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Passed SBL and ATX with 54% first time pass for both, which draws an end to my ACCA journey. Was a rough ride but stuck with it and it felt great seeing an end to this qualification.
Don’t get bogged down by the models, as I have only used one throughout the entire exam to structure my answer. Beforehand I proper learned the terms used for each model, but I would say that just understand the theory behind each model and apply that knowledge where appropriate.
Good luck to all with the remaining exams.
Passed SBL and ATX with 54% first time pass for both, which draws an end to my ACCA journey. Was a rough ride but stuck with it and it felt great seeing an end to this qualification.
Was pleasantly surprised to pass ATX as I missed out a lot of questions due to time management so I must have aced the questions that I have attempted in order to pass.
Good luck to all with the remaining exams.
rachelmin wrote:Nor did I! Sorry completely obessing as it’s my last exam
I took my last two ATX alongside SBL so fingers cross I pass both so now just relaxing and hope for the best! ATX is not hard. AFM was way harder with long lengthy scenario and calculation intensive.
nlgil wrote: @byron1976
Hi I know! My colleague who have also done this exam also all ran out of time.Can you share your past exam results?
To be fair under such time pressure it was hard to spend too much time to gather thoughts. I didn’t spend long reading the scenarios, but had a quick look and proceed with answering.
I didn’t think this exam was hard, given more time I would have pass. In hindsight I would have started from question 3 and 4 first.
rachelmin wrote:For those that has the paper with Q1 being liquidation
How did you calculate the gain and loss of the intangible assets?<br>I just did sale- cost and ignored amortisation.I included the amortisation for both goodwill and brand. The wasted a lot of time on the goodwill cause it said that the amortisation was not tax deductible. My calculation for both were sale proceeds less cost, plus amortisation. Think it through like capital allowance treatment, if amortisation for the brand is tax deductible/capital allowance part of the cost will need to be decreased so when it is sold, a higher profit/balancing charge will be made. Despite the goodwill is not tax deductible, but it has been amortised in the accounts, so the accumulated cost (cost less amortisation) will be deducted against sale proceeds to work out the profit or loss on disposal.
SandraaB wrote:Unfortunately I did not get to the end of intensively fixed assets treatment either ,but for PR relief – – he had 6 unqualifying month when he went second time abroad as this was not preceded by the actual occupation
Damn you are right, at the start of the period when he was working abroad he purchased the property! I think I failed this exam!
The accounting periods you were suppose to compare the two profits for the first two tax years had the accounting date been changed to July rather than March. There would have been less profits to pay tax on as for March there were 5 extra months of profit charged.
For the art course we were also being tested on the professional scepticism skill so we had to also question the intention of why such course out of other courses were chosen.
1. He had an interest in art himself so he was bias.
2. There can be seen as a conflict of interest as he contracted his good friend to deliver the course materials and paying him a fee of £12,000 which this arrangement were different from the freelance tutors. The amount charged can be called into question whether it is a fair market rate.
3. There will be a high risk of a loss being made if the demand for the course doesn’t meet at least 240 participants per annum which will profit around £12,400 in order to breakeven to cover the inintial outlay.
4. In order to take advantage of the bulk discount large quantities of materials will be bought in advance, so there is a risk that if the demand is low there will be obsolete inventories.
5. The course is only affordable to the wealthy individuals which is highly unlikely that there will be demand for the course as there is high unemployment rate in Ceeville and so the choice of course is not really appropriate to serve the needs of the community.
6. By charging a high fee for the course it goes against the aim of the NCCP’s objectives.
7. The decision made by the CEO to charge such a high fee goes against the purpose of a charity organisation which is a not-for-profit organisation, but coming from a commerical background, he put too much focus on solely making a profit, despite it might have been for the better good to keep NCCP afloat.
8. On the positive side, drawing from his experience working in the commerical industry, the high course fee could help improve the cash flow position as it is as low as £48,000.
I concluded that the course was not viable, for all the reasons mentioned and most important the high cost charged goes against the very reason why NCCP was established in the first place. Hence why all other courses are priced at such a low rate, needing council subsidies to cover the excess. None of the courses taught are profitable because it’s not out there to make a profit but to help people.
tomodon wrote:Charity Case Study
Got same questions, I couldn’t really figure out what to write about the competitive advantages as it wasn’t really mind clear what advantages there were as compared to other charities and there wasn’t much there to go by. I didn’t think the scenario given was hard but it was only the time pressure which caused me to panic and as a result loss my composure to gather my thoughts.
I ran out of time and only got to the question regarding the project sponsor and project manager.
I gave it a good attempt and wrote a lot for question 1 regarding the internal and external stakeholders and how to manage them. I used the Mendelow model – interest and power. This was the only model that I have used for this exam, the rest just common sense based on the scenario. Learnt all the model which I feel like a waste of time now.
Hard to judge how much to write in order to score the marks without over running on time for other questions. Oh well, I’m glad I took my final two exams today, let’s see how it goes. Even if I do fail SBL this time, I could at least have an idea on the volume of text to write to achieve what marks.
It appears I got the same exam questions as you.
I didn’t manage to get to question 4 nor completed question 3.
However for the calculation of the PPR and letting relief there should have been no chargeable gain as part of the house was letter out @25%, so this period would have been time apportioned for the chargeable months for letting relief. Had it not been for the letting relief only part of the gain would have been relieved as PPR. The periods working abroad are deemed exempt period.
For question 1 regarding the disposal of fixed intangible assets for the goodwill and brand, how did you calculate the profit or disposal on the sale for the goodwill? It mentioned that the goodwill was not tax deductible but it was amortized, as such I wasn’t sure whether the calculation was simply sale proceeds less cost or sale proceeds less cost and also factor in the amortization? This caused me to waste a lot of time just trying to figure this out which I would have better spent my time doing question 4.
In hindsight I should have attempted question 3 and 4 first as those appear to be easier, rather than tackling the overseas and inheritance questions. The split year basis information through me off to the point where I couldn’t focus and gather my thoughts! As I studied hard for this and was confident going in, but mis managed my time.
I got the same exam questions too.
Q1) APV for the music streaming. From my understanding the contribution margins should have been 1%, 2%, 4%, 8%. Also the first year total market sales shouldn’t be inflated as that was the expected figure for year 1, but the 180 amount and subscribers should have been inflated by 2 & 3% respectively.
I discounted the project by 12% after degearing the equity beta and plugged it in the CAPM. There should only be tax payable on year 4 only as losses got carried forward from year 1 to year 4.
I think that the financing side effects for the loans should have been discounted by the cost of debt which I never had time to focus and was time pressured to be able to gather the information to calculate it. Gutted as I know these areas well.
The got a positive base case net present value of 5.3 or 5.6 million euros. The adjusted present value I believe should have been negative, so the project should have been rejected. Otherwise it would have defeated the point of having both parts either positive or negative For the appraisal. There should have been opportunity cost loss which was the middle paragraph in the text, I was time pressured and never had the time to interpret the passage of text as I found it quite difficult to understand through the choice of words used.
I spent 2.5 hours just doing section A, which pretty much left me with little to no time for the other sections. Only just quickly answered the discursive questions hoping to scrape some marks and hope for a border pass mark.
I’m sure I have failed! Study extremely hard for this exam, felt gutted as I know the syllabus well, Only issue is not enough time and the damn small monitor with multiple exhibit windows fighting for room without overlapping one another! My hand was actually shaking as I try to move the cursor over to the spreadsheet cells to click, as it is so small on the monitor. My goodness the amount of time spent just navigating on the spreadsheet was unbelievable!
Will do tax in March and probably go again AFM for every exam sitting until I finally pass it!
Agree 100% with you on the damn screen size and flicking back and forth to refer to the exhibits and word processor. Definitely need 2 screens in order to work efficiently otherwise this is clearly a disadvantage on taking cbe exams compared to paper exams with the same time allocated. So unfair.
You are on point mate, you sound like you have passed if you managed to answer the other discursive questions as it wasn’t hard. I totally slipped over the bond to maturity question as the information gathering looked too time consuming. I would have confidently said I probably pass had I not stupidly mismanaged the last hour on the foreign NPV question. The question was actually straight forward but I couldn’t get my head around the choice of words, as it wasn’t too clear to me on certain points like the tax exempt for the land disposal, the €10 sale etc. I have learnt it many months back, but. Just totally forgot about it.
Really kicking myself now, as I could have spent that time cracking on with the bond question and would at least secured marks to boarder line pass the exam, now I’m expecting marks in the region of 45-53 🙁 Same situation as the SBR exam I took yesterday!
The exam wasn’t bad, I performed well on the discursive questions. I aced the hedging question. Had like 1 hour, was confident I would pass, but then that last 1 hour was spent trying to understand what the hell the transfer price of €10 euro, manufacturing cost, the 30% annual rate for the land and building disposal meant. I found it quite difficult with their wording of the scenario. Initially I thought I had to work backwards from the pre-tax contributions to arrive at the revenue.
Can someone confirm when it says that inflation rate were to be kept at 10% for the remaining four years, does that mean there was no need to inflate the figures as the inflation is to remain constant? Or did it meant I had to inflate it at a constant rate at 10% year over year?
I really think that with these exams there should be two monitors in order to work efficiently otherwise a lot of time is wasted clicking back and forward on multiple windows in order to refer to the figures and scenarios.
These exams were previously paper based exams which eventually changed to computer in order to mimic real world workplace environment. Arguably these cbe exams is still early days so if enough people give feedback on the insufficient time allotted for each exams and the damn issues with the windows, it would help future candidates.
That’s for all the computer based exams I think. Too much time spent fiddling with multiples exhibits windows. Not fair to allocate same exam time as paper based as working on the computer is more time consuming with all the windows and clicking to find the right one and refer to it moving it around so it doesn’t obscure the view of the spreadsheet to answer.
Your answers are pretty much same as mine except that didn’t reach the last question for the 25 mark! Also I made a silly mistake free reading up here about the cash flow question as I didn’t read the question properly and included the cash flows from operating activities. Wasted so much time there, otherwise I would have had a good crack at the SME and benefits as I studied well for those topics!
So gutted as all these ACCA exams are so time intensive which I think 3 hours is not a realistic time to complete the exams confidently.
That’s not right. The cash received from the sale of shares should take into account the share premium.
Yes that was what I did. The cash was 3million which was the balancing figure.
I think the fair value trading investment with all the dividend included threw me off as I didn’t bother calculating the cash amount as was too time pressured.
Agree. The exam itself wasn’t hard to be honest, found it easier than F7. However all the ACCA exams are too time intensive. I don’t lack knowledge, only fail on time management as I didn’t get to reach the last 25mark question. Spent like 1.45hours doing question 1.
The benefit paid will not affect cash flow because it is not a cash flow from the entity but from the pension company. The remeasurement will not affect cash flow. The net interest component and the service cost will need to be added back as it decreased the operating profits.
@kushpeshin1 said:
Got creditor hierarchy at a 5 mark Section C. Where exactly in the syllabus is this?Sec B: Got a money market hedge Q but no domestic interest rate.
I got that too. I think it was referring to the pecking order theory. I talked about the ranking of sources of finance and how the risk/reward play a role on determining the cost of capital. Debt is less risky than equity, so the cost is cheaper.
I had a Mcq question on trade receivable days, which was simple to get 2 mark on, but they pulled a sly one where the trade receivables was either average receivables or year end receivables as a choice to use to compute the answer. In the end, I went with the year end trade receivable figure to compute my answer. Anyone can confirm whether this is correct?
Overall I think I have done another to pass this exam. Ran out of time for the weighted average cost of capital in section C. I knew how to calculate it, but it’s a shame that these exams are simply not long enough to fully answer all questions, as I have the knowledge. Really think that more time should be given for computer based exams, as compared to paper based. It’s actually slower to work with on the computer, so not really fair to allocate same time as paper based.
I really hate those forward rate, hedging questions, had quite a few which are into my time and in the end just guessed it. Otherwise I would have completed the WACC question. What a shame!
Luckily I came prepared this time for the NPV question comparing against IRR as to why it is more superior as an investment appraisal method. 😉
