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

Paper was just little loud !

Anyone know a city or country named Burgistan? Couldn't find any on google.maps :D so maybe my answer that exchanging rates can fluctuate and may be not worthile to outsource components will gain a mark? ;)

I m so disappointed....i dun wana study for my f8 which is on 14....this paper drove me crazy...I was well prepared bt everything went wrong :( f8 is far more harder than dis, dun hav courage to give this ...n P1 as well....noooo

Is dun know wt da hell was happened with da examiner this time, i mean this is total bullshit, ROI & RI and time series ruined me really, in my last hour i was juz thinking and thinking and looking here and there to find any hint but failed :(

@perfecta1 hahaha! I made similar assumptions too. Assuming Burgistan is located far away frm the company, there could be potential delays in shipment of the components which will lead to customer dissatisfaction, and potentially losing its customers. But if you're referring to the non-financial factors question, could ur answer be financial-related since its abt cost?

a terrible paper , i am unsure of what the examiner was trying to achieve with it, ii felt like she was bent on trying to prove a point about second guessing what questions may come up??? but in her bid to make us all look bad , I am afraid she has exposed her inexperience in being an examiner as many of us are going to fail.........it just did not make sense what was asked.
terribly disappointed . With all the prep i'd done i thought i was going in to the paper very well prepared to answer perf mgt que not trick que........(sour grapes? perhaps)

This was a terrible exam in so many ways! What a complete waste of time and paper printing the formula sheet – didn’t use one of them. This is the 2nd time i’ve done this paper. After failing the first time I put loads of effort in going through past paper questions , in fact, almost every one of them in the bpp revision book and never has a combination of questions been as awful as that!!

Not a fair paper in my view, hardly any of the expected calcs such as regression, linear prog, learning curves, demand, abc, CVP, budgets... etc Feel cheated out of exam fee

Anybody read that multi cumulative thing? Examiner just gone mad .

It's appears that most of you had their own expectation of topics to be examined and are baising your opinion on if your expectations were fulfilled or not. Anything can be examined - whether you found it easy or difficult depends on your level of understanding of the exam topic area. It's not the other way around!

Was any question concerning flexible budget

nightmare!!!! why did i do ACCA? so discouraging!!!!

q.no.1 make or buy
it was so confusing , extreme comprehensive , i thought they were asking for relevant costing. so, i made wrong.

q.no.2 target costing
mostly writing..little relaxing.


q.no.3 seasonal variation
nightmare, lot of fators given in the question , i am seeing it for first time,

q.no. variance
asked to prepare operating statement
also i guess, we have to find planning and operational seasonal variance,
q.no.5 ROI and RI
not so tough.
i was confused that does controllable fixed cost include depreciation of an asset or not.
so, RI and ROI depends on that.


high probability to FAIL

no qn from ABC, THROUGHPUT, environment cost, linear programming, learning curves, zero based budgeting, decision tree, EV, minimax, maxmax, payoff table.

i think the question paper was made by a cruel person. may GOD call him home early.

this is my 2nd tym of writing ds paper, i was more prepared compared to d 1st tym i tried it.....i hope for d best. i gave it my best dou.

I am going to buy a Guitar..... and play all day long.... leaving F5 far away..... Good god....... I have read all the question of previous years....... but this question was a disaster and was so insanely unpredictable and was so difficult ....

Isn't this supposed to be fundamental? This Ann irons is making me feel very dumb. T^T
It's a passable paper...but extremely difficult to score!

1. Decision making...(Not within my predictions and I thought it was easy anyways, so I didn't revise. Turns out, I forgot the exact steps...)
(10 marks)

2. Target Costing was one of the topics I practiced a lot. But the style was so different! Full theory!? Holy crap! But arr well...managed to pull through.
(16 marks)

3. =-= You evil evil question...I've never seen you in my life before.
Seasonal variation was something I thought would come out only as theory or some addition thing. Seems like I overlooked this part. 10 marks gone with the wind. The other 10 marks...pffffttt No more time (I did this question last)
(3 marks)
4. Finally something decent. Hahaha!!! ... Wait 8 marks on TQM?! Whaa?? I'm sorry, which part of the syllabus are you from?
[Guess I have to slap myself for not covering everything in detail]
(12 marks)

5. I screwed up even though I knew what was ROI and RI about. Exhausted and stressed. Didn't read 'Annual'. (5 marks)

(46 marks) > I'll see you again this December.
Unless they decide to implement the bell curve and push us up to a pass! Which is of course highly impossible...

Hi guys,
Ask u ah, what was your answer to Q5 for ROI & RI:
"Whether should the manager invest in the machine?" how do u calculate the ROI? Is it minus e apportioned head office cost or without??
Was the answer:if based on ROI, decision is not to Invest. If Based on RI, then Invest??

guys In Q3 we had to find Trend... as season variation was given... it was dead easy.. it was never examined before ... I regret not paying attention to it..... Forecast = T X S

S was given
T= 1st Q- last Q / Q in-between
:( I will never be able to forget this formula ever again! easiest 10 marks gone!

Arggggggggg Again six months of reading the same thing over and over and over................. God!!!!!!!

@cyndiz said:
Hi guys,
Ask u ah, what was your answer to Q5 for ROI & RI:
"Whether should the manager invest in the machine?" how do u calculate the ROI? Is it minus e apportioned head office cost or without??
Was the answer:if based on ROI, decision is not to Invest. If Based on RI, then Invest??

RI was positive so yes invest.,, ROI was only about 14% I guess... i m not sure... but it was below the required level.. so NO

In line with others thought it was difficult and cannot see me passing it, as 2nd time might be time to give up. Does not help it takes them ages to let you know you failed, and then they only do 2 sittings a year.......disappointed

Poison darts, you totally have the same idea as me on the paper.

I was so confident going in, maybe too confident. I completely missed the annualised part in the ROI question.

On the face of it the paper looked easy but there was so much theory. I knew lots of theory but ran out of time.

I think I either got 48 or 52. Please pleAse be 52! I really feel as if I have just wasted the last few months on this exam on the wrong stuff. I knew abc/linear/regression/learning curve inside out.

For some reason in q1 I started using linear. No idea why but then scribbled it out!

Can't face studying for f8 now on wed

This exam was a shambles!!!!
every single question would have been on the AAT4 paper. None of this stuff should be tested at this level! I have concentrated on everything new we have learned this yr (because i have already taken the AAT4 exam so shouldnt be examined on it again!!) What is the point of learning all this new stuff if you didnt bother to examine us on it! complete disaster!!! im so glad the majority of ppl feel the same!

The exams are becoming more bizarre. The written sections are far outweighing calculations. Not 50/50 I'm sure.

Seriously the topics are getting slimmer. You may as well not bother with core areas and just look at periphery areas.

The target costing Q involved ZERO calculations. Just using the text to answer how they may approach target costs.

6 marks for discussing service v manufacturing industries.

Real periphery stuff. No ABC, Throughput, Lin Prog, Learn Curve, Mix/Yield, Planning/Op Variances.

I mean really Time series analysis?? WTF?

Overall very strange exam for me. Q5 I did very well in the rest I answered ok apart from seasonal Q

This June 2012 F5 exams sucks! this is my 4th time attempting F5, manage to clear all the fundamentals with the exception of this module.. the past 3 times were set by the previous examiner & had thought Ann Iron would probably be my "Lucky Star" to help me pass for this sitting... but alas.. open the exams question & i was Horrified.. why on earth did Simultaneous Question came out & how to apply Target Costing on Service Business??! No previous questions to practice on this aspect.. Darn.. & just to add on , for my Personal experience.. this F5 is really e toughest for e Fundamentals so don't let it affect yr other papers k? :)

I agree this is the toughest of Fundamental level. No doubt. The nature of the exams are odd.

I covered the syllabus in its entirety and practiced questions non stop on all areas.

Apart from the odd Q we may as well call this exam a discursive one.

Q1 make or buy had 8 marks discussion
Q2 10 marks
Q3 20 marks
Q4 10 marks
Q5 12 marks

And that is from memory I think there is more than that. If it wasn't for the calc in Q1 and Q5 which in fairness were not worth much it's all written.

Don't have a problem with that but don't load up the syllabus and provide a formula sheet if all is required is discussion.

I am borderline thinking that the syllabus is perhaps now too big

How many marks would you lose for not annualising the net profit in the roi/ri question? because it would affect your comments and theory part aswell by not having the correct figures.

These posts are making me scared. Was F5 really too tough?? Anyone who thinks that he wil pass this exam? Have u seen any topics guessed by opentuition or ftc? I have my f8 exam on Thursday.. not have enuf time.

F5 This time, have never seen a past paper like that before. Even well prepare students could easily fail this exam........

Hi Everyone!
Looks like a lot of people struggled and me too. Fir the ROI we were given previous month ROI as 22% and 23%, so I have multiplied net assets by this figure in order to find net profit before June. Then added June profit together with previous figure and found out year to date net profit. Did anyone do the same? Just wondering whether it could be right?
Overall, I think I will resit exam again in Dec, completely forgot how to use multiplicative model, instead used additive. Struggled with first question.So failed again!

I don't know really, what i should say...
But, we are truely unfortunate, we have got such an examiner!
She played a very nasty game with us. That's totally unfair, unethical!
Hope, she would write again in her report for June, 2012 exam,"As I've always said before, don't try and question spot in this exam. It's a dangerous approach and unlikely to work...There is no easy way to pass F5; hard work is the only answer..."
I don't know, what she is trying to achieve...
Just know, i tried my best. But it didn't work this time.
May be, there are a few people like me, have fallen in a big trouble just because of this exam.
Good work, Ms F5 Examiner! Keep it up!!

this is really cheating..............because if exams are set like this ,then students will fail and in return the board will make a lot of money.............nice way to earn more revenue......because the CoS will be zero for them.....................