*** ACCA AFM September 2018 Exam Results ***

@kikee said:
Hi, Congratulations. How did you study? Can you share me.

@baoo said:
Congratulations. How did you study? Would you mind share with us? Frankly,BBP book and opentuition’ notes more useful then taking course (took a course) coz this subject is not popular in my country. So good quality material and channel for asking question is limited. some topic i still have difficulties on understanding.

I used a Kaplan textbook and revision kit – I looked at the OT notes a little as well but as my employer pays for my study materials I mostly used the Kaplan materials. I did not attend any courses either in person or online – I had access to the online Kaplan materials and could have emailed tutors if I needed to but I didn’t need these. I prefer to study when I want to and at my own pace.

I started studying as soon as the June exams were over. I read through the textbook systematically. For previous exams I have made my own notes as I go through, but I found this was quite time consuming and I don’t tend to actually end up reading them when revising. So this time I just worked through each chapter, trying some of the questions (but not all of them) as I went through and moving on to the next chapter once I felt I understood it.

Once I have gone through the textbook I start practicing questions from the exam kit. Initially this can be quite daunting, as you can open a question and find you don’t have a clue how to answer it. I’ll try to calculate answers to calculation questions, but for written questions I won’t write out full answers at this stage – just scribble down a few words for the points I would make. If I really don’t know how to answer a question, I’ll go back to the textbook and look at that section again. Once I have an answer I’ll check that against the suggested solution and see how I did.

This continues throughout the revision phase and my answers will improve and get closer to the suggested answers (though not nearly as lengthy). If I find there are areas I am consistently making mistakes in or not understanding properly I will revisit those areas of the textbook. I will also read each technical article a couple of times.

I don’t actually spend huge amounts of time studying initially – as I am working full time I tend to study for half an hour on the train into work, 45 minutes in my lunch break, an hour after work, things like that. As the exam gets closer I ramp this up and spend more time in the evenings studying and time at weekends too. At this stage I start to say no to my friends a little more! I am lucky that my employer gives me a week of study time per exam – some of my colleagues use this to go on courses but I prefer to take this all in one go in the week leading up to the exam.

In this week I do my final revision and will aim to get as many questions practiced as possible.I will save some mock exams so I can do them under timed conditions. I won’t study for 16 hours a day though – you need some time for your brain to absorb all the information so I will also run errands, clean my house, do a little gardening, things like that. It’s important to have a break. I also make sure I get plenty of sleep as that is important for learning and memory performance.

By the end of the week I aim to have completed each question in the exam kit. For those I didn’t complete I will at least look at the answer. For this exam I made sure I could tackled questions on complex NPVs, FX/interest rate hedging and business valuation. I didn’t focus on ratios much, which was ironic as there was a 20-mark question for these, but I was confident enough in these from other exams.

45% first time, Passed with 55% at the second attempt. Thank you open tuition; only resources used were OT nothing else. Ever so grateful….

Failed 1st time got 46 🙁

Thank God. I passed at 50% and am now ACCA affiliate. The open tuition videos were of great help. Thanks to John.

I don’t give out my phone number to strangers on the Internet. I’m sure you can understand why.

If you have questions, start a thread.

I was working in a financial accounting role so not exactly a related field. I am interested in financial markets and investing though so that helps with this one.

For my study method please see much post at the top of page 3 of this topic.