PM*** ACCA F5 December 2016 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

I think it is insensitive too. What about the mixing or baking... which one is bottleneck?

I totally agree with you. The examiner definately had me on the MTQs. TBH, they were challenging but even worst time consuming and required a great deal of time to decode; that I didn't do well. Section C wasn't bad at all; I hope I scored enough on section C to make up for the poor performance on the MTQs.

Hey guys! So here are the MCQs that I can remember (in no order): 1. The flow cost question - I put waste 2. The closed system question - I put control test or whatever the control answer was. 3. Services for the eye care -Simultaneous 4. $592000 BE sales 5. Reason for the favourable variance? - I put the ingredients used in actual were less that expected and that's why.. 6. $590 transfer price (c) 7. Which is the bottleneck for the mixing, baking etc? 8. Optimal Marathon plan was Answer A with 17540 and i think 20something thousand. 9. Optimal plan for the cakes and muffins and brownies - I chose the only answer with i think either 0 muffins or something. It was the only answer with 0 in it though i think it was C. 120 of brownies were made I remember... 10. Breakeven question about if the selling price and variable costs and something else increased for the 10km race - I put BE is unchanged but profit goes up 10%. 11. Total Materials price VAR - I got $40.50 Averse 12. I got $17.43 cost per unit for one ABC costing question about inspections... 13. There was a question about the EV and it's sensitivity to probability assumptions. I think I put it's sensitive to probability assumptions as it does assume a lot. I picked that and the other option about ignoring the variable outcomes that can occur. 14. One question about ZBB being functional and something else. I think another option was ZBB built on previous budget which i thought was wrong as that's incremental. 15. The question about the Least safest way to handle highly secure info. 16. A question about whether the materials mix was treated as usage or something.. 17. Materiels yield Variance 18. The joint products question of X and Y - I think I picked $400 gain but not sure. 19. The question about what the manager in the investment centre is responsible for - I put costs, revenues, and transfer price. 20. The question in order to improve TPAR with Y and Z? I think I chose A to increase selling price of Y by 10%..not sure on this one. 21. TPAR ratio was 1.5..something and the reason it must have happened That's all I can remember for the MCQ's. 31a) Construct the rolling budget b) The problems they were having before and how Rolling budget would help. c) The problems the manager might face of implementing the rolling budget. 32a) Calculate the ROI b) Explain why certain costs have been excluded from the calculation in part a) c) Explain the problems with using ROI as a performance measurement. I found this paper very challenging but doable. Much more challenging that the September one which looks like a walk in the park compared to this one. Not much variety of topics either. This was my second Attempt - got 47% last time. Kicking myself over that paper as I really should have passed it..just made silly mistakes. Ah well!

1.Which problems could arise applying Rolling budget? 2.Which problems for ROI calculation?

Ok so I have this question for all of you that put 0 muffins or brownies on the throughput question and I would really appreciate if someone can clear this out for me. Didn't the data in the question specifically ask us to honour the contract we had with the cafe and to provide them first and foremost? It had a minimum amount of cupcakes, brownies and Muffins that the cafe required, so how could your answers have 0 muffins or cupcakes? Or am I just being delusional here and we only had to focus on the OPP? :/

@azaramirov said: 1.Which problems could arise applying Rolling budget? 2.Which problems for ROI calculation?

I put: 1. Resistance to change, Inexperience of the MD who would need to consider costs of hiring expertise to help with the transition. I also put rolling budgets will be required to be produced more frequently than the staff are used to, and are expected to be more accurate and up to date. This would require more responsibility accounting, and more time dedicated to budgeting. Some staff may perceive that badly... 2. I spoke about goal congruence issue. There's also an issue with depreciation I think of old assets that could make the ROI look favourable? So keeping old assets rather than improving them could be tempting for managers..which wouldn't be good for the company as a whole.. I only put down the issue with goal congruence though as in the exam, that was all i could think of to talk about..!

@ahmadsaad143 said: Ok so I have this question for all of you that put 0 muffins or brownies on the throughput question and I would really appreciate if someone can clear this out for me. Didn't the data in the question specifically ask us to honour the contract we had with the cafe and to provide them first and foremost? It had a minimum amount of cupcakes, brownies and Muffins that the cafe required, so how could your answers have 0 muffins or cupcakes? Or am I just being delusional here and we only had to focus on the OPP? :/

Yes the question did say that the minimum demand for cupcakes, brownies and muffins must be met. They had given us the minimum and maximum demand for each of them

@msarosh said: Yes the question did say that the minimum demand for cupcakes, brownies and muffins must be met. They had given us the minimum and maximum demand for each of them

However, the question mentioned that "in order to maximize the profit" or smth like that, so we had to rise the limits to the maximum (my opinion). Anybody made sure which bottleneck it was ? mixing, weighing or what?

@ahmadsaad143 said: Ok so I have this question for all of you that put 0 muffins or brownies on the throughput question and I would really appreciate if someone can clear this out for me. Didn't the data in the question specifically ask us to honour the contract we had with the cafe and to provide them first and foremost? It had a minimum amount of cupcakes, brownies and Muffins that the cafe required, so how could your answers have 0 muffins or cupcakes? Or am I just being delusional here and we only had to focus on the OPP? :/

I focused on the OPP. The paragraph said they had a minimum and maximum demand they had to produce as far as I'm aware.. Although they said the minimum must be met, the question specifically asked what is the optimal production plan (with only 120 or something minutes/hours left) in order to maximize the profit. I got my answer by finding the contribution for each cake, and then dividing by the limiting factor i.e hours/minutes to find amount of contribution per limiting factor. The biggest contributor gets made first.The demand I used was the maximum expected demand. After I did that, there was no time to make any muffins. The same thing happened in September paper I think where people said to honor the contract..I found the answer was asking to focusing on the OPP as normal and then using the Maximum expected demand (including the contract). So in this case, that's what I did. This is only my answer and opinion though.

hi, any idea when the december sitting paper will be posted?

@msarosh said: Yes the question did say that the minimum demand for cupcakes, brownies and muffins must be met. They had given us the minimum and maximum demand for each of them

Yes and so according to that information, weren't we supposed to produce at least a batch of all 3 items to meet minimum demand first and then manage the remaining hours according to the OPP?

@azaramirov said: However, the question mentioned that "in order to maximize the profit" or smth like that, so we had to rise the limits to the maximum (my opinion). Anybody made sure which bottleneck it was ? mixing, weighing or what?

Dude you make absolute sense but aren't the mtqs supposed to be treated according to the scenario provided at the start of question and not independently on its own? I basically used that approach to meet minimum demand first. And if I remember correctly, the bottleneck was mixing.

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@2929107 said: hi, any idea when the december sitting paper will be posted?

Yess please does anyone about this? I'm curious to find out too. When is the question paper released?

@heychi said: I focused on the OPP. The paragraph said they had a minimum and maximum demand they had to produce as far as I'm aware.. Although they said the minimum must be met, the question specifically asked what is the optimal production plan (with only 120 or something minutes/hours left) in order to maximize the profit. I got my answer by finding the contribution for each cake, and then dividing by the limiting factor i.e hours/minutes to find amount of contribution per limiting factor. The biggest contributor gets made first.The demand I used was the maximum expected demand. After I did that, there was no time to make any muffins. The same thing happened in September paper I think where people said to honor the contract..I found the answer was asking to focusing on the OPP as normal and then using the Maximum expected demand (including the contract). So in this case, that's what I did. This is only my answer and opinion though.

You make sense and knowledge wise both of us solved it the same way. However, the difference in our answer is due to the fact that I solved it in accordance with the scenario provided at the beginning because it was an MTQ and you solved it independently. Neither one deserves to be wrong because we both had the knowledge lol.

So do I !

@ahmadsaad143 said: You make sense and knowledge wise both of us solved it the same way. However, the difference in our answer is due to the fact that I solved it in accordance with the scenario provided at the beginning because it was an MTQ and you solved it independently. Neither one deserves to be wrong because we both had the knowledge lol.

I hear you. It was a tough exam overall. I really would be flattered if somehow I've passed!

ROI questions: 1. Capital employed. Did you add Head office non-current assets to the Division's non current? And plus working capital to get capital employed? 2. Profit figure in ROI. For the investment center division, is it preferred to add Head office costs to the income statement of the division in order to measure the divisions operations?

Hy guys, I had a complete disaster in the exam .I did self study & used the Becker book but realised the book was at a much less advanced level than the actual exam. which book did you all use?

@gurp said: Hy guys, I had a complete disaster in the exam .I did self study & used the Becker book but realised the book was at a much less advanced level than the actual exam. which book did you all use?

I used the opentuition notes and lectures for going through the syllabus. It is the best. And kaplan for practice questions.

Anybody knows exact figures - should have been added to ROI calculations of Divisions?

@ahmadsaad143 said: I used the opentuition notes and lectures for going through the syllabus. It is the best. And kaplan for practice questions.

Thank you for the reply. Did you use any of the books for the syllabus at all or purely opentuition?

@gurp said: Thank you for the reply. Did you use any of the books for the syllabus at all or purely opentuition?

No problem Gurpreet I just used the opentuition notes and lectures for syllabus, nothing else. It covers everything. Past papers and Kaplan for practice.

Is the exchange gain/loss controllable or not?

What were your answers for the ROIs of both divisions? I got 18 point some % and 27% or so(don't remember exactly but it was a 20+ figure)for the divisions.

For the rolling budget the problems I put was That they would need to train the staff since its a new technique Staff would be overworked since the senior accounting staff were on leave Increased cost since overtime and training would be needed

optimal plan for 55 and 30 was that option B..?

when will da question paper and answers be posted

The ACCA website said that the past paper and answers will be published in January for the Sept and Dec sittings But since a new syllabus was used the whole Sept paper was published so im not sure the Dec paper will be published too.