PM*** ACCA Paper PM December 2018 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

@tasbihak said: Hi, it seems you got the prepare revised budgetary control statement. I feel like whoever got this question is confused whether they did it right or not. Hopefully ACCA releases the correct format for this question, it will help future students

Hopefully as the manner in which Section C question 31 part a was asked isn’t logical . The requirement is rather vague and ambiguous….

I did a rolling budget approach, by using the actual (with the notes), sum, and compared with the Budget.

Having passed all AATs and ACCAs to date first time so far I think I underestimated F5 - I understood all the content and lectures (Kaplan) but I was really struggling with the past paper questions. After sitting the exam today, I literally couldn’t tell you how it went, some questions were okay and others were a wild guess and some were absolutely horrendous to the point I knew they were wrong. I will be really unhappy if I need to resit as it will set me back a quarter which I really don’t want! Of the questions people have mentioned - I had the orchestra one, the nuclear plant one, the revised ROI/RI one, the marginal revenue and costs grid for optimum price, the operational and planning variances set. Then I also remember having to explain some pricing models, and a lot of throughput accounting calculations.

Btw how does the result appear.? Like do we get to see where we were wrong.? Do we get a report regarding the exam.?

The exam was really hard. The questions were very lengthy with much more calculation which had an effect on time for completion. In Sec C, for budget preparation, what figures were to be considered - Demand, Capacity or the Therapists time for patients?

The Theatre Box too was confusing. How do your get the Breakeven and Margin of Safety only for the Theatre Box. The fixed costs were for the entire event and not only for the Theatre Box. So it was difficult to calculate the FC, BE and MoS for the Theatre Box. Even the minimax regret question was confusing.

I think I got the same exam too with ROI & RI and Budget Statement and Beyond Budgeting.

@cr333 said: @tyjac, I didn't take this particular paper and was just nosing around in this topic, but seeing your comments I felt I had to post to give you some advice. Take it from someone who has just taken their final ACCA exam, you will NOT finish this qualification without question practice. You might have got away with that in AAT, but you won't in ACCA. You say it wasn't easy to take in the information and apply what you learnt. There's only one way to practice that skill, and it's not watching lectures! And once you get to the final 4 papers, it will get much harder as you will be much more time pressured. There will be a lot of information to take in for each question and you need to be able to quickly absorb what is given to you, link it to your knowledge and get planning and writing. You need to start practicing this now while you're on the lower level papers or you'll be completely out of your depth when you get there. I practice lots of questions for every exam (using the Kaplan kit but BPP is also fine) and so far have passed every one first time with a good mark. Practice lots of questions before your resit. As you've already taken it twice you might as well start now. You've probably watched enough lectures! Anyway, I hope you take my advice, but best of luck to you for next sitting.

Thank you. I will start practicing with a revision kit and work on questions, as I do put in work in ensure I get good marks, but in the end, it just doesn't work out. Maybe this is the way to pass ACCA exams and score good marks. I think I also need to get use to the way the exam questions are structured and phrased.

The exam was indeed very hard and unexpected i got a question on calculating rolling budgets which was 8 marks and had a question on lifecycle costing and my 20 mark question was just on financial and non financial performance indicators.. there were alot of throughput ques and variances which were super difficult. Did anyone get the same paper as i did?

What investment appraisal technique could be used as an alternative to Residual Income, I'm aware of Net Present Value from my f9 studies as the most superior investment appraisal teqhnique. But to mention that technique in the context of the F5 syllabus seemed incorrect, I mentioned Return on Capital employed instead...

Well, I would say that the exam was hard with some really trick questions But starting with Section A, it was a bit easy compared to what I usually read from previous exam discussions. But there was this one particular question "It says: The annual sales were 960000 and the current ratio is 3.2:1 and the sales are made in cash and the average cash balance is 40000 and the inventory turnover is 90 days. So what is the quick ratio assuming 360 days?" I was completely lost in this part, so I randomly choose the answer. Then there was a question regarding price elasticity and a question regarding ABC where we had to calculate the packaging and dispatching cost per unit for a product. As for section B: I got CVP (very weird type of question), Pricing (where you have to use the formula), Variances (Which really straight forward for me) and ABC Costing (A bit hard question) where they had given the cost pool and cost drivers and said that 10% of total batch cost, 20% Maintenance cost and 30% of general overheads are environmental cost in a note below. I really din't know whether to include these or not in the calculation of the budgeted overhead cost per unit. And also there was question relating to environmental related and driven costs, which I found so similar to one of the questions in the past exam paper Lastly for Section c, I got a ROI/RI question and a flexed budget one which was really out of blue but still managed to complete it somehow. In ROI/RI question the thinking part inclusion of assets and depreciation controlled by the head offices I didn't get a single question relating to learning curves, non financial performance, transfer pricing and Relevant costing

This was my first ACCA exam and I didnt realise the questions on Sect C differed for everyone in the exams, my section C questions didnt have an revised budget to do as others are talking about here, it was all about the 3 E's and MR=MC did anyone have similar questions? I was gutted because id spent so long revising the complicated techniques that I didnt even know how to calculate marginal revenue! I thought I knew variances off by heart but got really stuck on the labour rate planning variance as there didnt seem to have the actual hours used and I couldnt see how to figure this out from the info given? Anyone get stuck on the same question (section B). Think i put 160000 adverse but it was just a guess!

@tdiddy said: What investment appraisal technique could be used as an alternative to Residual Income, I'm aware of Net Present Value from my f9 studies as the most superior investment appraisal teqhnique. But to mention that technique in the context of the F5 syllabus seemed incorrect, I mentioned Return on Capital employed instead...

I mentioned ROCE too even if I don’t believe much in this But decided that is the only relative measure out of f5. I want to know if somebody did the secton B question with the operational and planning variances. It couldn’t reach to any of the given multiple choices. I lost time guessing how they reach to any of these answers.

Overall I think the exam was a disaster for me. Don't particularly believe it was that difficult but run out of time in the end. The budgetary control I didn't have time to finish it as I left it for last. I basically amended the 12 month budget period to compare it to the Actual 6 months, which I thought was the correct way. I now believe it was not. Think it was a way by the ACCA to trick us into believing that that was the correct way of doing it. For the ROI and RI I believe I knew the knowledge to what was controllable and what was not. My revised ROI included also amending the Capital employed, deducting the head office control figures. I know that this is not the correct way, as only Controllable Profit should have been amended, but it made sense to me to also adjust the capital employed. Perhaps someone can shed light into the correct way it should have been calculated.

I was also prepared 100% for variance but when I was solving the question, I felt like I didn't do anything & I took more than 30 minutes to solve just 2 parts of it & that lead to not having enough time in section c, last question

Investment was given right for the calculation of RI & ROI?

Overall I found the exam a lot better than I was expecting, although it sounds like I had a bit of luck with the questions I got... I think the key is practice questions and past/mock exams - they help you to figure out how to apply what you've been learning. And they're free through the ACCA website!!

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That appeared to me like a flexed budget statement they were asking for. I I had to flexed the 12 months budget by calculating the cost per unit of the various items and suing that figure and multiply by the actual units ie 950 units to get my revised budget. I compared this to the six months actual and did the variance. That was my approach but don not know whether that was what the examiner wanted.

@koindoresq1982 said: That appeared to me like a flexed budget statement they were asking for. I I had to flexed the 12 months budget by calculating the cost per unit of the various items and suing that figure and multiply by the actual units ie 950 units to get my revised budget. I compared this to the six months actual and did the variance. That was my approach but don not know whether that was what the examiner wanted.

I did the same. Another C section question for me is police force. It was disgusting.

looks like we wrote the same paper , got really mixed up on that, hopefully I manage to still grab a few marks on that...

Why was it disgusting?

Non performance measures, that question was a disaster, but for me it more like I run outta time than anything.

kikikiki I hear you on the variances, what I noticed was each was supposed to take 2 hours as per budget so though not stated , budgeted hours were 80 hours, just a guess, anyone with an idea on the pricing question? MR =MC? it really ;left me blank like i knew what was required but were to start from. Anyway first time writing computer based exams so time was not on my side.

I didn't have the MR=MC question but isnt it just MC = Variable Cost, as in Marginal Costing? I had the Police three Es but thought it was ok, a few percentages and some waffle with a comparison. Well let's see anyway in January when the results come in.

bea1991 it seems like we had exactly the same issues. I was prepared for all difficult calculations and got stuck on MR. I also felt that there wasn't enough information to calculate labour rate V. Couldnt calculate any of the options provided, just guessed.

Yeah the MR after having looked at it (after the exam) seems pretty simple, you just add one more unit as if you sold one more after (from what I understood), seemed like pretty easy marks. I think with the stress I forgot MR=MC for some reason and just waffled the discussion part as to why they are signifcant. For the pricing/ output I just chose the one with the highest profit when deducting the Revenue from Total costs. Not a clue what the answer was for that variance question is though, I hope someone will give us the answer it was really bugging me!

@darciecoco said: I seemed to get quite different questions...! I got a variance one but not about bikes, but it was really hard (and I was fairly confident with variances). 2nd one was about musical instruments costings / mark ups. 3rd one was about a florist using minimax regret and decision trees. Haven't seen anyone with these questions...! C questions were optimal pricing / marginal revenue and marginal costing and about three EE's.

@darciecoco said: I seemed to get quite different questions...! I got a variance one but not about bikes, but it was really hard (and I was fairly confident with variances). 2nd one was about musical instruments costings / mark ups. 3rd one was about a florist using minimax regret and decision trees. Haven't seen anyone with these questions...! C questions were optimal pricing / marginal revenue and marginal costing and about three EE's.

@darciecoco said: I seemed to get quite different questions...! I got a variance one but not about bikes, but it was really hard (and I was fairly confident with variances). 2nd one was about musical instruments costings / mark ups. 3rd one was about a florist using minimax regret and decision trees. Haven't seen anyone with these questions...! C questions were optimal pricing / marginal revenue and marginal costing and about three EE's.

I got the same questions as you, when I saw the question on value of perfect information my mind just went blank! I think I put 1000 which was the difference between the worse and best profit of EV. I complemtely blanked on how to calculate Marginal revenue in the section C question which I am now kicking myself about!!

@tdiddy said: What investment appraisal technique could be used as an alternative to Residual Income, I'm aware of Net Present Value from my f9 studies as the most superior investment appraisal teqhnique. But to mention that technique in the context of the F5 syllabus seemed incorrect, I mentioned Return on Capital employed instead...

I pointed ROCE too for better approach to appraise new investment even if I don’t believe it has a lot to do with it. But I just thought that I have to consider only a measurement out of f5. And why not reconsidering the room and ri of BM College would be “disastrous”? /as in the question/ We may say it’s unfair demotivating and leading to dysf.behavior and avoiding new investments, but disastrous?

@koindoresq1982 said: That appeared to me like a flexed budget statement they were asking for. I I had to flexed the 12 months budget by calculating the cost per unit of the various items and suing that figure and multiply by the actual units ie 950 units to get my revised budget. I compared this to the six months actual and did the variance. That was my approach but don not know whether that was what the examiner wanted.

I did the same thing as you did. The only mistake I made which I realized that it was stated to make a revised Budgetary CONTROL STATEMENT and i didnt show the variances, hopefully i might get scores for the flexed portion. Funny thing is that I mentioned the variances in the next part b that with revised we can see this is the variances. Oh well hopefully they do reward marks for this.