PM*** F5 June 2012 Exam was … Comments and Instant Poll ***

Probably toughest ever, ridiculous paper, nothing on costing technique ? Certainly this paper covered the least popular syllables of this paper , and has indeed caught students by surprise.
Did my best to answer all the questions, whether this was enough, remains to be seen

@tajinder2222 - i agree it was something unexpected .....i hope to get 50 but i am not sure.ooopss i guess i missed the top down question !!???? never saw that...i completely ignored #3....

cz overall : wasted my time 6 months!!!!!

@tajinder2222 said:
cristina....not being happy with my performance...just saying the exam was as bad as everybody making it sound....there were lots of easy marks and bits and pieces to make you think...

you won't pass exam with few easy marks ;)

I have F6 tomorrow and feel like drained by this one. just make life a little bit more interesting

cristina i meant the second part of the seasonal question for 10 marks on budget setting process used....was a rolling budget we were supposed to discuss or was it about management setting the budget by themselves and imposing the budget (top down budgeting??

@Parallel Universe - tell me about it. I'm hoping F6 won't be as bad. Still brushing up on my VAT and inheritance tax, though first 3 Q's should be ok. How are you feeling for it?

I thought it was a rolling budget

@perfecta1 said:
you won't pass exam with few easy marks ;)

nah...but i will with all the rest of the marks i got...;)

@tajinder2222 said:
nah...but i will with all the rest of the marks i got...;)

lucky git....

how shud this paper be prepared in or order to pass it seems impossible i have not given f5 exam in this attempt iam going to give it in dec what can be what the strategy shud be get ur basics right do f3 then f5 wat to do

mr perfect do u have any advice on how to prepare theory of f5 cauz dats the most daunting task u can be tested on any topic of thoery

@kapslock - I feel, I have no energy left , my mind has gone blank, can`t take my mind off this paper. I thought F5 was easy, believe me I have gone through quite a lot of F5 past paper, previous articles including her article about throughput accounting where she mentioned the book called "The Goal" felt quite prepared.
She can go a do one

I agree with everyone on here . This was by far one of the hardest exams i have ever seen. No real topics came up in the paper eg multi-profit graphs, throughput, regression analysis etc. This exam was very unfair and the questions set were very difficult. Q3 was ludicrous. I had to keep reading this over and over. I hope they do something with the pass mark for this exam! Good luck to everyone . Lets hope we all get 50 after that horrid paper!

how the relevent costing should be prepared

Ugh, the more I review my notes / read this forum, the less confident I get...

I'm now worrying that on the last page I wrote in (due to hurried last 5 minutes in the exams) I didn't fill in the little black dot for the question number at the top of the page... if that's the case I can scrap 6 marks there easily. bugger.

well dats an old story dec attempt might be lucky with abc and linear programming coming in dec session 2012

I thought that the exam was very hard, bordering on a disaster.
After having spent months studying and revising CostVolumeProfit charts and limitations, drawing Decision Trees and calculating the value of perfect / imperfect information (both new areas of syllabus), performing complex costing excercises with Leraning Curves etc, and becoming a professional linear programmer (seriously, I could coach students on this item now) - NONE - absoluetly NONE of thsis - came up.

When I saw the contents of the paper, the only Question that I was happy to see was the Variances part 1. Easy really (again, spent a lot of time revising this). This is the only question which actually was expected, so not sure why anyone would complain about this one.
First, take original budgeted contribution, then adjust for sales volume variance (which in this case consisted of 2 parts: operational FAV and planning ADV - as the market went down by 10% so this was planning var)
So you get flexed budgeted contribution
Apply all basic variances
Reconcile to the actual contribution

The part of the question asking about applicability of standards in TQM environment was more difficult, but essentially standards are of limited use in the highly automated environment such as TQM and JIT.
Not sure if I answered enough on the subject though, tried to make a few points.

The question on multiplicative models and seasonal variations: had NO idea where to start so did not even try.
Answered A LOT on the imposed budget style and bad forecasting.
- de-motivational effect
of imposed budget where the GM is not interested in reality nor opinions of others
- the incentive scheme perceived as "bogus" since GM clearly has no intention of ever paying bonuses
- cost of disposing of the bl**dy unsold sauces
- issues with deep discounting of sauces when need to shift inventory - inbuild expectations by the customers of low prices in the future
- damage to the company's image due to deep discounting practices (perceived inferiot quality)

I think I did OK on the target pricing in NHS trust.
I think the question was not that bad.
Target price fot the operations on heart (which are paid AT COST but within certain annual budget): target price = total annual budget / divided by the planned number of operations on heart
- since no surplus is re-funded to the trust, there is no point worrying about creating such surplus
Hence, just keep within annual allocation for these operations.

For all other operations (which are paid at a fixed fee):
the fixed fee here is similar to the "competitive or optimum price" in the normal manufacturing environment.
So steps are the same from this point:
- fixed fee is your "target price"
- deduct from this the necessary margin/profit %
- arrive to target cost
- compare to current cost, close the gap

the difficulties are to do with the regional differences (NHS trust in the Soust of UK would have different costs to NHS trust in the North due to different salaries' and wages, rent etc)
So in the South you would have more difficulties closing the gap than you would in the North.
- deep cost cutting is always controversial, especially when it comes to HEALTH. The tax-payers (who ultimately fund the Trust) are not going to be too happy about DEEP cost cutting excercises (and they WILL know, through newspapers, investigative journalism etc).
Reputational image to the hospital and political pressure may follow.
- cost cutting could affect quality, e.g. reduced spending on cleaning would increase infection rates etc

Buy or make: I came to the conclusion that none of the 2 products should be outsourced. I totally ignored the depreciation and insurance, as surely these are NOT relevant? - yes the question did state that 40% of the total charge are connected to the production of keypads and screens, but surely the depreciation is not going to immediately disappear into the window (on existing plant) if you outsource??
I mean, where does all this plant go? - out of the window? Or may be I misunderstood this requirement.

Then there were marks available for discussing the implications of outsourcing:
-social aspect (redundancies which are NOT the case as we are told that labout is in short supply?? - REALLY? Which planet is the examiner ON? - short supply of labour to put together a few bits and pieces of keypad? - it's hardly a realistic scenario in the current economic environment!!!)
- moving the primary function elsewhere. The only point of RobberCo existing is to make keypads and screens, if it's outsourced, what's the point of this company?
- reliability - flexibility of supplier
- quality control. This is essential as RobebrCo undertakes any repairs FREE, so if anything is faulty, this will cost the company dearly in the end
- potential delays in transporting the parts and also potential delays at CUSTOMS - whoever worked in the industries whereas custom clearance is needed, would know very well that delays are inevitable, if not all the tme, at least time to time
- commercial secrets etc, said it was unlikely as pretty standard products and no "know-hows" expected
- value attached to the products being made "in-house" is unlikely to apply - these are keypads and not Italian designer shoes, so who cares where the keypad is made !!!


Finally, ROI and RI.
The theoretical discussion about goal congruence etc was OK and should score some marks. I did not to it brilliantly but I think more or less OK.
Original ROI / RI was easy - just annualise!
Then I said that if we calculate the "old ROI" we get a healthy growth from prior 3 motnhs, so it's the "stupid" managers' decision to charge head office costs, which is eroding ROI.
And that the divisions, if they WERE assessed on the original basis, would have shown great results.

Then I said it was indeed very strange that the head office decided to impose their costs and not to lower the target ROI. It's illogical and simply not acceptable.
Don't know if this was the clever comment to make. Who knows.
I know that in real life the divisional managers should have told the head office to go away and re-think such approach.

On the new project, charged depreciation over 6 months to arrive to the value of net assets - but stupidly forgot to adjust the net profit for the amount of depreciation!
so don't expect any marks here...

Overall, because I did not answer at all the forecasting of sales and did not attempt the part of Make or Buy about how many to produce if more labour available (run out of time), also not sure if answered Make or Buy original correctly (I said NOT to buy, make for both products), I can only hope to get something like 50-55.
I am hoping that I shall scrape this one - due to my written parts, but who knows.... may be not.

If not, not a big deal and shall re-sit in December, with the hopes that all my hard studying would pay off !!!! (linear programming, decision trees, risk and uncertainty, CVP analysis, Buildign Blocks, optimum price equations, learning curves etc etc - all that was simply wasted on this sitting! - not to mention my scientific calculator which did not get used....I may as well take it back to the shop)

Am I upset?
Not really, as we have been told many times that we should not try to "predict" the exam topics.
However, this exam, in my view, was simply not wide enough - my coverage of the syllabus was very wide, however this made little difference to my performance, which was just well below what I have expected it to be.

To all those who think they failed: the game is not yet over, let's wait for the results and see! You and I may have just scraped above 50!
After all, pigs CAN fly, right? - Keep your hopes alive!
:)))

ooh dont worry : mmarch dat doesnot matter if u forget to fill in the dot for question

Feel less confident by the minute, anyone for law on monday :(

@tajinder- well done in passing the exam, your confidence is to be admired.

It was horrible. I scanned though the questions in the planning time and felt awful. I thought the variance one would be easy enough but the junior accountant stuff just confused me. The first one was bearable. The seasonal thingy I totally drew a blank. I can only hope I got enough marks in the theory questions which is a shame because I'm usually stronger with calculations.
No linear programming, no demand curves, nothing that I spent hours revising... It was horrific. For the first time ver I wa spushed for time... I just hope that I do well in F4 and F6 so I won't have to potentially resit all of them. I think the Dec 11 exam was too easy and the examiner just made this one ridiculously hard. Maybe they'll scale marks up...? Hopefully.

@chrisbutterley said:
Feel less confident by the minute, anyone for law on monday :(

Yep, I hope the F4 examiner is kinder

Anyone else feel like there revision was wasted ??

well what can i say it's time we kick this examiner out! She is a really stupid twat!

dont worry abt f4 just do kit and u will pass

@lewisbush said:
Anyone else feel like there revision was wasted ??

So much. So many hours stressing over learning curves, figuring out linear programming... UGH! Minimax and EV's... so annoyed.

ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

really hard.........................what to read for exam if examiner plays hide and seek....is he from this planet ?unbelievable questions .............all hard work gone under water..............what to do for F5?

Gone through the paper again..my maximax is 46% trieng to be more optimistic to find 4 extra marks but I think what you think is right could be wrong but what you think is wrong, is wrong.

@opentuitionuser1 said:
Yep, I hope the F4 examiner is kinder

F4 is easy comparing to F5 ;) just answear on what you've been asked for