How I failed P2 Again (33%. 46% , 41%) A list of Dos and Do nots.

Dec 13 was my third sitting of P2, my first was the year previously where I got 33%. I went into that exam only knowing group accounts and thus got my 33% for Q1. I did not prepare properly for Section B i simply watched videos and noted information down. I did not learn or retain anything.

In June was my Closest I got 46%, by this point I had mastered Group Consolidation for Balance Sheets only and had some knowledge of Section B. By now I got access to different learning materials and was watching the source lecturers for maybe the 3/4th time.

my Resources thus far have been.
Open tuition Notes and Lecturers
BPP notes and Lectures,The Video lectures are old and got off friend, , text is new
Kaplan Exam kit from several years ago.
Printing out exam papers from last few sittings and covering 3 out of 4 questions.

This session I went on and covered the whole course again and felt ready to finally pass, I got 41%.

Where I have gone Wrong:

This Paper is Time and Technique. I got 85% of the questions done this sitting and maybe 90% in my second, that means i am potentially leving behind the marks I need to Pass.

Question Spotting: Invariably when the exam time comes the questions I prepare for are not there, so I hardly ever touch The focus question. So I am left with the mix where I can hopefully do 2-3 or the 4 scenarios and the Current Issue Question. You cannot prepare for the current issue question, if requires analysis and evaluating and creating all at once, I think Q4 is the the real time killer in the exam.

Exam Preparation
I can Never bring myself to do questions under exam conditions. I can do a Consolidated Group question in 30 mins however but I lose time everywhere else.
I have mock paper I never do because I say to my self I am not in the Mood. One thing I have learned this year is If you dont make yourself get in the mood you will almost never get there yourself.

The Current Issues Question. There has been alot said about the Current Issue from this sitting, many did not see where it came from. I having never studied the questions for it yet always seeming to do them in the exams I will now keep an eye on it yet it seems to be ethics and framework and whatever Ias IFrs they are referring to.

Evaluate your own performance. Be Cruel to be Kind. I dropped 5% this session after putting in months of effort and I might add finally adding double entries to my array of knowledge, before I never bothered with them. It didnt matter, well maybe I would have failed lower otherwise.

I had an awful cashflow question, really poor, it felt like it would need 2 page to write it all out regardless of workings. I forgot some basic knowledge, plus or minus of certain figures and that was that. Predicted marks out of 50. 21marks.

Question 2 Mix question. I liked it, I really did especially the leasing at the end cant remember much else but I think maybe half right maybe for. 10-14 marks.

Question 4. Where did the time go, I got through part a 15 points on various ethics, maybe took me 25 mins and by then I was finished and couldnt complete paper. 7-10 marks.

Postmortem your exam. I have yet to ever do this, will prob start after I finish writing this comment but do the exam again one more time and then compare it to the answer, It will invest you more and you will remember when something you spent 30 mins writing is completely wrong and you will remember the right answer.

I cant reconcile what happened apart from what I have written above, but maybe it is and Omen, when I got 41% in P1 in my first sitting I passed it for my second.

This Session I will devour the exam papers over and over again. I will not watch another video I have all the knowledge in there it must simply make it on to the page.

Question 1 is still important. Lets be honest everyone, The Cashflow, Balance Sheet and Income Statement are the easiest questions to prepare for because you can predict them and yes there will be 5-7 marks for the top students but 20-25 marks will be up for grabs, But you need to realise this only gives you a leg up. The meat of the paper is elsewhere.

This year the Cashflow threw me. I didnt prepare properly for it, I did easy past questions like Duke, Ducky, Squire and Zambeze, but these questions dont reflect cashflow anymore. Warburrt and Jocatt and the Question from Dec 13 are the new Breed of Cashflows. This was tough, Unfortunately I dont think we will see a cashfloe for the near future, but since I prefer BS now that is probably for the best.

So learn and Revise hard for Q1, but remember it is only for 30marks, you still need to write 2 more questions and hope they are correct.

My Tip is that we are going to have an Income Statement in June and that Means Ashanti is the only Question we have for reference.

So if you do not want to narrowly fail this June please avoid the issues I described above.

Okay everyone thats my 2 cents, now is my question to Opentuition.
To write or not to write that is the question. I am not sold on bullet point answers, I see Martin Jones of BPP advocate it and any videos of him doing questions seem almost childish, personally I write two long sentences per point which end up taking anything between 3-4 lines of page. If there I a Lecturer or Mike is about can he please help me with this dilemma. I probably wrote for the 15 marks of section A, all of Q2 and 15 for Q4 a total of 50 or so Points each about 3 lines or so. Obviously more than half of these were wrong so should I write less per point.