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

There is a question for December exam: If the manager (examiner) sets the target (exam) based on the last exam sitting, how would you describe the standard? Explain the standard wich you think is correct from the employees (Students ) point of view. Also evaluate the Manager's (Examiner's) approach!
10 Marks.
A: Basic
B: Current
C: Attainable
:( Ideal

I would defo go for "D".
Love the way the examiner always says "students failed to revise core subjects of the syllabus"!!! I think this time she failed to examine any of them.
So much time wasted for nothing, the exam was a JOKE, but not a funny one!!!
I guess early exam booking is advisible for December as demand will be high!

I think the paper was tricky, few of the never examined areas were examined, but this is what professional qualification papers are all about, expect the unexpected. My opinion is only that ACCA should not make these early papers that much tough for the students, at least for this level papers, the papers should not be constructed in a way to fail maximum students, rather than they should be given a fair chance of passing it.

@maxopaxo said:
There is a question for December exam: If the manager (examiner) sets the target (exam) based on the last exam sitting, how would you describe the standard? Explain the standard wich you think is correct from the employees (Students ) point of view. Also evaluate the Manager's (Examiner's) approach!
10 Marks.
A: Basic
B: Current
C: Attainable
:( Ideal

I would defo go for "D".
Love the way the examiner always says "students failed to revise core subjects of the syllabus"!!! I think this time she failed to examine any of them.
So much time wasted for nothing, the exam was a JOKE, but not a funny one!!!
I guess early exam booking is advisible for December as demand will be high!

Good analogy.
Just something to share. I was a F5 candidate last sitting (December 2011), I am also unhappy with the way the examiner set the question because it actually demand to much for a 3 hour exam paper. And the topic comes out to be very unexpected. It is already 'ultra vires' the original title of F5 Performance Management. The question is so lengthy until we do not have time to 'digest' it fully during reading time. I end up 15 minutes remaining for the last question in the paper and luckily I pass.

I thought that she will try to improve and makes it more 'friendly' to the candidates but it turns out that she does not do so in this sitting. It might be true that spotting is not a good way to study, so she sets question in a way to prevent spotting. However, this is not to discourage students from studying by setting those questions which are totally unpredictable and unrealistic. :(

I still just cant understand 8 marks for TQM question.

The examiner was very clever.she wanted us to fail.

Just my 2c worth but I think everyones efforts are being focused on the wrong people here. The examiners job is to make it difficult and to throw some curve balls... I am fairly confident I failed or if not only narrowly passed but there was nothing in the exam that I didn't understand. The problem was the topics I was lead to believe will come up and where I should focus my efforts. For example, standard costing played a major part in question 2? Yet this was a topic that was left for home study through BPP. As a result I skimmed through it and gave it no weight. I only knew what TQM was from opening the page by chance the day before. Whilst I understood the concepts putting these into meaningful precise points was difficult so I will only have picked up a few marks. The whole healthcare scenario was quite confusing and hard to apply theory to though but I think the emphasis was on the six differences about a service industry - again very hard to qualify having spent no time on the subject.
Questioon 1 was going well - separate fixed and variable costs to find the cost per product. From memory I had one as cheaper to outsource the other to make in house. Then came the limiting factor - labour hours. This threw me completely as normally I'd look to find contribution per bottleneck factor and rank. However, there was no SP so contributin could not be calculated. I simply worked out the cost per bottleneck hour by dividing cost by hours taken and ranked the cheaper product as 1st. I suspect there was more to it - maybbe work out variable contribution by producing in house and using this - if this works? In the end I had the two products switch in terms of lower cost so made 100000 of 1 and 50k of the other - I forget which way round it was.
The discussion was then on the potential flaws of outsourcing - reliability, quality control, stability of the supplier, proximity to supplier, incentives to produce at quality if contracts were fixed for 2 years etc.
The point I maker is that whilst this question had a nasty surprise it should have been taught to us - I'm sure the correct way of ranking by contribution is simple and our tutors should have the foresight to think of ways the exxaminer might trick us.
Seasonal variations - luckily I looked over this so had a good crack. I think the trend was 43.25 increasing, then add this to the previous moving average to get the next quarters, times by the SV etc. I'm not sure but suspect the 'average' sv bit meant we needed to consider the previous quarters sv also??
I don't belive the discussion was so much about flexible budgeting as to how the poor forecast models were affecting morale. They were obviously drivign budgets making excess wastage leading to reduced profitability etc.
The variance question should have been simple but I messed up somewhere as my total variances didn't match exactly everything was provided. My profits did add up though so I know I got something right but definitely missed the planning variance bit. Given there werw only 10 marks I think surely this level of detail was not needed although if it mentioned market share then I'm sure they wanted us to use it.
Finally, the last question was quite simple in terms of ROI and RI. Profit after fixed costs apportionment * 12 / the bottom capital figure. The impact of the fixed costs creeated a drop in the ROI - outside of the control of the divisional manager. Both were still above the 10% cost of capital though so were worthy. I also mentioned that the machinery was a relatively expensive and depreciated heavily so was possibly a risky use of company funds. I completely missed the controllable versus net profit point they mentioned so waffled on without answering the question.
Looking back I know I could have done better but the pressure and time constraints made it hard to focus. I don't think anything was unanswerable, merely not expected therefore not revised in detail which I blame more on the tutors that the examiner. More marks were available for discussions that I'd expect so I know I fell down here as I didn't much too much focus on this in my revision - if these were covewred in lectures with more emphasis I'm sure we'd remember without needing to revise over and over again. Its much harder reading from the text book and trying to take it in.
My main problem was lack of preparation - starting to revise 2 days before and expecting to cover the entire course plus the areas of 'home study' was unrealistic. Providing I can get close to 40% ill be relatively happy in the knowledge that at the retake with a little more work Ill be okay.
If/when I fail I'm going to be on to the tutor to complain as I really can't see what my money has gone to. Paying for course only to be advised of 'home study' chapters makes little sense to me and if anything is detrimental in giving the wrong idea about which topics to focus on

"the emphasis was on the six differences about a service industry – again very hard to qualify having spent no time on the subject..."

Four differences, and that was the easiest part of the question. There's even a mnemonic in the BPP text - SHIP - inSeparability, Heterogeneity, Intangibility, Perishability. Those were the easiest 4 points from the entire exam.

"In the end I had the two products switch in terms of lower cost so made 100000 of 1 and 50k of the other "

That's not possible. You make 100,000 units at 0.5 hours each, that's 50,000 hours spent. The other 50,000 hours can create 50,000/0.75 hours = 66,666.67 units, and the rest are outsourced.

Otherwise, I agree, pretty fucked up paper. I almost want to fail, considering how much I studied I was hoping for a score above the 80s, now it's probably going to be around 50...shame.

P.S. People cannot believe TQM was included? It was in at least 7 or 8 (~10%) of the questions in the latest bpp review kit in one form or another. How can you not see it coming?

Q1 , Q3 and Q5 were not bad, but Seasonal Trending,
Well I covered Target Costing, and gave some relevant answers, but struggled to come up with ideas applicable to service industry, TQM were hardly covered in my class or in revision course.
I spent hours upon hours, especially understanding the decision trees (as this was never examined before and was new to the syllables) as well as other core areas, linear programming, learning curve, throughput accounting, lifecyle costing, pricing, profit volume charts, performance management, variations etc. etc.

I thought I would cry when I saw that paper! I studied a lot for this and that is my first attempt for this paper. I'm confident I'm failing and that is pretty discouraging considering that I studied and did prepare and practice the exam questions A LOT!

I think my answer had 100,000 of the 0.75hrs product = 75,000 leaving 25,000 remaining. This equates to 50,0000 inhouse, 50000 outsourced of the 0.5hrs product - so yes, quite possible - although probably not correct.
When I said hard to qualify I meant I couldn't remember the exact terms ie. SHIP - which now you say is very easy to remember. I was able to describe them in a roundabout way bbut without the corrects terms o I'd assume I'd drop a few marks. Hardly the easiest 4 makkrs though giving that this was covered in the home study chapter of standard costing - the one that I and I guess others skipped over.

I actually ordered the revision kit but never got round to looking through it which was obviously a stupid move. My point is that BPP should cover these in the main course but instead it seems like they rely on revision kits, revision classes as an extension of the time they have to teach. I understand time is limited and they can not cover everything but I think an extra week or two of teaching would allow for a more comprehensive schedule. The course is very expensive and so I question how much value there is if you need to do lots of extra study off your own back.

My Tutor at Kaplan sang praises for Ann Irons, claiming that she was by far the best examiner and that she has set easy papers for us to pass etc.. very disappointed

@nenor said:

"That's not possible. You make 100,000 units at 0.5 hours each, that's 50,000 hours spent. The other 50,000 hours can create 50,000/0.75 hours = 66,666.67 units, and the rest are outsourced.

But the product that took 0.5 hours incurred the most cost for the company. The question asked us to minimize the cost didn't it? So you would produce the cheaper product first using the 75,000 hours (100,000 / 0.75) leaving 25,000 hours left for the other product. This meant you could only produce 50,000 and would have to outsource the other 50,000. That's the way I interpreted it.

@bubblebee said:
I thought I would cry when I saw that paper! I studied a lot for this and that is my first attempt for this paper. I'm confident I'm failing and that is pretty discouraging considering that I studied and did prepare and practice the exam questions A LOT!

Seriously, Ann Irons is aiming at making us fail.

Same here, it was my first attempt. I am planning to restart the preparation in few weeks time.

How do u do the variance question?
Do we flex the budget to 960 and compare with the actual figures of 960?
I didn't use the market share thing

was in tears from the exam ,did my best to study for this exam ,i know to pass any acca exam u should be very familiar with all topics bt surely u cannot understand all concepts fully for an exame , ann should exam this paper considering that at least some questions should be approachable, i almost quit acca bt it seems everone is in the same boat as me so i will try in december bt i hope she could go thru this website and jus read all our posts , i think there is jus less than a page of tqm in the bpp study kit and a page on service industries and she makes 20mark questions based on that ... May she be more thoughtful next time am really dissapointed am not looking forward to my results

@angleo86 said:
But the product that took 0.5 hours incurred the most cost for the company. The question asked us to minimize the cost didn't it? So you would produce the cheaper product first using the 75,000 hours (100,000 / 0.75) leaving 25,000 hours left for the other product. This meant you could only produce 50,000 and would have to outsource the other 50,000. That's the way I interpreted it.

Hmm, not sure where you got it that the product using 0.75h incurs less cost than the one using 0.5 hours. Clearly one unit of the product using 0.75h cost has incremental cost 0.75 cent, while 1 unit of the other product has incremental cost 0.50. In the end it's all the same, since you either outsource 50,000 units * 0.5 hours = 25,000 hours = 25,000 dollars or you outsource 33,333.33 units * 0.75 hours = 25,000 hours = 25,000 dollars. The question seems to be pretty fucked up, without having contribution, so that we can compare contribution per limiting factor of both products...

Personally, I took a leap of faith during the exam and assumed the outsourcing prices as a reference price, deducted variable costs and checked for contribution per limiting factor that way. Not entirely sure if that was intended, though. Now it seems to me that we just had to examine the two possible scenarios and see that whatever we outsource, the incremental cost would be the same in both cases.

And about the variances - I think I fucked up there, since I didn't get any of those to match. The sales quantity variance I got was 40 units (1000-960) * 44 contribution = 1760 (A). It was something else there. Material price + material usage also did not reconcile to total material variance given in the question.

@angleo86 said:
But the product that took 0.5 hours incurred the most cost for the company. The question asked us to minimize the cost didn't it? So you would produce the cheaper product first using the 75,000 hours (100,000 / 0.75) leaving 25,000 hours left for the other product. This meant you could only produce 50,000 and would have to outsource the other 50,000. That's the way I interpreted it.

Yep, it was more expensive but by the hour it was cheaper as it took less time - or at least that's the way I took it to mean

I have been preparing for an exam very hard. I have solved all problems in exam kit, I have done past papers for last 4-5 years. And what have I got here in June (while re-sitting f5 again?) THE DISASTER!!
Q1. As I suppose it was to calculate all relevant costs for in-house manufacturing and compare it with price suggested by the outsourcer, but that was not so trivial you know. I have completly ignored depriciation as it 's non cash flow and as a result NOT relevant. Material just to adjust on figure of % given. Labour without change. I was confused by machining costs.. Concerning heat costs I took just a part which was not fixed and occure only for production.
Q2. very "interesting" - easy marks for part A and part B and lost marks for C and D. really cant imagine what actually Anny wanted us to write..
Q3. WTF? I have been reading part A twice or maybe even 3 times.. and just put it off.. part 5 is pretty easy to write smth about subjectivity, bad managing decisions, non motivation.. etc
Q4. Really good first part. But I still think if I had to calculate plan.and oper.Var. , and most likely YES, but I did not. Part B (TQM vs Standard costing..) no, thanks.
Q5. ROI and RI. Firstly was confused by the very small result and big decrease of ratios , finally figured out about "annual" and recalculated. But again I dont think the part about new investment was easy.. no..

Overall I think I just wasted my time again. But unfortunetaly I even cant imag how to improve the preparation to pass it finaly. I did really best this time but I am pretty sure that not 50 marks I ll get .. --35-45// (((

Well, I may not pass this exam this time and thinking that I have to re-do the exam has made me sick. But.....for me ......the question is okay. Not that hard but also not that easy. Just nice :)

Accounting is about logic and improvisation. You have to understand the concept not to memorize without any understanding of it.

Anyway, If the question is too easy and so many people pass it, the privilege to be an ACCA will not be there anymore. And if this happen, will there be any benefit for us to be an ACCA?I dare to say NO.

I heard the previous examiner was sacked because the pass rate was too low. Certainly this one should be sacked as well

@darlene82328 said:
I heard the previous examiner was sacked because the pass rate was too low. Certainly this one should be sacked as well

Not sure about that, would love to know if someone knows for sure what happened.

Here are the pass rates for F5, didn't Ann Irons start from Dec 2010? If so then it might be a safer assumption to guess the last examiner was replaced for making the exams too easy / he moved on as a natural progression:

PASS RATES FOR PAPER F5
Dec 2007 34
Jun 2008 28
Dec 2008 30
Jun 2009 41
Dec 2009 52
Jun 2010 57
Dec 2010 41
Jun 2011 37
Dec 2011 38

I can't wait to see the rate for this June to see if I am sitting a harder paper than normal or whether I am just in the that usual 60% that fails!

Hello Acca fellows
I am reading comments since the 12th evening and I did not see anyone saying “I did well”. Even those guys that think the paper was fair said they are not sure about passing. I missed last year exam and because of that I had lot of time for studying. I really cover everything was in Kaplan book plus 8 past papers and I felt confident about passing with a good mark.

We are about 200 people here. How can we write a complain as someone suggested before?

About my exam: I try to solve all the questions a part from the n. 3 as most people in this forum. If you check Kaplan book you’ll find only 1 page about Time series (multiplicative model). I watched most of open tuition Lectures and there was a quick explanation about addictive and multiplicative model. What I am trying to say is that this part of the paper was considered “not important” and I would never expect a full question on it. This question stoles us 10 marks at least!

My only concern is: if Kaplan is considered “official publisher” how is it possible that one full question was covered in such a shallow way?
Also did ACCA examiners read what publishers write in the books? I can think only 2 answers and no one of these is positive for ACCA
1) Acca don’t read the books ( how ACCA can say that Kaplan is an authorised publisher)
2) Acca read the book (Did they put the 3rd question on purpose?)
I am fed up with the material because material should cover everything with plenty of examples.

I think I will score between 40-43 and 55.
ROI and Target Costing were achievable questions (for those that did not see before TQM, it was in F2 as well and the question was not about TQM but about “space for Standard Costing in a TQM environment”).
The first question was ok a part from the limiting factor part (there were not Price or contribution to rank. Even if you know the cost how can you rank without price?)
The variance question was confusing. I took the actual data from the “junior accountant analysis” and ignored all the other data because I think they were there just to trick us.

Good luck to everybody who studied hard. I hope they will increase the marks.

The main issue as far as I am concerned is why she decided to change the way she set up the scenarious and the questions.
If you look through her previous F5 papers, she is actually very straightforward in what she wants the students to do and actually leads you into what you are suppose to answer. But this time, for whatever reason she decided to change the way she used to lay out the scenarious and the questions, it was so confusing to me that I actually spend a lot of time trying to read and understand the questions, which I thought was very unfair considering there were a lot of writing to be done. In any case I know I didn't do enough to pass this time around, so I'm just gonna brush myself off and get on with studying even harder for the re-sit in December. Bring it on Ann!!!!!!

I thought it was easy, wouldnt be suprised if i got 80-90%

so who is tha Ann's boss? we can send him an open letter, sign by everione who thinks that the questions were not set rightly! i can understand what is the obejtive- to show to the stunedts that they don't know anything or to see if that knew the main areas from the subject. moving average is more common part from the statistics, not from the finance. TQM was never asked before - not even in a single question! if this topic is about to be included it should be scored with no more thatn a point of two!
ok- so i have solve all the examples in the BPP revision kit more that twice. i have read the textbook and i have spen numerous hours to listen to on-line lectures. i have alos pass throug the previous exam papers. i don't konw what to do more to get better prepaired. and what was my astonishmet when i read the exam paper and realize that it is like no onea ever before?! where is the sence in all this?

I think I am pretty good at main areas of the subject. But I didnt earn my 50 marks. That's not fair! Time is money, Anny...I dont want to spent a 0.5 year again waiting for a re-sit..

I also thought about feedbacks on Anny but I am not sure where I have to send them.

Please fill in the survey ASAP and urge any other ACCA F5 students to do the same.
If hundreds of us fill this in and voice our view on unfair syllabus coverage, may be this will have some effect, if not on this exam, then at least on December session questions.

@telbaker said:
I thought it was easy, wouldnt be suprised if i got 80-90%

Good for you !
I wonder which textbooks / kits you've used to be so well-prepared in contrast to the majority of us?

I must say I'm leaning toward Ted Baker who thinks it was quite easy. By no means do I think I did well but that's solely down to a lack of preparation and leaving it till the last day to hit the books. I understood all the questions and with a bit more time I would have made sure the things I knew I got right to pick up as many marks as possible but instead I rushed and made silly mistakes. I really can't believe so many people who claim to have spent hours revising struggled and surely after all these years you'd be stupid to think you could spot pick the topics?
As much as I'd like to have passed to save me the hassle of retakes, if I fail and get 30% plus ill be happy knowing that next time ill just cover the topics I didnnt focus on this time and ill have everything covered.
Also, these forums are meant for people who either want to complain or want confirmation when they're not sure if they did something right or not - how many people that pass bother to come on here ansd rub everyones noses in it?

@burnz0 said:
I must say I'm leaning toward Ted Baker who thinks it was quite easy. By no means do I think I did well but that's solely down to a lack of preparation and leaving it till the last day to hit the books. I understood all the questions and with a bit more time I would have made sure the things I knew I got right to pick up as many marks as possible but instead I rushed and made silly mistakes. I really can't believe so many people who claim to have spent hours revising struggled and surely after all these years you'd be stupid to think you could spot pick the topics?
As much as I'd like to have passed to save me the hassle of retakes, if I fail and get 30% plus ill be happy knowing that next time ill just cover the topics I didnnt focus on this time and ill have everything covered.
Also, these forums are meant for people who either want to complain or want confirmation when they're not sure if they did something right or not - how many people that pass bother to come on here ansd rub everyones noses in it?

I don't really think anyone is saying the exam topics are hard. I think the issue is:

1. How the questions and requirements were presented.
2. Extensive theory (written) component
3. The time constraints

Those three factors together created one hot mess of an exam. I'm sure if all of us had adequate time we would have answered the questions correctly :)

I for one noticed my mistakes but had no time to correct them, so i just made my concluding statements on my erroneous calculation. Must be able to get a mark still.