PM*** ACCA Paper PM September 2019 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

@smeriem said: There was question about Linear programming in my section C and I was really puzzled about constraints. Because there was only common number of labour hours for 3 products and I did not understand how I have to allocate them. How to draw up an equation.

I had the same question. Absolutely no idea how to answer that. I tried calculating the contribution per day of each training program and seeing which one had the highest contribution per day and suggested optimal production based on that. No clue if I will get any points from that. I tried doing linear programming on part b to calculate shadow prices but I had no idea how to create the equations, especially since there were three variables. So part b and C were left unanswered. I was lucky that my other section C question was on divisional performance, ROI, etc, hopefully that will be enough to get a pass.

Areas not tested at all in section A, B or C (pretty much the areas you would revise!): Transfer pricing Pricing decisions (shadow price, price elasticity of demand, demand function, optimum selling price & quantity) Linear programming Limiting factors Sensitivity analysis Maximin/max/regret Decision tree Value of perfect information Risk Section A questions: 2 x relevant cost (one of materials, one of new machinery for one off contract) 1 x throughput accounting - place products in order of priorty 1 x CVP 2 x target costing (one general knowledge & one working out cost gap) 1 x ideal standards 1 x environmental accounting (select 2 out of 6 options which relate to internal failure costs) 1 x return on investment 1 x difference ABC to absorption cost per unit 1 x management information systems knowledge Section Bs 1 x Life cycle in relation to two aeroplane designs. Heavy data. (10 marks) - hardest questions I have personally seen in my life. 1 x Make vs buy and shutdown (10 marks) easy. 1 x Sales planning operational variances.(10 marks) Section Cs 20 marks for the "3 E's" based on 3x universities performance. 15 marks - rolling budgets - preparation of next 4 quarters for 9 marks, and benefits of adopting the approach for 6 marks. 5 marks - explaining beyond budgeting

Amazing you remember all of them. I got the same exam like yours. I struggled so much

I got the Rolling budget question and Neverland universities in section C. First of all, I felt section A was pretty easy, but calculations were pretty sparse and I was hoping for more of it. Saved a bit of time in section A though. Section B sales volume planning and operational variance was pretty easy also, but kept double checking thinking there were more tricks. Then the airplane lifecyle slowed me down a lot. Their target cost was 1380, and estimated lifecycle cost was 1200, so no cost gap right? Hope I didn't miss something. Spent too much time on it. Can't remember the 3rd question. (Edit: Make or buy, too easy to be sure). Section C with the rolling budget tricked me out. Basically just prepared the budget without any adjustments.Spent too much time on this 9 marks part when I could have gotten 10 out of the 12 in the VFM universities question easily. Time ran out after I did 6 hopfully relevant calculations and put the 3E heading. I was pretty gutted I didn't get more variances, or literally any risk and uncertainty, linear programming, learning curve, limiting factor, CVP or even the coveted environmental accounting! Anyway, hoping for some mercy and 50 marks! On to the next one!

I thought the exam was ok but it didn't resemble any practice papers. I found section C really straightforward- 3E's in the uni's and a rolling budget question. Section B was horrific. Section A was half ok, half horrible.... Roll on results day....!

@evi3 said: Did any of you got the rolling budget and the plane life cycle costing

Yes both. Rolling budget was ok- plane was horrific!!!!

@mirzaghalib said: I started my exam, Started reading through the paper and all I saw was theory, theory, more theory. This too worded so differently that I thought I am in the wrong exam. Not a single question on, learning curve, transfer pricing, demand function, minimax,Linear Programming. The whole exam I was pressing for time, I just just thought I had been preparing for a completely different paper.

Same on my exam- barely used my calculator...

I was totally puzzled by the rolling budget. Not sure what I did for the 9 marks really... and the plane one was definitely a failure is well. Gonna start preparing for the same exam in december

I found no cost gap either in the lifecycle planes scenario

@hhw93 said: I'm so glad I wasn't the only one completely stumped by the section c question on linear programming. The fact that there were 3 variables totally threw me as I had never seen a LP question formatted like that before, nor had it been mentioned in the classroom or revision course. I had to resort to guess work to stumble my way to an answer. When calculating the optimum production plan I worked out contribution per day for each course and allocated the limited number of days available according to this. For part b when it asked to formulate the constraints I didn't know where to start!

As I understand our limitations are 111 hours of Labours and Demand (min and max). But! I could not find how many Labour hours are required by each course. I read and read and read. Maybe mistake ...

@delamanisp said: I got the CVP question which I barely touched (attempted the theory section, hoping to get 3-4 marks from there) and an ROI question about 2 divisions asking to find ROI, bonus based on ROI % for the 2 divisional managers, comment on performance (including working capital!!!) and discuss why ROI might not be a good method to determine the bonuses for that company. That was a very straightforward question actually... but the CVP one was like out of this world. I have mixed feelings about the multiple-choice questions. Had to guess quite a few... I barely got any variance questions and I remember stressing about the formulae only to end up with only a section B instead of a section C question which was also rather tough. I am hoping for a 50... All I can say is, good luck to everyone.

BRO YOUR'E SO MUCH LUCKY :-) I WAS HOPPING FOR THIS TYPE OF QUESTIONS BUT I HAVEN'T GOT THIS UNLUCKLY :-(

@scottyt said: Was a very tough exam some of the wordy multiple choice questions are very tough. Had a really weird question maybe its me Gave a variance of 3000 adv mat and 2000 fav labour Then gave the operational figures and asked me what the planning variances should be. No other information... am i missing something?

I HAVE GOT THIS SAME MCQS IN SECTION A THE ANSWER FOR THIS MCQS IS (1000 FAV)

@charlamagne said: They couldn't make it any harder, there one question in section C about training company i just did touch. i practices every past exam in the ACCA web i never seen this kinda style of question. total unfair

bro same here i had also practice all pastpapers from (june 2018--till june 2013) now again i am preparing for dec attempt :-(

When i see the staff training question is section C, i was like “did i miss something like this in the past papers?” So i did the contribution per day too and rank. Then next question it asked me for shadow prices. I then doubted myself if i did it correctly. I feel that question is so unfair. It has maximum which is the limits and also has minimum as well. I have never seen anything like that in the book how to do it as it has been always maximum. If its min and max are contraints, its just too many tho then plus the staff training days. Well. I def find this question so unfair!

@dk1981 said: I found no cost gap either in the lifecycle planes scenario

I am so glad I’m not the only one that had 0 cost gap for the planes. No matter how many times I looked at it!

Can I ask a question about marking please. Say for instance you achieved 50% in section a and then scored nothing in b & c is that still a pass? Or say you got 8 marks in section a and 8 marks in section b which in theory is 26% in each section according to my practise CBE's which would add up to a pass? Is that right, it doesn't seem like you need a lot to pass which I am confused about??

it was disaster i was completely confused on the linear programming question i couldn't understand a thing .

@emily1001 said: Can I ask a question about marking please. Say for instance you achieved 50% in section a and then scored nothing in b & c is that still a pass? Or say you got 8 marks in section a and 8 marks in section b which in theory is 26% in each section according to my practise CBE's which would add up to a pass? Is that right, it doesn't seem like you need a lot to pass which I am confused about??

You need to gain half of the total marks available, so if there are 100 marks available in total, you will need 50 marks to pass. Section a is 30 marks, b is 30 marks and c is 40 marks in total. Each question in section a and b is worth 2 marks each.

@dk1981 said: Just one question I would like to know the answer... was anyone asked a demand question where the product demand dropped by 200 for each £1 it Increased in price? Think the sales were 1000 and currently selling at £100

that one left me stranded...... this exam got me all depressed... No one could have for seen this structure and wording of the questions

My section C was on linear programming using mathematical equations on a course question which I just couldn't work out what i needed to do. Also that case question on the course training i have never seen a question similar to that in all practice and mock exams ive done. Was really hard exam!

i got Robinholt university and the flexed question in my section C. i could barely do the section B question bout life cycle costing despite all the practice.. there was this question also where they just gave an operation gearing of 160% and asked what would happen if sales dropped by 20%.... got me all worked up

@dk1981 said: You need to gain half of the total marks available, so if there are 100 marks available in total, you will need 50 marks to pass. Section a is 30 marks, b is 30 marks and c is 40 marks in total. Each question in section a and b is worth 2 marks each.

Ok thanks, I think I have been looking at it wrong. Someone once said to me as its % you can actually get more wrong then you think. I wouldn't of gotten 50 marks at all. More like 25 marks - never mind. Thanks for the clarification

I had practiced many questions, past papers but this paper was like looking at different exam. It threw me off so much that I just didn't recover. Question after question just seemed so alien. The extra time spent on trying to figure out what the question was asking made the situation worse. It was spiral from there on and I was hard pressed for time.

@fumba said: i got Robinholt university and the flexed question in my section C. i could barely do the section B question bout life cycle costing despite all the practice.. there was this question also where they just gave an operation gearing of 160% and asked what would happen if sales dropped by 20%.... got me all worked up

I got that too, under the pressure I got stumped, but when I got home I realised I could just substitute the contribution and profit with random numbers and worked out the percentage drop in profit would be 10%? Then kicked myself obviously!

same @mohit20

i think it was not 60 because the v.oh was 60 and they wanted the maximum profit ,if the price was 125 the demand will be zero so there are to left answer 92 and 75 and i picked 92, the n.o of units was 5000

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@dk1981 said: Yes I had that question, out of all my questions I was least sure I answered this correctly. Did you use the £53 pricing for operational variance and £50 to compare planning variance?

There were 2 kinds of variances we had to find, one was related to market share meaning we had to find the number of revised quantity and multiply that with the standard margin, meaning that (i’m not remembering correctly but i think the standard selling price was 53) we had to multiply the different values of actual sales, revised sales and original budgeted sales with $53. The 2nd variance was price variance where we had to use the values just as you mentioned above. I’ll be honest for a moment i had totally forgotten what both variances were then suddenly remebered. Did you get relevant costing questions in Section B? i think it was relevant costing just not sure about it.

@smeriem said: As I understand our limitations are 111 hours of Labours and Demand (min and max). But! I could not find how many Labour hours are required by each course. I read and read and read. Maybe mistake ...

I got the same question for section c. I assume because both max and min demand was given we should use the average demand???? I have no clue. Also, for me because the constraint was in staff days, it took me a long time to figure out how many days each course took. I just hope I don't fail again.

how was your rolling budget & beyond budgeting