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Hello guys,
I wanted to know whether you recommend distance learning for papers F7, F8 and F9 of the ACCA qualification. I just contacted LSBF and they told me about their packages and a mock exam with a video debrief. Do you recommend LSBF? And how do you rate their quality to OT lectures. OT lectures are free, but is LSBF’s quality better than OT?
THANKS.
Other users of this website will obviously all have their own opinions and advice for you.
In terms of the quality of the production the LSBF lectures are certainly better. We provide ours free and cannot afford the same level of production equipment that LSBF can.
However, in terms of the quality of the content of the lectures, those on OpenTuition are at least as good if not better than LSBF. (Every one of our tutors has been teaching ACCA courses for at least 35 years, which is much longer than most of the tutors in the other companies, and therefore we have the experience. We may not sound that old, but we are 🙂 )
Obviously different tutors have different styles of teaching and everyone has their own preferences. However that is a personal thing for each student – some will prefer lecturer A while others will prefer lecturer B 🙂
Thank you for your reply. Yes, I was talking about the quality of lecture content and not the visual quality!
So you’re saying that I may save a lot of money by just viewing OT lectures and going through the course notes and get the same exposure to the syllabus, in terms of depth and breath, if I just go to OT and view the lectures rather than paying LSBF so much?
What I want to ask is that if I rely on OT lectures and use a study text (like Emile woolf) only will I pass the exam first time or I need complimentary support, like LSBF distance learning?
I want to save money so please help me with this evaluation
Although it will be interesting to hear what others think (especially if they have used LSBF distance learning), I do think that our lectures together with a good Study Text and Revision/Exam Kit are certainly enough to pass well.
A Revision/Exam kit is terribly important because practising questions is imperative. Although the ACCA has past questions on their website, the Revision/Exam kits contain the past questions and a lot of others as well.
I have not used Emile Woolf Study Texts – only those from BPP and from Kaplan. As to which is best of those – again it is personal preference because they are both good. I personally prefer BPP for their Revision Kit, because they are allowed to include all of the past exam questions whereas all of the other publishers are not allowed to include the questions from the last four exams. (And I am sure that Emile Woolf books are fine – it is just that I have not seen them.)
Again, it will be interesting to hear from anyone who has actually used the LSBF distance learning (although bear in mind, that often people who pass think that the tuition was brilliant, whereas people who fail often think that the tuition was awful – sometimes they are right, but not always 🙂 )
Yes, the Emile Woolf books are very good, and yes you are right! The BPP revision kits are brilliant, but so are the others! The last four exams can always be gotten from the ACCA website.
Actually, I’m facing a very “hard” decision to make right now. I need your help and guidance.
I’m actually going to the local university to do ACCA studies and I was thinking of changing to LSBF/OT distance learning through the web, so I have the advantage of learning in the comfort of my house and it’s terrible tiring going to university, travelling, assignments, CAT’s, mock exams, social life, etc… in the university is a very big hassling and very demanding. So that’s why I wanted to change to a more serene and peaceful life at home, studying full time with either OT or LSBF.
I really don’t know what’s good for me. Going to university (and really the lecturer’s just talk what’s in the book and are very boring and I hardly pay attention to their lectures or do their assignments) and facing the world, or just sitting at home and learning the content at my own pace and doing past papers and getting my ACCA qualification.
Please help me analyze! Is it worthwhile making the switch from ACCA university classes to ACCA online learning and what are the pro’s and con’s?
Thanks.
I have used OT and BPP only to pass papers F1 – 4. I was introduced to the LSBF lectures for F5 and F9. I can honestly say that it depends on how you learn John and Rob have two different teaching style (John does both papers on OT and Rob does both for LSBF)
I love the way how John teaches as he begins from scratch (literally I hate linear programming and time series, couldn’t do it even from F2 then John went through the steps including simultaneous equations step by step so you are sure to get it). The lectures and notes cover all the basics that you need to know then you go to the revision lectures and apply what you learn to past papers. It just Great
Rob basically re-enforce what I learnt from John but he has proformas for certain areas and move a little faster than John.
I agree that OT lectures and a good revision kit (I prefer BPP) can pass (that’s what I did for F4 and F9). I had study text and revsion kits for the other papers as well as bpp i-pass cds for the first level (i did those CBE)
It depends on your dedication and how you keep motivated. Some persons like the class room settings as it brings out their competitive edge keeps them focus so that they can be the high achiever in class while others can commit to self-study.
Either way you choose to do it you must realize that you can’t pass an ACCA paper without understanding the full syllabus and practice practice. I like to say you get out what you put in.
Good luck which ever way you choose
Thank you for your reply. So is Rob good? Does he cover everything we need to know for the exam? And is he understandable. I have no problem with the speed. I just wanted quality and a good lecturer, so please assure me whether I’m in safe hands with Rob?
Thanks.
I should mention that I got the LSBF lectures from a friend and did not register with them so don’t know all that is involved when you register with them. Their lectures are also on YouTube.
If you have the money to burn that is up to you, I would rather save what money I can and would invest instead in a revision kit and also a BPP I-Pass CD (I like them because you don’t have to have a book and it’s another way to cover the chapters studied).
Why pay for what you can get for free here on OT with excellent lectures and the option to post your questions when you are confused and get back a response within 24hrs. as I said they just re-enforce what you learn here.
Maybe others who have registered with them can offer more information.
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I would definitely not use LSBF. Their platform goes down consistently and has cost me 2 exams already as they failed to get the courses running online in order for me to actually study!
They also have the worst admin team going – they have taken money off me and so far i’ve been waiting for them to refund me for seven months now. There are hundreds of students fighting to get their money back but LSBF don’t care – they are robbing people!
If you have a problem with LSBF don’t expect LSBF to help you at all. Their content and lectures are good when they work, but from my experience you clearly get what you pay for. LSBF are cheap and i have found out the hard way why they are cheap.
Use BPP online lectures or even these open tutition ones. I’ve regretted using LSBF from day one.
I have also used LSBF for distance learning with mixed results.
As @rwtree mentioned their tech support is not helpful at all! I had issues last year where their website crashed constantly which in fact lost me half of my study leave that day. You contact tech support and their usual response was ‘ It is working for me….’ Also had trouble with some videos would only work with flash and so had to download another browser for my ipad to view them! Also trying to get some kind of discount out of them was rather difficult last year, so much for keeping your custom.
Last year they changed the way they did things, before you were given a whole library of videos for you to watch that ranged from 3 mins to 50 mins in length. Luckly they changed it last year so now you have a classroom environment where you can send in questions to the tutor if you logged on at the right time. It also worked if you watched the videos at a later date as you felt kind of involved in the whole process.
Regarding the tutoring some of the tutors are excellent, Francis springs to mind straight away for F7, the way he explains it and his proformas are excellent. Rob is not bad at explaining things and Martin was quite good at keeping you involved in F8. Would avoid F6 if Meera is still doing it her voice just went through me after a few hours.
Before you spend some money (I am luckly as my employer pays for it!) try watching a few of their videos on youtube, will give you a feel for what they look like and how the tutors explain things. As I have not used many of the online videos (I think I will be watching a few for my resits) I cannot comment on the differences between the quality of LSBF or OT.
I passed F5 last June and I only used the Opentution lectures and notes (plus the BPP revision kit). The lectures were brilliant and best of all was the way John answered everyones questions on the ask tutor forum.
I tried distance learning with Bpp some years ago, but I would never compare OT distance learning with anything else. Opentuition is free and the quality of material provided is unbeatable! I am surprised that the quatily of OT is being questioned, in my view it is even better than attending classes,
I have used both LSBF & BPP study text/ revision kit and my preference would be for the BPP books. I find the info more easy to understand & the questions in the revision kit are set out slightly better. BPP revision guides also give a list of essential questions to try if you are running out of time from each core area which is handy.
I passed P1, P2, P3, and P7 one time sitting using only Open tuition materials (text book and videos). Thank you Open Tuition!
LSBF lectures are a mixed bag really. The ones I had were probably the bit pricier option (joys of work paying!!) where you could either watch the live lecture or watch the live lecture back. You also had a whole library of videos to watch. I have used both options, videos for F5-F8 & live for F9.
The videos are usually recorded a few years ago and sometimes the quality is not that good in particular with sound on some of them (not sure if it something to do with using them on an ipad, the flash versions might be better). One fustrating thing is that they used to have a huge amount of videos and it looks rather daunting only for some of the videos to be really short in length.
Overall the tuition is pretty good and engages you that helps. F7 I would definately recommend as Francis is really good at explaining the subject.
Overall I think I will be using BPP from now on though as kind of fed up with the quality of the tech support on offer, last year I lost half a day of study time as the platform would not work!
As you have seen I am the original poster of this thread and I was in a position like you some months ago deciding to go for LSBF or not. I first took the live lecture package which is obviously more expensive but I couldn’t go with that as I live not in the UK and overseas. Also, the live lectures don’t start till March 2014. Therefore, I changed my package to the 250 GBP package and booked F7, F8 and got paper F9 for free. I can confidently say that with LSBF you are in safe hands. While most people here have told you that they don’t update the lectures, I can say that’s the outdated truth. In fact, they weren’t granting me access to the lectures because they wanted to make sure that everything is fully updated and all course lectures are in line with the latest syllabus. So I can certainly say that don’t worry about missing things in the syllabus. Everything is covered and their class notes, in fact, they have references to the study guide throughout to show how the syllabus is covered in full in the lectures. They will ensure that their lectures are updated otherwise why would they give a first time pass guarantee? Also, if their lectures weren’t updated then by now they would not be operating.
As far as the platform is concerned and people complaining that the platform breaks down. That’s old news! It happened in Jun 2012 and now we are almost in Jan 2014. They’ve improved very much on tech support now. I’ve seen myself. They have a new ticket submission system and the replies usually come within one day! So you got to be confident that you’ll have a full technical team working 24/7 for you if something goes wrong. The ticket submission system is very good. People also generally complain about their refunds and LSBF eating up their money but this is also false. You have to clearly read their terms and conditions when you enroll with them. They clearly say “after 21 days of payment, refunds may not be given.” So no matter what you do if 21 days have passed, unless in special circumstances, they won’t give the refund. But I say why ask for a refund? Their lectures are so good that a refund won’t be needed. All this is just my opinion and I’m not advertising them.
Now, regarding the audit paper specifically and learning with LSBF. You can find people’s comments here:
https://opentuition.com/topic/which-is-the-best-study-text-for-paper-f8/#post-152161
I ordered LSBF hard copy study text, revision kit and passcards. The pass cards are fabulous and so is the study text. However, the problem with the revision kit is that it doesn’t have the last 4 latest exams due to ACCA’s publishing policy and therefore I strongly recommend you buy BPP revision kits. BPP revision kits are the best.
Open tuition lectures are fabulous in themselves but as you want a premium service, I recommend you go for the 250 GBP package and don’t worry too much. You’ll make it with LSBF. Their platform is strong these days. I am just giving my opinion in an unbiased way. I’m not advertising them to you.
Well I passed F2 and F3 as well using OT lectures. The little bits missing didn’t give me any problem 🙂
For F5 I didnt find anything missing and everything in the exam had been covered. That is all mattered to me.
It seems silly to pay so much for lectures. Just buy a study text if you are worried and use OT lectures.
I searched John and he was managing director of Kaplan before so I tryst him 🙂 )(Gabriel is funny – other of her posts say Kaplan is the best, Bpp if the best, now LSFB is the best. and paying more does not always mean it is better)
This topic will be soon closed and deleted. and I am posting this, only to let you all know why, so none is surprised..
OpenTuition does not have to advertise/promote other tuition providers.
Just like other providers would delete without a hesitation any post about opentuition.While we do believe in a free and open discussion, it surely applies to technical problems ACCA students have with their exams.. choosing a provider is not one of them..
if you do not understand why.. take this analogy..
If you go to someone else for a meal, you do not talk to the host, “oh, this is a free meal, but in the restaurant where I pay I can get this expensive dish..
To be honest, I think it is rude and offending the host!Our tutors go above and beyond here to do what they can in their free time (Premium time I might say!)
They could be teaching or earning PREMIUM cash elsewhere, yet they decided to spend their free time helping students free of charge..Just because you pay elsewhere, it does not make it premium!
What makes a service PREMIUM is who is teaching –
If opentuition lectures were done by other students.. then fine!
But they are not.
OT tutors have got many many years of past experience teaching for BPP/Kaplan and even LSBF in the UK..We have changed ACCA tuition landscape, and we want to carry on improving our service.. but posts like the ones above.. really makes us feel, like, we should not really bother!
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