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The 6 mark Balance Sheet question in part C was a bit of a curveball, but I copied out the original format and entered the new figures (showing workings), adjusting the reserves to make it balance. Hadn’t seen this in any past question practice! The 9 mark NPV question felt very comfortable.
Part A was heavily theory based – only 4 calculation questions out of the 15. Part B was more of a mixture but no WACC or CAPM or any of the ‘heavy’ topics that are more commonly examined!
I too was totally thrown by the adjusted SOFP. Did ACCA mix up some FR in there? Too much forex. Crap! And sections A and B? Lord have mercy! Just terrible
You are kind. I have said it before the spreadsheet is primitive and wastes students’ time in that exam pressured situation. It DOES need improving. It puts students at a great disadvantage. Why not give it the straightforward functionality of excel?
The NPV question stated the following if I remember correctly.
Output
Sales
Inflation of sales
Operating cost
Inflation of op costs
Working capital – remember to make the balance 0 at the end (i.e. return the balance capital)
Corporation Tax (in arrears)Only tricky bit was ensuring corp tax started in year 2 so you had a 5 period NPV rather than 4
I have to say though the version of Excel that they use is terrible!
I couldn’t insert lines so so bad.
@rhydem said:
I have to say though the version of Excel that they use is terrible!I couldn’t insert lines so so bad.
True, but you can copy and paste, still time-consuming.
I had a table of the figures and used formulas rather than calculating manually.
So if I moved any line – the cell references would change completely. Was really annoying, I forgot to include the fixed cost and it took me an extra 20 minutes to rework it and ensuring all the references were now correct
@rhydem said:
I had a table of the figures and used formulas rather than calculating manually.So if I moved any line – the cell references would change completely. Was really annoying, I forgot to include the fixed cost and it took me an extra 20 minutes to rework it and ensuring all the references were now correct
I think this is the biggest problem with their version of Excel. I always use formulas to do the questions and if for some reason I forget something and need to insert a line, I have to copy and past and re-do the formulas. It makes no sense that the formulas don’t change automatically when copy paste is used. Or that you cannot insert lines.
In any case, the version is still better than the BPP or Kaplan mocks, their Excel is an absolute joke.
@shinnatsuki said:
I think this is the biggest problem with their version of Excel. I always use formulas to do the questions and if for some reason I forget something and need to insert a line, I have to copy and past and re-do the formulas. It makes no sense that the formulas don’t change automatically when copy paste is used. Or that you cannot insert lines.In any case, the version is still better than the BPP or Kaplan mocks, their Excel is an absolute joke.
It was a problem on my first CBE, since then I always leave blank raw or two after every entry. Whatever skill they want us to develop, we will!
Hello everyone,
Hope you done well with your exam.
Just a general observation – are people creating ACCA exams are actually English, or do they use bad English to confuse people on purpose? The wording in some of the questions I had was absolutely horrendous. Seems like their exams are not about testing students knowledge and understanding anymore, it’s more about failing us on purpose.
I feel you! Felt exactly the same.
Also, it’s very mean of ACCA not to give access to the full past papers. Clearly they are recycling their section A and B questions.
I completely agree – I came out of there feeling like there was so much that they didn’t question.
Exam was tricky and at the end i ran out of time in section C question 1. Question 2 was relatively easy but was quite long.
@davidpoore1983 said:
In section C did anyone get a NPV for a machine that cost 1m and project was over 4 years. Fixed costs were 50k and sales were at 3000 a year. I got a negative NPV and think messed up big timeGot this one too.. But I had positive NPV..
and the 2nd question which is outsource has a higher NPV
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