Attempting Professional level exam first time

The professional exams are a step up in difficulty. For one, they are much more time pressured. It is crucial to work efficiently and not waste time during the exam. Exam technique becomes more important.

A good strategy, particularly for writing heavy exams such as SBL, and one which I used to successfully pass all the P level exams first time, is to read the entire paper and then plan your answers for the entire exam before starting any questions. Then divide the remaining time by 100 and allocate that number of minutes per mark for each question part. Once the time is up, move onto the next question, even if you could write more.

For example, if you have 3 hours 15 minutes for the exam, and you spend 45 minutes reading and planning, you have 150 minutes left. That’s 1.5 minutes per mark. If question 1a is worth 6 marks, then you have 9 minutes to write your answer. Once the 9 minutes is up, move on to question 1b. Don’t be tempted to write more, just leave a space and move on.

If you have time at the end you can come back, but so often we see students saying things like “I couldn’t complete all of question 3 as i only had 20 minutes left after questions 1 and 2”. That’s not giving yourself the best chance of passing. It’s better to give an OK answer to every question part, than brilliant answers for some questions and not even attempt others.

Another big difference between F papers and P papers is that in P papers there are less marks for just regurgitating knowledge, and more marks for applying your knowledge to the scenario. You must carefully read the question and take notice of the question verb (describe/criticise/explain/analyse etc) to ensure you are answering the question how the examiner wants, not the question that you would like to answer.

As with any ACCA exam, question practice is key, and make sure you do a few timed mocks under exam conditions to get used to the time pressure and time management techniques like I detaeilwd above.

By the way, please could you change your forum display name not to have the ACCA letters after your name. That designation is for fully qualified members only, and if you are still taking your exams you are clearly not a member yet.