*** F4 (paper based) June 2015 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

Guys please complete the acca survey and voice ur concerns because I think rather than testing ur knowledge of F4 the examiner is trying to trick us so many questions were tricky my elimination strategy didn’t work at all.
I though the December and specimen papers were good and straightforward but this June 2015 exam was just crazy.

Someone mention that no paper base exam exists for F4 lol which world r u living in bro.

Hey guys I didn’t know that rule of each question should begin on a new page ???

Found some MCQ’s also a bit tricky “egg shell skull rule” wasn’t named that kind in my BPP book. And for the other confusing question I took also both principal and agent regarding the estoppel question.

The last Section B question was a bit like: Hmm is she really in a professional function and capable to assess the value of the stolen Information…is her son working for that Company or not?….I wrote it’s not inside dealing but theft. Maybe you can tell me your “considerations”.

And by the way alloted shares doesn’t mean paid in capital so I took 50’000 GBP as minimum requirement for the plc (given the fact that the question was only 1 mark worth 🙂 ). But I am pretty sure they meant it the other way round.

Does anyone know how long the review takes time for this particular paper?

@zoransucic said:
Found some MCQ’s also a bit tricky “egg shell skull rule” wasn’t named that kind in my BPP book. And for the other confusing question I took also both principal and agent regarding the estoppel question.

The last Section B question was a bit like: Hmm is she really in a professional function and capable to assess the value of the stolen Information…is her son working for that Company or not?….I wrote it’s not inside dealing but theft. Maybe you can tell me your “considerations”.

And by the way alloted shares doesn’t mean paid in capital so I took 50’000 GBP as minimum requirement for the plc (given the fact that the question was only 1 mark worth 🙂 ). But I am pretty sure they meant it the other way round.

Does anyone know how long the review takes time for this particular paper?

Interesting the eggshell skull rule wasn’t in BPP either – I used Kaplan and have been wondering if I should change to BPP for the next session if they’re not going to include information which we need!

You’re right on the alloted shares – plc needs a minimum of 50k.

I think I did alright with the Section B questions but it’s really hard to tell how they will be marked. The ACCA marking scheme for December’s paper seemed to just say ‘1 mark per relevant point’ for all of them so who knows whether the marker will consider my points relevant.

I realised after I got home that I slightly messed up that Insider Dealing one in part b where I said the son wasn’t an insider because he didn’t get the info as a result of his position. That was wrong unfortunately but should be only I mark. I know what you mean about that question though. As the cleaner (and no offence meant to cleaners) does she know what the information is? In the end I took it as yes since she brought it to her son, an accountant so I went down the insider dealing route and said that she had committed the passing on offence and he had committed the primary offence of dealing.

Think my answers to Section B were all too long but hopefully they’ll get something.

You are right,section A was harder than expected.

I thought most of the questions in section A were perfectly reasonable, some of them were however, in my opinion, unfair! The officious bystander question and the eggshell skull rule question I had no idea as the textbook I had studied (Kaplan) didn’t cover either of these.

Other questions in section A I thought were a bit ambiguous, such as the agency by estoppel question I felt was phrased in such a way as to catch students out rather than test their knowledge of the subject. I think for this one I said it was the action of both the principal and the agent but who knows.

Section B was relatively easy in my opinion, I stumbled slightly on the insider dealing question as I couldn’t figure out what offence the son had committed by purchasing the shares.

I also did not quote a single case in section B, partly because I found them very easy to get mixed up so didn’t waste too much effort to memorise them.

What did everyone put for the question in section A on damages about whether they are remedial, punitive or compensatory? I couldn’t remember what the word punitive meant at the time so put remedial and compensatory lol.

@accastudent1986 said:
I thought most of the questions in section A were perfectly reasonable, some of them were however, in my opinion, unfair! The officious bystander question and the eggshell skull rule question I had no idea as the textbook I had studied (Kaplan) didn’t cover either of these.

Other questions in section A I thought were a bit ambiguous, such as the agency by estoppel question I felt was phrased in such a way as to catch students out rather than test their knowledge of the subject. I think for this one I said it was the action of both the principal and the agent but who knows.

Section B was relatively easy in my opinion, I stumbled slightly on the insider dealing question as I couldn’t figure out what offence the son had committed by purchasing the shares.

I also did not quote a single case in section B, partly because I found them very easy to get mixed up so didn’t waste too much effort to memorise them.

What did everyone put for the question in section A on damages about whether they are remedial, punitive or compensatory? I couldn’t remember what the word punitive meant at the time so put remedial and compensatory lol.

Sounds as though we had exactly the same response to the same questions!! Like you, I don’t mind hard MCQs but they need to be fair. I pretty much memorised the entire Kaplan text book so it was disheartening to be faced with things which weren’t in it and, like you said, some of the others were very ambiguous.

The agency by estoppel one is bugging me the most as it wasn’t a test of knowledge more a test of your ability to decipher what the examiner was asking. Put the same answer as you but have no idea still whether that is correct.

The damages question? Was that the one about the awards for unfair dismissal? If so, I said punitive was the incorrect answer as damages are meant to be compensatory not punitive.

What about the option contract one? I dithered for ages on that, first put collateral then changed my mind and put conditional – again, no mention in Kaplan of either option, conditional or collateral contracts!!

Apparently ACCA have had a change of heart and are going to publish the MCQs on Monday so at least we can check the questions and perhaps Mike will be kind enough to do suggested answers for us.

@accastudent1986 said:
I’m starting to wonder whether the answer for agency by estoppel question should have been the action of the principal as I guess they would need to get the ball rolling by implying that the other person is their agent?

I can’t remember how the damages question was worded but was something along the lines of what are the types of damages that may be awarded.

The option contract answer was unilateral contract as the party issuing the contract has not the option to withdraw or refuse to honour the contract once someone has accepted it (I only know this as I covered unilateral contracts in a lot of detail in another course that I did – which actually reminds me, before registering for ACCA I asked whether my credit management level 3 diploma would gain me an exemption from F4 to which I was told that yes a level 3 would 100% give me the exemption and the level 5 was not required, after registering and applying for the exemption I was then told that the level 5 diploma was needed!!)

Either way i’m looking forward to seeing the question paper be uploaded onto the ACCA website so I can mark my own answers and determine whether i’ve passed or not

That was my initial thought with the agency question too – Principal only. It was just the way it was worded made it so tricky. I thought, in order for P to be estopped from denying authority from A, surely A would have to have done something (eg sign contract)? Hence putting both down. This seems to be a perfect example of a question designed to catch out the student and is, in my opinion, a rather unfair one.

Ah well, looks like I got the option contract one wrong. Well, it was a guess, and I had a feeling that anything I had to guess at, the guess would turn out to be wrong!

I’m also looking forward to seeing the questions again. Don’t think I’ll really be able to mark myself as there will still be some, like the agency one, that I can’t ‘look up’ the answer to and others which I won’t be able to remember which answer I selected, which is frustrating!! The officious bystander for example, cannot for the life of me remember which option I selected and one about partnerships which I have no idea of my selection.

At least it might remind me that there were straightforward ones as I tend to dwell on the problematic ones and end up feeling the whole paper was a disaster!

@jenny3549 said:
Sounds as though we had exactly the same response to the same questions!! Like you, I don’t mind hard MCQs but they need to be fair. I pretty much memorised the entire Kaplan text book so it was disheartening to be faced with things which weren’t in it and, like you said, some of the others were very ambiguous.

The agency by estoppel one is bugging me the most as it wasn’t a test of knowledge more a test of your ability to decipher what the examiner was asking. Put the same answer as you but have no idea still whether that is correct.

The damages question? Was that the one about the awards for unfair dismissal? If so, I said punitive was the incorrect answer as damages are meant to be compensatory not punitive.

What about the option contract one? I dithered for ages on that, first put collateral then changed my mind and put conditional – again, no mention in Kaplan of either option, conditional or collateral contracts!!

Apparently ACCA have had a change of heart and are going to publish the MCQs on Monday so at least we can check the questions and perhaps Mike will be kind enough to do suggested answers for us.

Hi Jenny,

I note that you state that ACCA will publish the June 2015 F4 paper exam today, could I please ask for a link to this if you have it?

@jenny3549 said:
They haven’t done it yet. I keep refreshing the ACCA website every half hour – this is driving me nuts!

Will let you know as soon as it’s up and we can compare notes!

Yes I keep looking also! i assume this will appear under the ‘past papers’ section.

@jenny3549 said:
Yes, if you scroll down to the bottom where it says ‘related documents’ – this should be where it shows up. I keep checking on F5 as well since that was the first exam in case they upload in order of date taken.

The June 2015 papers for F5-F9 seem to be on the site, only F4 to go 🙁

Guys they r posting the section B’s only. Oh I just release someone else said that. When did they release a statement saying they r only posting section B’s only? so we won’t ever see the whole f4 exam paper for June 2015 ever hmmm

Thks Jenny! I presume u meant Section B’s only will check it out. Gosh I really wanted to see the entire paper ASAP.

Hi Maggir why don’t u do the Irish version?