*** F5 March 2016 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

The questions was unexpectedly hard

Question 1 was one of the easiest for me, I think it was just saying that you couldn’t use an algebraic approach because the demand curve wasn’t linear. E.g. on one of the batches, the quantity demanded went up by 1,000 units and the price dropped by $3, whereas previously it had dropped by $2 and yet the same increase in demand happened.

That’s the way I felt about it, anyway. Keen to hear others thoughts.

Hi Kieron, I did the same as you for question 1. For the first part we simply had to use the information to calculate how many batches should be used to generate the most profit, my answer was 4 batches because the profit was 14,400.

For part B I answered like you, not linear etc.

I found the paper difficult overall and found there were many questions on systems and non financial performance indicators which I wasn’t prepared for.

I spent so much time perfecting linear programming and pricing using equations only to find there wasn’t a single question on this!

Anyone able to confirm the answer to the learning curve MCQ?

What did you put in balance scorecard? Grrr I hate this thing… 🙁

The multiple choice questions felt a lot harder than all the past papers I’d done.

Q1 – I think the point was you couldn’t solve it using algebraic methods, as part b stated. I hope it was easy as I found it to be otherwise I went completely wrong! Calculating the profit that could be achieved at each batch level, so that no profit could be made by buying and selling one batch, a loss was made selling 2 batches and the optimum batches was 4.
For part b) I said the reason it couldn’t be solved by algebra was that a value for b couldn’t be found as there was no linear relationship between the change in price and quantity demanded. The change in quantity demanded was always 1000 but to begin with this was brought about by a change in price of $2, then $3 and finally $1.

The question on ROI I messed up completely, ended up with a figure of 0.3% or something like that. I had never seen a question on ROI with so much emphasis on depreciation and I couldn’t think whether or not depreciation should be included in the calculations, in the end I did include it which probably ended up with some completely wrong figures!

Everything else felt ok to me. Not sure if anyone else did but I amortized the cost of the patent acquisition and applied a 2 year value to the calculation as it didn’t say that the product only had a 2 year life cycle so it would seem unfair to base a profit calculation for 2 years on the assumption that those first two years absorbed all of the costs of the patent when future years profits would benefit from them for nothing. I subtracted the lawyers fees from the total and then divided by the years as this was an unavoidable cost.

In the variance question I didn’t factor in any overtime into my calculations as although it made a point of stating the overtime rate, it never said if any overtime was actually worked or at what level overtime would start and therefore left it impossible to tell exactly how much overtime would have been worked.

Do correct me , if i am wrong.
Q1 was to select most profitable from 5 given scenarios (based on total profit) i guess!!

It was something like this
1= contribution 10,000 fixed cost 10,000 , profit =0
2= Contribution (dont remember) fixed cost 10,000, profit 8,000 (i guess)
3= fixed cost 12,000 = profit lesser!
4= fixed cost = 12000 profit = max!
5= fixed cost 14,000 = profit lesser then above.!

Q1-b why algebraic method couldn’t be used?

correct ans. was 4

MCQ:
learning curve = 10*100*100^-(Log .95/log 2) – 10*99*99^-(Log .95/log 2)
safety margin = break even 3000, max 4000

Q-2 …what was it ??

Q-3…life cycle cost (marketing on E.V), 200,000*2 (license cost for 2 years), rest same..

Q-4 … score card….good question

Q-5…labor variance… Well, 2 marks were easy i.e labour price variance, rate variance?
part B was to calculate all possible ratios? what were they?
Part C comment on performance.!

@flapper84 said:
Anyone able to confirm the answer to the learning curve MCQ?

I got 2. something, can’t remember the exact answer but it was the only one above 2

mcq 1.C
2.A
3.C
4.A
5.D
6.D
7.B
8.D
9.D
10.D
11.C
12.C
13.A
14.C
15.C
16.D
17.D
18.B
19.B
20.D

mine was 4. why is everyboy referring to equations. didnt we have use the tabular approach.. at 5th bach the marinal revenue went negative. so my answer was 4 . and then i rechecked with 3, and 4 batches to confirm the answer.

Im intrigued how do you recall mcq answers?

@bukenya said:
my decision was 5 batches as it hard the highest profits of 14400, may b

I think the corect answer was 4 because if calculate all data from the table it was giving you higher profit with 4