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

Its nothing to do with insulting people and having no respect for my fellow candidates. I’m simply pointing out that had any of us covered the entire sylabus then the exam would have been quite reasonable. Yes, there were a few bits to catch us out but that’s the same with any exam – on a whole nothing in F5 is difficult, there’s just a lot to learn, which had adequate preparation time be given for revision of the whole course noone would havve any worries.
I’ve seen several people on here say they barely knew what TQM even was yet it is covered in both the text book and the course notes (of BPP) – for you to say it isn’t relevant is beyond me. It is very relevant, as is the differences between smanufacturing andd services, target costing in the NHS – all examples of how we should think about practical application of management accounting techniques.
I agree on the time constraints and the question format but had less emphasis been put on what might come up (laregely driven by our tutors) and instead a focus on the whole textbook people would be more comfortable. I don’t think it matters if you struggle to complete it all in the time (stupid as that is) providing you can write things for everythijg else. However, the consensus here seems to be that people sturggled with most time and the content and therefore have likely dropped a lot of marks.
I don’t work in the ‘the industry’ – whatever that is, although I suspect you mean you’re a regular accountant as opposed to a management accountant in which case I’m not surprised that it woudnt apply to your everyday job. If I’m wrong then surely CIMA is the more appropriate? ACCA is for regular practicing accountants but by throwing in F2 and F5 it gives us a wider knowledge base making us more employable in other areas. It is one of the best qualifications to have as it is a very useful tool in business and management – clearly not because we know how to do book keeping.
I think you’ve missed my point anyway – I’m just saying that any frustration should be pointed towards the tutors for misleading us as I suspect those that studied just from the textbook will have done well

Ignoring time constraints, if we were allowed our text books in the exam then every one of us would have been able pass. Not everyone would get 100% as not everyone understands all the topics but you could certainly get 50% easy – therefore had we all covered the entire textbook in our revision we’d have been fine.
I relaise the reality is somewhat different, hence why we pay good money to go on courses and order practice papers etc but this means the blame should be put on our tutors for not doing their job and teaching us to pass – the examiner is doing her jobs – setting a hard exam

@burnz0 said:
Its nothing to do with insulting people and having no respect for my fellow candidates.

I’ve seen several people on here say they barely knew what TQM even was yet it is covered in both the text book and the course notes (of BPP) – for you to say it isn’t relevant is beyond me. It is very relevant, as is the differences between smanufacturing andd services, target costing in the NHS – all examples of how we should think about practical application of management accounting techniques.

ACCA is for regular practicing accountants but by throwing in F2 and F5 it gives us a wider knowledge base making us more employable in other areas.

I think you’ve missed my point anyway – I’m just saying that any frustration should be pointed towards the tutors for misleading us as I suspect those that studied just from the textbook will have done well

– Your unfounded and loudly voiced doubts with regards to “those who claim to have revised” are insulting, well at least to me personally.

– The fact that something is covered in BPP textbook does NOT automatically make the topic relevant to the real life and job requirements.

( Remember there was a chapter on backflush not so long ago, now removed from the syllabus? (if you have a look at the older textbooks, which I had a look at before buying new books, you would see that chapter just before throughput).
So presumably backflush suddenly became obsolete…. hmmm or may be it became obsolete long time ago, and finally was removed… I think latter! )

I dare you to give me 1 good / believable example of “use of standards in TQM environment” being applicable in practice.
Please – go ahead. This would surely only support your point made – I quote you – “all examples of how we should think about practical application of management accounting techniques”.

(For the record, I was OK with TQM. I have posted my general impressions of the exam on the very first day of this discussion, you can look it up if you can be bothered. Hopefully this would dispel your “doubts” to certain extent).

If you can throw in an example of how being able to distinguish between the characteristics of service vs manufacturing is useful, that would be good.

– I think your point “misses the point”.
The study providers – rightly so – concentrate on what’s IMPORTANT and what matters. They cannot lecture on 100% of material, and to cover everything in great detail – the textbooks would be 4 times thicker and courses would take much longer to compelete.
This is why the study is based around important, CORE topics of the syllabus, teaching us things that really matter. The study providers are correct to expect that the exam would be designed in such a manner that the important, core subjects of the syllabus would be tested for the majority of marks (with the inclusion of fringe subject matters for the realtively small number of marks).

It is all very good to say: “just study the whole syllabus”. But it is not physically possible to learn AND be able to apply AND be totally comfortable with 100% of the syllabus.
This is not needed, as in reality we don’t deal with fringe areas on a daily basis, and IF we need to deal with certain fringe areas, we can always look up the up-to-date methods of dealing with such issues, and learn as and when needed.
Not having extensive knowledge of various fringe issues at this stage / level of ACCA (fundamentals) is not an impediment to being a good professional (now or in the future).
Not knowing major ares is an impediment.

Even if we strive to learn all topics 100%, without practical applications such theoretical knowledge would be forgotten by next June, at best.
At worst, noone would remember TQM 2 months from now.
(as is evidenced by the fact that not many people even remembered TQM, in spite of good coverage in F2)

@kirinski said:
First of all, if you would please refrain from irritating us all with your unfounded and ridiculous “doubts” (“claim to have spent hours revising”? – you BET!!!)

Secondly, a little more respect towards your fellow students would be appropriate. If you bothered to actually read the posts carefully enough, you would have seen what your fellow students have perceived as being unfair.
Nothing to do with question-spotting.

To me personally, the narrow coverage of syllabus was a major issue.

I have no idea what you do, but I work in the industry.
ACCA is supposed to be about hands-on, applicable knowledge, covering wide variety of issues.
How is applicability of standards in TQM environment relevant to ANY of us, is unclear to me.
The differences between manufacturing and services? -seriously? – how useful is our ability to distinguish the characteristics of these?
I very much doubt that target costing in NHS scenario has any use in real life either.
The reason that the above questions / knowledge are not relevant to real life is because these questions are “made up” out of narrow and perhaps even obsolete areas of syllabus.

And finally, with regards to your comment that the students only come here to complain…
Well, as you know (or don’t?), statistics don’t lie.
Have a look at the identical polls conducted for Dec 11 or Jun 11 sittings… they are still on this website, have a look and see the difference.
(or perhaps, miraculously, many more moaners came online this June compared to June 2011?)

Good luck with your results.
If you have been as inventive in your assumptions about the scenarios in the exam as you have been on this forum, I would not be surprised if you passed.

But I, for once, would not be celebrating even if I DO pass, as I was going to tackle P5 next, and now I lost all my motivation to go ahead with the subject.

Blimey seems as though F5 is a bit of a sore note for everyone on this forum and thats just it – its only F5. I completed the ACCA nearly two years ago and am a member. I still like to keep tabs on how students are tackling the exams and it seems not very well at all.

These exams generally should be seen as hurdles a challenge that when you get over one hurdle, you build momentum to get over the other – and so on and so forth. Whoever says you cant cover the whole syllabus has never tried it as believe me you CAN cover the whole syllabus for each and every paper whether that be F1 or P5. Its that simple. A lot of what you study at ACCA is not used in the work place but thats just it, its a hurdle a challenge where many of you fail to realise its not about utilising this information in the work place – you never will, but it is about following instruction and doing exactly what is asked of you. I never walked into an exam hesitant, nervy or ill prepared as I was so confident in my abiilities to ANSWER the question that was given in front of me. It beggars belief how some students actually walk into the exam ill prepared and blame the examiner for setting a hard paper or doing the work and then wilting under the pressure due to exam nerves. Sorry students you need to take a lot more responsibility for your own development and not even blame the teacher/tutor at any professional development centre or university its up to you to do the hard work and ask the right questions. It is also your duty as a student to exercise a strong exam technique and keep a focussed but detemined mind in any exam.

ACCA is not about spoon feeding the students like University tutors have done for the degrees you may hold. ACCA is just that a test not just of your technical knowledge of a proposed discipline, but also a psycological test of concentration, endurance and stamina that not only have you studied on average 80-120 hours per paper previously in terms of preparation, but you also have the mental prowess of getting that information down under exam conditions to a question that you may never have encountered in your preperations and score maximum marks.

If you think about it this is the training and grooming you are getting now to go out in the “real” accounting world and cement and develop your skills further. Adapt your thinking, think outside of the proverbial box, stop wearing blinkers and realise why these exams are so difficult and what you are training yourself to do. Some students may read this and say What??? But trust me I have been where you ALL are. I have worked full time and completed 14 papers in 2 and a half years with one fail funnily enought that being F5. Failing is about learning and sometimes to fail helps you to focus on what went wrong. But you must understand what YOU did poorly for you to make the necessary changes. But thats just it ACCA seperates those that are good at whinging and those that are just winners. I answered to this post as the both of you seem to have valid points in your thinking and you also both seem to be passionate about what you are thinking.

I do hope you all do well and pass. If you do or you dont for that matter – please take the time to understand ACCA is not easy and by right it should not be easy and it should cover a wide randge of topics as in the real world you get everything thrown at you bar the kitchen sink that ACCA does’nt prepare you for, but grooms you so that you can take on the whole world with the skills it equips you with. If you have not worked hard enough you will not reap the rewards that this exciting and demanding qualification will give in return to you all. I dont want to be working alongside an incompetent accountant in years to come as the ACCA has been dumbed down like many other british exam boards. You will also be extremely surprised during your studies as you progress as to how much information you do actually retain and how it flows like a fountain of knowledge in years to come. Hard work, persistence, a strong mental agility, reading the entire syllabus, exam kits, past papers, making your own supernotes and revising them, reading examiner articles and working on your own exam technique will get you through. Guaranteed. You must start to enjoy the ACCA and the studying that goes with it.
You will be twiddling your thumbs every May and November after your exams are over as your mind feels it is exam time, but that time never comes. The small butterflies as you enter the exam hall, the focus, grit and detemination as you prepare for battle with the examiners “new” paper – wow that was a rush.

GOOD LUCK – I hope to see you on the other side 🙂

Must say that was quite challenging. There was nothing there that was outside the syllabus so can’t complain too much I guess.Fingers crossed!

Variance analysis – Was surprisingly easy. No mix or yield variances
ROI and RI – fairly straight forward apart from itty bitty annualisation calculations.
Trend analysis – I am sure it was easy for those who covered it in their revision. Took my eye off the ball and did not revise this… purely on the strength that it hadn’t come up before.
Target costing – Fumbled through it. Combining with Non-profit organisation part of the syllabus was quite novel.

I get the impression that the examiner is trying to shoehorn a greater part of the syllabus in each sitting.

to @bhav101

Thank you for the advice.
Perhaps you’ve chosen the wrong career 😉
Perhaps Inspirational Speech is more of your thing? or sales? or, may be even barrister or …QC? – imagine, standing out there, addressing and sucessfully convincing the whole courtroom that, in fact, it was all along the victim’s own fault !
🙂
(no offence meant, just a joke)

But seriously, would you mind telling us which sitting (i.e. which year) was your F5 pass / fail? – and which %tage did you score?
Would be interesting to compare the pass rates for that sitting with the current one.

Also, would it not be interesting for you to try and tackle the F5 paper which we did on Monday.
You know, just for the sake of it ! why not?

I can even act as the invigilator ;)) I promise to be a nice one and even make a cup of tea

Or is such challenge too much?

One of my friends just sat his last paper, P5 today, who’s gonna qualify tomorrow. He passed F5 before under this examiner. He never heard about Proportional/Multiplicative model.

I can give you a lot of examples like this.

To the poster who ‘dared’ me to give a real life example of TQM – look up the Deming prize you schmuck. If you can’t see how it is applied in a practical environment you might aswell give up now. As for the service vs manufacturing difference – do I really need to answer how that might be relevant in an increasingly service driven world? The module is called Performance Management – hence understanding the nuances of business setups andthe differences between sectors is essential in fairly analysing performancem
To the poster who has already qualified – he is not obnoxious just stating the obvious. It may be hard work but to cover the whole text book is more than achievale. There are no overly difficult topics just a reasonable degree of volume – compare this with studying to be a doctor, the CFA etc the ACCA is a doddle. You’d be stupid to think that the qualification would be easy – how else can you justify being able to command a higher wage, applying for better jobs etc??

Dear friends,

I was reading everthing what you have posted here. This exam was awful for me as well. I was preparing as hard as never before, even my family have noticed that) I was solving the questions in my Revision Kit (BBP) over and over again, all of them!!! I felt the confidence to pass if not with the high rate but at least above 60 marks. I was not worry too much. But then I opened the paper. I felt how everything is crashed, so easy just in 15 minutes for reading time. Everything your hopes, your confidence, your sleepless nights, hard studies…

Then I decided as many of you to fill survey. And I have just completed it. I just want to show you what I was writing in comments to F5 exam:

“The exam F5 was not fair. As the main topics were not included instead of them were examined some irrelevant areas. The exam is based on the idea to check the knowledge and understanding not to create tricky questions. Paper F5 is about performance management and there is much saying regarding motivation and encouragement, achievable targets and standards. But there was nothing attainable at this exam. So how the paper F5 might be examined if ACCA is not shares its major meaning? “

This is my main idea and I really hope not only me was completed that survey, but everyone who cares. As only together we might affect that.

Lets do something together not just keep talking. This might help us in December as most of us perhaps will resit it. Good luck everyone!!!

I filled out the survey as well but once I selected the country it navigated away. I didn’t have the chance to hit Submit. Do you know if it was submitted or not? Did that happen to any of you?

It worked. I just didn’t select the country 🙂 Thanks forhad!

Almost 1000 votes think the exam was a disaster, we all can’t be wrong.