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Hi everyone,
I had a question concerning the lecture videos for Tax-UK on this site.
I did a quick calculation, and watching all Tax-UK lectures will amount to approximately 73 hours. If one spends 2 hours/day to revise Tax, it would take about 5 weeks just to watch the videos, and even longer if one did practice exercises for each topic.Unfortunately, I do not have the above-mentioned amount of time. I really wish to benefit from the teachings in opentuition without spending so much time on just watching/listening lectures. Would anyone have any strategies to tackle this topic?
Thank you in advance, and good luck with your studies.
altane, welcome to the Opentuition forums. Can you give a few more details in order for people to give better advice. How much existing knowledge of tax do you have?, when do you intend to sit the exam?, Do you have a current practice and revision kit?Are there any particular weaknesses you feel you have in terms of tax topics?
The above are some questions that if answered could help people in terms of giving better advice to you.
Thank you for your message.
I will try to provide some more details.I am currently studying for the March 2023 exam session, and I plan to sit the tax paper, which will be my 9th exam.
I have purchased the up to date BPP practice and revision kit.
In terms of knowledge, I live outside of the UK, and therefore, for the moment, possess little to no knowledge of UK-Tax; but this was the same for UK-Law, and in the end I passed that paper.In my previous revisions, I would methodically cover the syllabus (i.e. watch the videos + look at the notes), then solve as many questions as possible from the revision kits. I would then revise weak areas, and then solve some more questions.
However, in the case of UK-Tax, I have noticed that I have watched 4,5 hours of videos (of which app. 1,5 hours is introduction), and I have not even made a dent in the amount of material I have to cover. At this rate, I am uncertain how to effectively cover the entire syllabus.
I am aware that practice is essential in ensuring success in the exam, however I am unclear on how to establish a balance between time spent on lectures and question practice.
Should I perhaps just jump in and start solving questions, and refer to the lectures only as an index, as previously mentioned watching 70+ hours of videos and manage the knowledge within those lectures is starting to look quite daunting.Any pointers would be appreciated.
If it’s ok, I might have to write more than one post to effectively respond to your questions. Firstly, there is a lot of material to cover in the taxation syllabus. I would say it’s very important that you don’t try to memorise Evey single fact. For example, you may very well not remember every single employee benefit that is taxable or exempt from taxation and the extent to which this is true. Try and remember what you can of topics of this nature and make educated guesses if you are unsure in the exam.
I think you might be right about not watching every single lecture before attempting any practice and revision questions. You might have to watch a number of hours of lectures before attempting questions. I would probably advise you to make use of the ask the tutor forum to advise you further. In terms of watching the videos, I would advise you to take breaks of five to ten minutes when you need to take a break. It’s hard to advise exactly how often you should take these breaks. You should take them when you find your concentration breaking. This could be from twenty minutes of study to up to an hour. There could of course be “natural” breaks between videos.
You might also find the following article useful in terms of general strategy for tackling ACCA-
You could purchase a study text even though this is not necessary. There is a danger of getting “bogged down” by taking this option. If you do so, I would recommend “flicking through” the book and only concentrating on parts you are struggling with as indicated by other study. This site offers discount on BPP products-
In summary, I think your basic strategy for study is sound. It will probably have to be adapted for this particular paper. Think if you spend about two hours per day on average from now to exam you should be ok. I would increase hours and concentrate more on exam revision the closer you get to the exam. My feeling is you will only have to watch full course of Opentuition lectures once. After this concentrate on subject areas you find more difficult. I hope I haven’t rambled on and wasted your time. If you have more questions or want additional clarification or details please ask. Hope this helps.
Hi,
Thank you for your reply.
I find the advice very useful, and appreciate the time, and the effort you have spent in clarifying the areas that were not so clear for me.I suppose it is time for me to go back and tackle the subject once more.
Thanks!You are welcome. I think you are definitely on the right track. Please post again with how you are progressing and/or any further issues.
Hello all, just a quick update from my side.
After dealing with some personal tasks in early 2023, I enrolled for the June 2023 exams.
I went through the lectures, and did most of the examples and practice questions, some successfully and some not so successfully.
I have the utmost respect for the content in opentuition and thank the instructors for their time.
However, with less than a week for the exam, I must admit that this is the first time I am going to an ACCA exam feeling that I have a higher chance of failing than passing.I am not sure what happened, but even when practicing with BPP questions I can see that something is not right; the fears that I had mentioned in my previous posts seem to be materializing, unfortunately.
I am not saying this as criticism, but perhaps the lectures would be better served if similar subjects were gathered together, allowing the candidate to progress at a relatively quick tempo so that there would be more time for practice. For example, self-assessment and payment of tax for individuals & companies were covered separately; there are 8 other chapters between the self-assessment chapters, and in the end most of the content in the 2 chapters seem to be an echo of each other.
These are realizations one really does not wish to have made, especially when time was so critical.
Perhaps my case is unique, but I just don’t feel my June exam outlook to be good. The lectures took just too much of my time, perhaps I was also unable to fully leverage the lectures, hence my current predicament.
Nonetheless, I thank opentuition for the study materials and the effort they made for sharing the content for free.
I wish everyone the best of luck for the upcoming June exams, and a miracle for myself 🙂In terms of the worry about failing exam, I responded to a similar query on another thread about these concerns-
https://opentuition.com/topic/i-think-im-going-to-fail-again-in-aa/
The general advice I gave would also apply to this topic.
Hello,
My Tax-UK exam went badly.
I blame myself for this.Please note that the current format of the UK Tax lecture is too time intensive.
From an academic stand point the lecture accomplishes it’s goal, which is to impart UK Tax knowledge according to the ACCA syllabus.
However, the lecture is not as successful when it comes to preparing the candidate in a pragmatic manner. Especially candidates’ which have other responsibilities (i.e. work, family etc…)
At the end of the lecture, one is full of information, but has little practical experience in terms of questions. And the fact that the lectures absorb the majority of one’s time does not help (i.e. little time left for BBP practice or mock exams).The current lecture format might be suitable for a student, but it is not suitable for someone with limited daily hours for study.
I am certain the lectures could be presented in a more streamlined and time efficient fashion.This concludes my post on this topic. I wish opentuition continued success.
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