Can you tell us more about yourself?
I live in England, and have been unemployed since being made redundant two years ago. I had previously been classed as “qualified by experience” but having diversified into a very specialised systems accounting role several years ago I could no longer say that. Having reassessed what I would like to achieve in the rest of my career I decided last year that an ACCA qualification would be beneficial.
Which Study resources did you use or found the most useful in your studies for this exam?
I used Kaplan Texts and study kits, supplemented by Opentuition notes and lectures, and resources on the ACCA website.
You have scored such high marks, many students must wonder what is your study technique?
I work my way through the texts making brief notes, which I then record to listen to when eg. driving or exercising. I do have a home office with a desk to work at but I find that by varying where I study it is less of a chore.
How did you manage your time and planned your studies?
In the december exam period I took F1, F2, F3 and F6, and because all except F6 were CBE, taken at different times, I was able to intensively study for each exam in isolation. I am not very disciplined when it comes to a study plan so I would tell myself that even just 5 minutes would help, and some days I would only do those 5 minutes, others I would be so engrossed in the subject I would spend many hours on it.
How did you cope with the syllabus when you felt it was boring to study a certain chapter?
Although I have ample time to study I found motivation to be very difficult. This is where I found OpenTuition lectures to be invaluable, the lecturers are very engaging and I found by watching or even just listening to them they stimulated my interest in each subject and motivated me to learn more.
What is the best strategy do you think student should adopt for revision?
Everyone is different, I myself cannot learn by rote and need to apply learning to situations I have experienced for me to fully understand and retain information. I started practice questions straight after finishing the text as I find if I get something wrong once I don’t make the same mistake again, and if I get it right – well I got it right!
Do you believe that past exam practice is the best way to past ACCA exams.
Definitely. You are able to use them to judge which areas you need to work further on, and to practise exam timings.
What do you think was the most important factor in your success in your ACCA exams?
I treated every piece of information as something I needed to learn, rather than just enough to pass. In the F6 exam in particular, knowing penalties and deadline dates can get you around 10% of the marks, and rules and regulations about the same, so while these took far less time on initial study and question practice than calculation-based parts they can make a large difference to your mark.
How did you find out about OpenTuition and which OpenTuition resources helped you towards your success.
I found Opentuition when I once googled something I wanted to research further for the F1 paper. Apart from the videos I use the study texts as a “second opinion” to my Kaplan text, if there’s something I’d like explaining in a different way.
The forums are great for advice and reassurance – there’s usually someone having the same issues as you!
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