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Hello
well I have been wondering about 1 thing for a couple of days now and decided to post it here for a peace of mind and confirmation.
sometimes in the question requirement the examiner ask questions without making any relation to the scenario, when answering those questions do we need to relate to the scenario or just answer it without relating and with enough points?
for example question number 16. TS Circuits of BPP exam kit the requirement (a) is, “Discuss the arguments in favor of and against, small companies being subject to an annual audit.” now this question can be answered without relating to the scenario, without reading 1 single line from the scenario. what I want to know is if that will affect the marks in any way.
Thanks in advance!
Hi
You are absolutely correct! There are some questions which are “generic” in nature and are not requiring you to refer to the scenario set out in the question. Such a part a) will then typically be followed by a part b) something like “Using the information in the question, identify …..”
It’s not an uncommon way of setting questions, both in P1 and in P7
If a question is worded in this generic type way, I believe that it’s a general question inviting you to discuss arguments in favour and against a particular proposition and is NOT expecting you to draw references from the stem question.
Hope that helps
thank you for your answer Mike and yes that helps! now i am certain about that issue! even though in the kit they related the scenario with their answer! 😀
not sure if you’ll come back around and have a look here again but i don’t want to open a new thread with this so i’ll just ask you another question now that I’ve got your attention!
i have read the exam techniques you mentioned for p7 in the pdf and trying to follow that right now. in the december 12 session i wrote p7 and p5 and failed in both, i blame my poor exam technique and time management! even though i had plans to go through questions within their allocated time of 1.8 minutes per mark i couldn’t move on without finishing one requirement ( i tend to do that a lot) even when it took me a lot of times. i think i wasted more time writing meaningless gibberish than scoring any mark! i could write up to 90% of the answers in p7 but i had to stop at around 80% and i failed with 48. almost the same thing happened with p5 could write more than 90% but could only write around 70% failed with 42. i am trying my best not to repeat that again so i am trying to follow your technique. so far i have tried a few (4/5) questions and noticed that even though i can manage the time somehow my writing quality suffers a lot. i think a lot less and my writing is quite disorganized, also in the rush i end up forgetting most of the points that i should be writing! anyway i am hoping that will get better with more practice of the kit. i could only go through your notes and video lectures (not all of them! skipped a few in the bottom, to be frank those vids with assurance engagement were pretty juice less and i also noticed you focused a lot in that area too or wrote a lot about it!) so sometimes i feel that my knowledge might not be enough to answer some of the questions but then i go back to the notes and all the relevant points are there! its just me not being able to remember them when i needed to! ops! this is dragging too long and i still haven’t asked my question yet! almost exactly what i do in my exams!
so what i wanted to know is that will the exam technique you mentioned for p7 also work for p5? it will be difficult to implement in p5 i think with all those maths and HUGE scenarios (english is not my mother tongue so i take quite some time to go through it and understanding) but if it was possible then i could follow only one technique for both papers! that would be make my life a bit easy even though life never is! but if it is applicable with some little tweaks here and there could you please let me in on it? 😀
so please let me know your thoughts on that and also if you could give some advice on the above problems that i’m facing trying to implement your technique in p7, it would be much appreciated.
thanking you in advance!
Hi
You say in your thesis (!) the following “also in the rush i end up forgetting most of the points that i should be writing!” This necessarily means that you are not planning your answers properly!
Take the number of marks in a question ( or part question ). Divide by 2. That equals the number of minutes you should spend PLANNING what you are going to write as an answer to that question ( or part ). That then leaves you with just 1.3 minutes to write one markable point. Not 1.4 minutes! Just 1.3.
As Gromit would say “Fail to plan? Plan to fail”
Don’t stop the planning exercise until you have either jotted down the number of points necessary to get full marks or your planning time has run out.
Try COPYING this email for 1.3 minutes and see how much you can write without having to think about what you are writing.
2 lines? 3 lines?
That’s what you need to apply in the exams – both P7 and P5 ( written elements )
Work on the principle of “one point per sentence, one sentence per point”
Your post above is wandering, boring, unstructured and, if I were a marker, I would hate to have to mark it.
Break your answer down into, effectively, one sentence paragraphs ( 2 / 3 lines per paragraph.
Leave a line between your paragraphs.
For Heaven’s sakes, make your answer marker friendly!
Hope that helps!
Hello Mike
Thanks again for getting back.
yes I also think that I’m not planning my answer properly. I got through CAT and F level without planning them in a structured way. I kind of think when I write. I know it is the worst kind of strategy to follow but that’s what I used to do and I have been struggling with time management since I started F level. Only papers I could attempt fully were F4, F5, F8 and P1! All the other exam were horrible in terms of marks attempted but fortunately I got through each time. that was before I met P5 and p7!
Failing these two paper made me realize (the hard way) that I need to manage my time more efficiently and attempt 100% (no matter what) if I want to get 50% I am now practicing the method you’ve mentioned above and also in your p7 exam technique pdf.
you say not to stop the planning exercise until I have jotted down all the points necessary to get full marks or the planning (allocated) time has run out. so far I can’t achieve any of those (can’t jot down all the points necessary nor can I find enough points before the planning time runs out). But I feel some small improvements in my writing. But need to improve my analyzing. I should be able to think from different angles to find enough points I guess.
I’ve always had the tendency to write more than necessary and that bad habit is haunting me now. Trying to follow “1 point per sentence, 1 sentence per point” rule. but sometimes it’s hard to express something meaningful in 1 sentence (maybe because of my English) Also I have the fear of writing too short when I have other things to write. Still working on the compression exercise.
you are exactly right about my previous post! (even though that was harsh :[) that is almost exactly how I write during the exam. no structure, lots of unnecessary gibberish worth 0 and I bet markers also hate my hand writing! But what do you think about this post? (don’t worry about being harsh) Nobody want to appear disorganized and boring! not to an ACCA marker at least!
Thanks once again and yes that did help! I got some points out of that and will try to work on them. even though I knew some of them before I just couldn’t apply them during exam and since I was going through exams I guess I didn’t give it any serious thought!
Hoping to read from you soon!
Look at your most recent post and compare it with mine immediately before it!
Your typed paragraphs are 5 / 6 lines long – in handwriting that’s half a page.
And it’s too much
Compare it with mine – extended bullet points – but each one is saying succinctly the point I’m trying to make
Short, sharp to-the-point sentences without excessive verbiage!
Yes, I’m harsh – but not as harsh as the marker who keeps giving you less than 50%
🙂
Open your mind – use your cumulative experience gained through your ( short ) life so far.
Be imaginative, creative and yet remain realistic
I believe the expression I should be using is “think out of the box” – whatever that means
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