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I was the disaster not the exam.
It was my first exam. Everything was ok until the 20th question. After the 21st question it was a disaster. First, i was listening the other studends which started typing on the keyboard and it was so annoying that i could’t listen of my thoughts and second after this i was thinking the time. It was very stressful and i could’t concentrate. The next time i will take earblugs.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.
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 must’ve been one of the few that thought it went well. Section C 3 E’s question was regarding the performance of a not for profit organisation in this case 3 universities from Neverland. You just had to use the data given in the table to describe the performance of the institutions in line with the three E’s and the objectives the universities had been given in the question. Quite similar to the past paper section C question on a hotel and water park on the ACCA website. So your answer would be structured around how the institutions were meeting their objectives or not, using the data such as university using its resources effectively which you could relate to the money paid via payroll to staff / the number of staff. Or even university performance based on the student surveys data which was given.
Yeah I had that variance sectionb question think I guessed the first 2 questions (think it was contribution volume planning and
operational variance) afterr several attempts to work it out.This is why I decided to attempt section c first to avoid time pressure and stress of long question. There are a lot of easy marks in section C. Section A and B is really like playing lotto, your answers have to 100% accurate otherwise you lose the mark.
@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
RiskSection 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 knowledgeSection 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 budgetingAmazing 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’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!
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 costingYes 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 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.
@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 scenarioI 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??
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