*** ACCA Paper AFM June 2019 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

I attempted the NPV question again last night and although I done the same as in the exam, I got a different NPV result, ($2k), so there is most certainly a calculation error there.
Having gone over the question paper again I think I am looking at a score of between 45 and 55 (so, at least somewhere in the middle would do!).

Always seems like such a long wait, if anything, just seriously hoping I haven’t failed by a mark or two. The time pressure is really too much in these exams, affects your ability to think straight and concentrate fully.

I attempted the NPV and got negative $1.614m which I think is in line with what I got in the exam. Once the Black Scholes Model is applied I think I got a positive £800k in the exam. I haven’t really bothered to recalculate this part of the question or the rest of the exam. Yes I did notice the mark allocation on page ’24’ for questions 2 & 3, interesting to see and help with judgement of potential outcome. I believe I have achieved between 30 and 35 based on the mark allocation for Section B so only needing 20ish marks from Section A. Fingers crossed!!

An estimated score of 45 to 55 does seem like you might scrape a pass, this paper seems to have lots of marks that you can pick up if workings are neat and the examiner can see where you are going with something, even if you make a calculation error.

Yes time management was an issue, I also had little time for question 3. It took a long time to work out what the examiner was asking when it came to the Black Scholes elements of the question. I would think that not using the minus for e would only lose you one mark for a calculation error and as long as your advice in the report used your own figure then you get all other credit for that question. I spent so much time on question 1 that I just ignored the 10 mark question on ethics and moved on.

The wait is really awful, I found it was easier last time as I knew I had failed. Is this your last exam?

Yes this is my last one, Ethics, PER and 36 Months completed so it’s the last hurdle. I can’t speak from personal experience of ATX but from other I have spoken to ATX is really quite a difficult paper, not too sure I would want to sit it with SBR which is also quite difficult, I sat it whilst it was P2 and found it tough.

I definitely couldn’t have got through without taking a break. I definitely agree that sometimes a little luck comes into it as everyone has the topics they don’t really struggle with.

Yes it would be good if you could just confirm you want to sit an exam and then tell them which one nearer the time.

Good luck with your result and with studying for the other two 🙂

I have just had a look at the paper again as I await the result, hoping to get an idea of the possible answers.

I have calculated an initial NPV of -$1,614,194. When the option to sell (Put Option) is included using D1, D2 and ND1 and ND2 provided, I calculate that the option is worth $2,409,124. When this is combined with the NPV the project is worth $794,930.

I am not certain about my NPV calculation being correct but it rings a bell from the exam. I also feel I can prove the NPV is roughly correct. When looking at the question to explain the initial variable for the options calculation I get the following:

Pe is $30,000,000 offered by Honua Co.
Pa is $36,450,554 which is the PV of years 3 and 4 in my NPV calculation.

I have done the calculation myself for the figures that we were asked to explain the variable for and I have got ND1 of 0.7796 and ND2 of 0.3553 using my NPV from above.