Current issues

Hi, Admin has already (yesterday) started pushing the tutors for tips for the June exams and I’ve not really given it a lot of thought so far – but I shall.

Do you have any suggestions!?

As for tips on how to tackle question 4…… personally, if I we doing the exam, I would look at question 4 only to see whether there was any technical word within the question that I could use in my answers to questions 2 and 3.

I have ALWAYS found question 4 to be the most difficult to score well on. A 25 mark discussion need 25 separate points and whereas you may know half a dozen arguments in favour and half a dozen against, that’s not enough!

I would actively seek to avoid question 4 and would only attempt it if I couldn’t attempt either question 2 or question 3

So, if you absolutely have no choice, then question 4 it is. How to tackle it?

You have theoretically 16.25 reading and planning minutes and I would use those to the full.

Read and then re-read the question to be totally sure and clear about exactly what the question is looking for.

On your answer paper, note down under the heading “Plan” all the one word points that come to your mind from all the articles that you have recently read upon this current issue topic.

Then read the question again and ask yourself “If I write all these one word points out into separate sentences, do I have 20 – 25 separate, markable, relevant points?”

And if you don’t, look at the question and expand the points in your plan. Can you make two points out of that one? Can you make another point that is related to one you have written and may be not 100% relevant, but you can sneak it in to your answer?

Still not up to 20 – 25 points? Then read my “general” examination technique article and the two articles by two members of the P3 marking team in Student Accountant from around two years ago

Hope that helps

You’re welcome