Interview with Javier, Genius Hunt winner in Paper F6

Can you tell us more about yourself?

My name is Javier. I’m from the UK and live in London. At the moment I’m a full-time student. I’ve attended tuition for some of the papers I’ve taken, but I have found that self-study suits me more. For F6, I covered all the material through self-study and I think I will do the same for the remaining papers.

Which Study Texts and/or Revision Kits did you use, or find most useful in your studies?

For Paper F6 I used the BPP study text and revision kit. For further reading or if I needed further clarification on a topic I referred to ‘Taxation’ by Alan Melville. I also found the technical articles by the examiner particularly useful.

You have scored such high marks, many students must wonder what is your study technique?

I slowly worked my way through the BPP study text, making my own notes as I went along. Once I’d covered a particular section of the syllabus, I would attempt all the questions I could find on the topic, be it from the BPP revision kit or past papers. I would make sure I fully understood a section before moving on. Once I’d covered all of the study text, I read over my notes and went through the revision kit from cover to cover a few times. On average I’d say I spent around 4/5 hours a day on revision.

What do you think was the most important factor in your success in your ACCA exams?

Practice, practice, practice. 70/80% of my time was spent doing practice questions and it was certainly time well spent. It’s also particularly important to do the questions under timed, exam like conditions.

How did you find out about OpenTuition and how much do you think OpenTuition resources helped towards your success?

I came across OpenTuition whilst doing a search on Google for something ACCA related. The ‘Ask the Tutor’ section on the forum has been particularly helpful and it’s something I’ll definitely be making use of in the future.