Started with Q3 – Q2 that were mostly about Audit issues where OT lecture notes really helped
Q1 left for last 1.30 hour and did the best I could
Jumped at each small requirement that gave a few marks and wrote some pointsAre the tutors right when advising to clear SBR first? Certainly yes, but my goal was to try and clear ANY paper that seems more approachable and finish this qualification already!. Having said that, I will have to try to take SBR in December or latest March, otherwise I will forget the standards… :))
@emwitton congrats, are you an Affiliate now?
I’m feeling relieved after passing this exam, but I have two more exams to go…@emwitton – pass mark 58
And you?What you can do is attempt more questions on ACCA Practice Platform (free online with the same layout as exam questions), under exam conditions.
You could also look at a few youtube videos on improving your typing skills which will benefit you in your work life as well
Just a couple of ideas as I don’t think you should give up 2 exams away from being qualified!
Good luck!
@emwitton funny how we get the same exam! 🙂
Hopefully we will both have good news next month
Good luck to you too!@Kim Smith thank you very much for your answer I will certainly claim for mitigating circumstances, in the meanwhile I have received an apology email from ACCA for the technical issues at the centre and stating that they will get in touch again next week.
@emwitton the exam was much easier this time, Q1 was fair enough this time with sufficient information in the scenario to put together a few audit risks. Procedures were requested to audit an agreed increase in a defined benefit pension plan for existing and past beneficiaries (weird) including the work of an external expert that has competence, experience, independence and objectivity so you had to fish for specific details on pension plan to get some marks, as well as a restructuring provision that included training and relocation cost for personnel.Q2 on acceptance decision of auditing a large company in banking industry with many foreign subsidiaries (in 50 countries if I remember well), strict reporting requirements and intimidation threats by management (giving up on existing auditor due to disagreement on models used to value financial instruments, and to cut audit time and fees). They were also facing an investigation for NOCLAR and of course the auditor did not have experience in banking just a small team working with financial institutions. However despite the question being one red flag after another, your position with the auditor (as I read it) was as a person responsible for business development too, so pro arguments were expected as well I think, as well as what should be taken in consideration when quoting a fee for the audit.
And finally reviewing some marketing material by a competitor for ethical issues. I guess this kind of question requires a bit of thinking through and in 40 minutes I just scrambled for marks taking into consideration that if you don’t answer their specific requirement you don’t get marks.Q3 was about evidence and audit opinion in a company with MURGC indicators, first reviewing the evidence on file, then recommending other evidence that should be obtained, and finally it stated tgat the auditor has satisfied himself that going concern is no longer an issue, except for a lack of confirmation regarding renewal of credit facilities that was adequately disclosed in the notes, so what would be the impact on the audit report in this situation.
P.S. To the other students this is what remember from the exam questions and according to my own understanding of the requirements, I might not remember/might not have understood everything correctly
Hopefully I will pass this time but who knows, 2 hours into the exam my energy dropped very significantly and I felt like giving up altogether, I was exhausted and honestly plain hungry having had breakfast around 8AM to be at the venue on time and now it was almost 2 PM due to ACCA’s neverending tech issues. Luckily I managed to pick myself up and finished the exam.
We were waiting for almost 3 hours for the exam to start at the exam centre in Limassol (Cyprus). Exam started around 11:40 instead of 9:00.
Does anyone know if there is a point to claim mitigating circumstances for that? 3 hours of not being able to leave the premises for a snack in case the exam would start, not to mention that on the docket they ask the students to come 1 hour before, basically 6
-7 hours with water and some coffee only, I was happy I did not faint until I reached my car at the end of the exam.For those that have exams in the next days: bring snacks with you amd not just water, I hope all will go well in the next days but just in case.
@emwitton I just booked my Sept exam. I’d say it’s also about luck, hopefully we will get a straight forward question next time. But if we don’t, i’d be ready to give up exam technique (as presented in practice to pass seminars) and just hunt for points.
Good luck! :))emwitton wrote:40% but I knew it anyway.
45 here. Well what to do better start studying again. I don’t have too much hope for September as it is summer and I’ve got quite a few things planned … but if we want to finish we’d better press forward
Umer00007777 wrote:What exam did you sit? im confused were there two papers for AAA or one?
I think there are more questions for the same sitting that get assigned randomly. So you might not have the same question as the person at the next desk, even if you are sitting the same paper and variant.
Well i spent 1.5 hours on Q2 and Q3 but somehow I found them quite confusing as well so having lost 30% of marks in Q1 I would have to get a very good result in Q2-3 to pass.
I want to say that I passed SBL in first attempt without ever touching an exam revision kit, so I am not someone that cannot interpret case scenario requirements. But the way the questions/requirements were worded confused me a lot.
I agree that the paper was not like the previous exams, as an example I got nothing on impact on audit report despite being in an audit exam as others mentioned :))Seems like the exam questions were specifically designed to fail as many students as possible, I’m thinking that if ACCA would increase exam fee to £450 it would be an outrage. However if you are forced to resit a few times because you were not prepared, the effective fee increases for you.
@emwitton
If you are still around :))It crossed my mind that what we could have done was to identify a couple of audit risks from the limited financial info available.
Just something stupid like revenue has increased/decreased but it could have earned marks
Next sitting I’ll ignore the scenario for 15 minutes or so and mine the Financial Info for 2-3 risks.
If this is the new examiner approach, instead of providing enough points to identify audit risks to just give 2 paragraphs and have you hunt for points around the case scenario so we need to adapt@emwitton I would not know what to prepare better for a re-sit (except the accounting standards) as if the exam is like this it feels like a lottery with 150 pounds entrance ticket. You could enter the exam few times and hope for a lucky hand :)))
I think that the approach in this paper was different than the past exam papers, for example in audit risk question there was a disposal and not much else, what does the examiner expect, a different phrase on every possible aspect of a disposal? This seems to be milking 1 issue for 20 marks which felt to me the unethical thing to do as i felt that in previous attempts such an approach would have been frowned upon (at least based on my understanding). I am looking forward to examiner report.
From the start 3 possible risks were crossed out by the examiner (all companies in the group have the same year end, same currency and report according to IFRS) so you would have to go ahead and make up something else for some marks I guess.
Although I am pretty good with the computer, I found myself struggling in question 2 going back and forth trough 3-4 exibits to calculate materiality and at some point i knew i saw more info somewhere but no time to go trough 3 exibits again (which would again make me struggle to return to the more relevant ones while time is running out) so nevermind…
I would also like to add that many of us do not work on small screens or only with 1 screen anymore in the REAL WORLD (i have not worked on a screen this size since 2010) so if ACCA knows we will be sitting exams on 1 small screen to cut cost, then reduce exibit number. If you do not want to reduce the number of exibits, then less questions would be fine as well.Hi guys, I am now 3 papers away to being an affiliate, I am left with SBR AAA and ATX.
I also got the BSc from OBU last year (ACCA route) so my struggle to pass the first 9 exams was not in vain.Right now I am employed in a finance/accounting position. I’ll be 40 this year as I mentioned in my previous post.
Hopefully by the end of they year i’ll pass at least one more exam.
@Kim, being in a semi-rural region with very few jobs is tough as hell, I’ve been trough that in my 20’s in Italy and it was extremely hard emotionally. As soon as I changed country things started moving for me and I found a desk job almost immediately, not the perfect one but in time I managed to move to finance where I am now. At the moment I am at assistant level although I am expert in my field (I enjoy having less headache and more time with my family as I have a small child) but I will probably move up a level or two when my baby (now 3yrs old) will be just a bit more independent and I will be ACCA affiliate/hopefully qualified.My point is believe in yourself, be prepared, the opportunity will always come and if you are prepared you will not miss it.
Good luck to everyone!
