Answering in Exam

If you have done as I endlessly recommend, you will have done your calculations for materiality at the start of your answer in the section of your answer that is headed "Plan" and that is ruled off (NOT crossed out) when you are ready to start the answer in answer style (rather than in planned bullet point style) How can you write about whether an item is material if you haven't calculated it? And if you have calculated it, then what's the point of putting your calculations at the end of your answer? If it's a report style question and your calculations will be shown within an appendix, that appendix must come at the start of your answer! Head it "Appendix" and show all your calculations and then start writing the report Throughout the report you will write figures with narrative such as "As is shown in the appendix, the gross profit percentage achieved this year is 5 percentage points higher than was achieved last year. That 5 point movement has taken profit percentage from 8% to 13% - an increase in relative terms of 62.5%" Your calculations of 8% and 13% will be shown within the appendix and you may choose to show the 62.5% calculation in there too Hope that helps

Yeah...thanks mike

Dear mike, What do u mean by the "plan ..that is ruled off" and not cross out?...can u explain.

At the top of every answer in your booklet, you have written a bullet-point plan (not full sentences, just single words that came to mind as you read the question and thought of points to bring into an answer) At the end of your planning time you should have sufficient points in your bullet list to be confident about collecting somewhere over 75% of the marks available for that question - 16 mark question? needs 16 separate points to get full marks Your planning time (16 mark question? planning time allocation 8 minutes) is now over and you're starting to write out your planned points in an answer Your plan, at the top of the page is headed "Plan" and, when you've finished planning and you're about to start into the answer, you get your ruler and draw a straight line underneath the last line of your plan and you DON'T cross out the plan It's not rocket science, but the ACCA like it OK?

Yeah...got it...this "plan" approach can be used for every ques...rite?

Not only "can" be - it SHOULD be There used to be an audit guideline called "Planning, controlling and recording" ISA 300 is currently applicable and relates to planning an audit Have you ever wondered why accountants / auditors place such emphasis on planning? Do you think that maybe these people see "Planning" as a really important aspect of auditing? Or is it that they need to fill their time and "planning" happened to be a minor topic that one of the committee members suggested one afternoon at an informal meeting and the other committee members thought that, yes, that could be a good subject to write into an auditing standard? You plan throughout your life. You plan your meals, you plan your journeys, your holidays, your evenings, your work, your clothes for the next day, your bath time and your bedtime, your visits to your parents and your excuses that you'll tell them when you change your mind about visiting them You even plan which exams to take and what time to leave home on the morning of the exam in order to arrive on time but not too early You plan EVERYTHING So what happens when you get in that exam room and the invigilator says, "You may now start to write in your answer book" All ideas about planning fly out of the window. No forethought about what to write. Just an adrenalin rush that launches you into an unstructured, incomplete and (literally) thoughtless answer Of course planning applies to every question - not just to how and where you're going to celebrate the evening of the exam day with friends Message received?

Yup....thanks

That's good - now make sure that you apply it in that exam room!

Mike you mean that make points of plann on answer booklet?

OMG!!!! YES, YES, YES! Write your plan, head it "Plan", at the top of the page for every answer and then, at the end of your planning time, rule off the plan (do not cross it out) and start writing your "proper" answer

#I asked about whether we need to refer to ISA in the answer but I have just found in your answer in another topic! Sorry for your time, sir!

No worries about wasting my time but, since I'm writing anyway, I shall repeat the answer that you would have sought had you not found it elsewhere! There are NO marks for quoting ISA numbers nor titles There are NO marks for quoting IAS numbers nor titles There are NO marks for quoting IFRS numbers nor titles There are NO marks for quoting FRS numbers nor titles There are NO marks for quoting law section numbers nor titles There are NO marks for quoting titles of legislation There are NO marks for quoting ED numbers nor titles So, if there are NO marks for quoting these numbers or titles, why try to learn them?