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Hello fellow forum users,
I wanted to share my ACCA-experience with you all, as I had to learn a lot of things the hard way, and unfortunately those who preach positivity are very few and far between in these forums! I hope to show you how you can pass all P-Level papers on your first attempt with proper revision technique. This is my account of how I passed P1, P3, and P7 in Decmeber 2016, and subsequently P2 and P5 in March 2017.
I am reatively young at 24, and studied accounting in Australia, as a result of which I was granted exemptions for all foundation level papers for ACCA.
My ACCA Journey began in October 2016 when I moved to Paris for an exchange semster at HEC. I wasn’t entirely sure wheter to start taking ACCA papers as the workload in the master program at HEC was quite intense. Nevertheless I made a decision to go with it and purchased the Kaplan revision kits for P1, P3 and P7.Having started with naive optimism, at the 30% mark of each text book I had a breakdown of sorts, where I simply could not believe how I was possibly supposed to get through these ridiculously long text books in such a small time frame. As such I was very disheartened. Having trawled through various ACCA forums I began to freak out, as I read time and time again, how averse most peope are to sitting more than one exam at a time with reference to the very daunting pass rates. P7 especially made me very nervous, as everybody says to do it alongside or after P2. I thought I had made a very big mistake and began to doubt my own ability.
Tip 1: DO NOT listen to these people! DO NOT let yourself be influenced in any way by people who are obviously preparing in a very primitive manner and thus cannot cope with more than one exam at a time! What other people are doing and saying about the exams and revision is simply rubbish! They have no idea, and will try to convince you that it is impossible, because for them it is impossible due to their attitude. Think positively, make the committment and act accordingly.
Following this I became aware of OpenTuition, and the fantastic learning ressources that they offer. It is truly by the grace of these amazing people that I was able to regain my motivation and power ahead. I completely dropped the kaplan materials, and solely used open tuition thereafter. I
Tip 2: KAPLAN, BPP and any other supposed platinum learning providers are a waste of time, and money! There is simply too much information, and you are doing yourself no favour if you torture yourself through it. Due to the size of each text book, it is a very arduous task to try and summarise all of this information. Use Opentuition lecture notes, and if you struggle with a certain topic, then watch the online lectures, otherwise the lecture notes truly provide all you need for the exam.
My method involved simply going through the lecture notes provided on open tuition and making my own notes on my computer, that means READING, UNDERSTANDING, CONCEPTUALISING, SUMMARISING and LEARNING in my own words.
Tip 3: You will not learn if you simply read, without transforming the information into your own in a way that you can understand, visualise and ultiately remember.
Opentuition lecture notes are usually between 150-200 Pages, which is a fraction of what the official learning providers’ text books are. This makes it possible to go through the syllabus in about a week or even less as I did. Ideally one should condense these lecture notes even further into about 25-30 Pages of notes in one’s own words. This then provides the basis of content revision, which should be read at regular intervals and VISUALISED.Having almost given up, Open tuition provded me with the ressources to make my own notes on the entire syllabus for P1, P3 and P7, and begin revising these notes by November. At 1 month before exams, I began going through past papers. For me this meant going through each individual question, looking at the answers, understanding why, and then writing out in my own words the required answer. By doing this, not only do you revise the content, but you also see directly what the examiners expect.
I repeated this on 3-4 past papers for each exam, each time progressively reflecting more after each question how I would go about answering the question. Not only was I constantly learning throughout this process, but I was able to learn how to apply all the content in order to receive marksTip 4: APPLY the information in Past Papers. Either do them youself and look at your mistakes to learn retrospectively, or copy out the answers in your OWN words in a manner which you understand and learn whilst doing. If you just blindly copy word for word what the examiner has written you will learn NOTHING. You must understand why certain content is asked for in a given quesiton, and you must learn which information you need to write down to receive marks. By doing this you learn to utilise a structured proforma which you can apply to each question during the real exam.
Be aware that the answers provided to past papers can be expressed in a much more succint manner, they are often too long.After this I had 1 week to go before the exams in december. I went through my revision notes from Opentuition, and ALSO my answers from past papers. Highlight, underline, learn, memorise, and visualise.
On exam day, you must read, understand, and write in the manner which you learnt through past papers. Make it easy for yourself to get marks by writing, if you don’t write, you don’t get marks. For each exam I wrote 15-20 Pages. Time management is also crucial, if you find yourself spending too much time on a question, then write a quick conclusion and move on!
Using this method, which involved considerably less work than with the platinum learning resources I passed P1 with 56, P3 with 66 and P7 with 56, whilst studying at the same time for my exchange semester during which I also had other exams and coursework to study for. I applied this same method for the march sitting and passed P2 with 60, and P5 with 53.
In summary your method of preparation is key, be efficient, committed, intelligent and creative in this regard. Do not let yourself be discouraged by other people who themselves are drowing in negativity and desire nothing more than to drag you down with them. If you believe in your own capabilites, commit to the task, act accordingly and remain positive, you will succeed! I wish you all the best of luck and hope this will help some of you!
Hi there,
thanks for your reply. Firstly, I must admit that after having read my post over, I realised that it was somewhat dogmatic, which I assure you was not my intention. I just wanted to share my experience, and how it was truly a journey that changed my attitude, and the way I view goal-setting, time-management, commitment and especially dealing with self-doubt. The whole purpose was to merely highlight to people, that the seemingly impossible is in fact possible if one simply changes either their mentality, preparation, and or habits. If you interpreted my post as me simply bragging about how I passed all P-Levels, insinuating at the same time that everybody else is stupid, then either you unfortunately did not understand the essence of what I was trying to convey, or I expressed it in an incorrect manner. You must however realise, that I had no incentive to share this with anyone, other than simply to inspire those who find themselves in a similar situation as I did, and to warn people of what may reaffirm their own self-doubt and fear of failure when trawling through ACCA-forums. Also to just provide some tips that can significantly reduce the work load, I am so grateful to OpenTuition for these ressources, as they enabled me to substantially condense the learning material I had to go through. I think a major problem is that many people, like myself, just have no idea how to go about preparing for P-levels, and get lost in their own maze of ineffective learning, exactly like I did. I was hoping therefore to share the method I used, which is free to be tailored to individual circumstances, to give a bit more structure to those who are struggling.
I realise that everyone on this ACCA journey has different backgrounds, different paths in general, and also different commitments in terms of work, family, and studying. I still believe though, that according whichever external force it may be a certain control and thus power over your ability to perform a task, strips you of the responsibility for your own actions, and thus to make changes.
Although English is my mother tongue, I finished accounting in 2012, and since then have done next to nothing related to accounting, but rather went in a completely different direction in Germany, returning just at the end of 2016 to business at HEC. As such, although I certainly had an advantage in terms of grasping certain concepts which were buried within my memory, I still had to start from scratch and learn a lot about accounting, as I studied it so long ago and truly struggled at the beginning, especially with P7 and P2. However, what made everything even more difficult, was reading various posts from people advising others not to pursue their goals of sitting various exams at once, not to dream big etc, which I find to be very disheartening, as everybody is capable of achieving what they deem achievable relative to their individual backgrounds, and people shouldn’t let themselves be influenced by others who preach negativity, and conservative self-evaluation.
I appreciate your points of criticism, and I apologise to anybody reading my post if it comes across as arrogant, but that is not the core message. It is much rather, that whatever the task at hand may be, no matter how impossible, difficult, time-constraining or ridiculous it may seem, there is usually a way to create time, change restricting habits, and alter one’s general attitude. I have read countless times in these forums, spoke many a time with other ACCA students I met along the way, who were so convinced of their inability to succeed, who blamed ACCA for making exams so difficult, and simply removed all responsibility from themselves. All I wanted to convey is that these people should affect in no way the manner in which one assesses his own ability to perform a task. People who complain, find excuses for their actions, without self-reflecting in order to induce some form of positive change, will mostly subconciously project this onto other people, and this can have a devastating impact, as it did on me.
I am also not trying to dictate to anyone how to prepare, each person must assess that, relative to their individual situation, and arrive at a conclusion as to what they deem doable but also possible, as this gap can save a lot of time and with the right changes, the seemingly impossible becomes possible.
I’m also sorry for being so naive, I thought some people might appreciate what I wanted to share, as I really wish I had something inspirational at the time to give me a bit of strength. I really had nothing, doubted myself to the fullest and let myself be convinced that I would fail. Ultimately I had to find the inspiration and motivation in myself. Obviously I went about it in the wrong manner.
Anyway, I hope somebody benefits from this in some way, if it reaches and helps one person then it was entirely worth the effort and time invested to convey this. I’m not endorsing anything other than self-belief and positivity, which can make a world of difference.
Wow you two sound ridiculous, who cares! Also you work in M and A, talk about being super busy, yet you seem to have loads of time to post comments on this site during the day…..
I recently became a member and I’m sick of seeing people moan on this site.
ACCA is hard but not ridiculous, people need to get their head down and get it done or give up and stop moaning.
I personally now think ACCA should have a limit on the amount of times you can fail like ACA.
Thanks James for sharing your experience. Certainly impressive and inspiring! I do agree with Kairong though, we are all different learners – doesn’t mean to say, some people are better than others, just that our background either helps us or not, lucky if you find it easy, but tough for you if you don’t…that’s the way it is. When you are done, it’s all easy to say how things should be done, etc…But when you are faced with life’s pressures and stresses, you have to face the challenge the way you know how, the best you can…It’s great to share our own experiences, always helps to know what’s possible and reasonable or not.
I agree with both of you,
on the one hand, just get it done, stop moaning and find a way to do it more effectively if you’re struggling or reduce the necessary work-load if things come inbetween. If you think it’s too difficult, then make it less difficult, but if you’re not willing then just give up.
On the other hand, of course everyone is a different learner with diverse backgrounds, what works for one won’t work for the other. However only by reflecting on current behaviour and learning practices, does it become possible to make the necessary changes, so that background is no longer a hindrance but perhaps even an opportunity.
I really didn’t mean this to be construed as an account of how great I think I am or how stupid I think other people are, because that honestly wasn’t the purpose. All I hoped for was that somebody could benefit from my account, perhaps be inspired to orientate themselves differently relative to their personal situation, avoid some of the mistakes I made and just get the job done.
Thanks to both of you for your input!
I for one found there to be much truth in what you are saying. You’re right by telling people not to listen to the negativity. Listen to negative nonsense will dent your confidence.
I have always thought that if you worked hard enough and were determined, persistent and focused enough doing multiple exams at a time, even when working full time, is more than possible. I have been sitting one at a time so far, but will be doing my last few together. Good to see a positive hard working attitude will go the long distance I expect.
Thanks for your message, Im glad you read what I was really trying to share, so thank you for that!
I think really relative to whatever is going on in your life, whatever commitments you have, they are obviously important, but they can often be seen as an excuse for not doing something else. The typical thought ‘I can’t do this and that because I’m already doing this and that, and it would be too difficult’, is really just an excuse for not trying and sticking to what one is comfortable with due to fear.
Like you said, with determination, persistence, and focus, so many things become possible, and one can really be surprised by what also becomes achievable. I read once, if you want to have differently, you have to be and do differently. The triangle Have, Be, Do can be applied to almost anything in life, and I found this in its simplicity so helpful.
I really wish you the best of luck for your last few exams, and hope you will go where you want to be. All the best!
Thank you so much for the motivation and inspiration. negative comments can put people off sometimes but that said sometimes i believe if you can be put of by negative comments maybe your not cut out for the professional world yet.
Any profession is tough so without determination it would be difficult to succeed.
Can i ask for some advise, i would full time and have 3 children so i am pacing out 1 exam at a time at the moment. I’ve just sat my F5 which i hope i will pass. should i do F9 next.
i dont want to leave a big gap between the exams that link together so i can carry forward any knowledge from the previous exam.
F9 is the next paper up after F5 so it’s a good choice. F9 tutorials here as well as the revision videos by John Moffatt helped me pass this paper last March. Start the lecture now and do lots of question practice.
This story is really inspiring. And you are right, ignore people who creates negativity to you as they want to be better, but never better than them.
I see this thing in workplace and it is unavoidable. Best thing is just ignore them.
Thanks for sharing James, it was very interesting. I would have thought going by notes alone was quite risky as they seem to be very sparse.
How was your experience with the F papers?
@acca1989 said:
Wow you two sound ridiculous, who cares! Also you work in M and A, talk about being super busy, yet you seem to have loads of time to post comments on this site during the day…..I recently became a member and I’m sick of seeing people moan on this site.
ACCA is hard but not ridiculous, people need to get their head down and get it done or give up and stop moaning.
I personally now think ACCA should have a limit on the amount of times you can fail like ACA.
Well arnt you a treat!
Try doing that with a full time job and you won’t say the same foolish things again. It’s easy to do it when you have all your time solely on studies.
It’s not like your extra masters degree will take up a huge chunk off your time, but having a full time job means a different playing field altogether.
My friend told me her brother scored an average of 70 marks on F papers, but that was on the basis of full time study, so how hard is that if you had just put in a total of 30 hours in total before exams with Kaplan or BPP materials?
I had 7 exemptions and so far I have passed F4,6 and P1 in 18 mths, all of which I only spent less than 10 full solid hours revising due to work commitments which I considered myself lucky that I am able to pass them, with the help of Kaplan books.
My method of studying was to structure into main areas of focus and to capture the essence of each focus and to drop irrelevant stuffs! For example I dropped the whole internal risk and environmental ethics in P1, simply because risk are inherent and spotted in the case studies while environmental risk I envisaged would likely be out!
Thank you James. This information is educative and motivating and I believe it will help me in my ACCA journey. And thanks to opentuition for the great work they have been doing in recent years. They have tried to outline the main study area points in there course notes, and support it with free lectures for better underatanding, giving us students the relevant information we need to know, which has simplify each ACCA course comprehensively. Thanks James, thanks Opentuition.
@jamesberry92 said:
Hello fellow forum users,I wanted to share my ACCA-experience with you all, as I had to learn a lot of things the hard way, and unfortunately those who preach positivity are very few and far between in these forums! I hope to show you how you can pass all P-Level papers on your first attempt with proper revision technique. This is my account of how I passed P1, P3, and P7 in Decmeber 2016, and subsequently P2 and P5 in March 2017.
I am reatively young at 24, and studied accounting in Australia, as a result of which I was granted exemptions for all foundation level papers for ACCA.
My ACCA Journey began in October 2016 when I moved to Paris for an exchange semster at HEC. I wasn’t entirely sure wheter to start taking ACCA papers as the workload in the master program at HEC was quite intense. Nevertheless I made a decision to go with it and purchased the Kaplan revision kits for P1, P3 and P7.Having started with naive optimism, at the 30% mark of each text book I had a breakdown of sorts, where I simply could not believe how I was possibly supposed to get through these ridiculously long text books in such a small time frame. As such I was very disheartened. Having trawled through various ACCA forums I began to freak out, as I read time and time again, how averse most peope are to sitting more than one exam at a time with reference to the very daunting pass rates. P7 especially made me very nervous, as everybody says to do it alongside or after P2. I thought I had made a very big mistake and began to doubt my own ability.
Tip 1: DO NOT listen to these people! DO NOT let yourself be influenced in any way by people who are obviously preparing in a very primitive manner and thus cannot cope with more than one exam at a time! What other people are doing and saying about the exams and revision is simply rubbish! They have no idea, and will try to convince you that it is impossible, because for them it is impossible due to their attitude. Think positively, make the committment and act accordingly.
Following this I became aware of OpenTuition, and the fantastic learning ressources that they offer. It is truly by the grace of these amazing people that I was able to regain my motivation and power ahead. I completely dropped the kaplan materials, and solely used open tuition thereafter. I
Tip 2: KAPLAN, BPP and any other supposed platinum learning providers are a waste of time, and money! There is simply too much information, and you are doing yourself no favour if you torture yourself through it. Due to the size of each text book, it is a very arduous task to try and summarise all of this information. Use Opentuition lecture notes, and if you struggle with a certain topic, then watch the online lectures, otherwise the lecture notes truly provide all you need for the exam.
My method involved simply going through the lecture notes provided on open tuition and making my own notes on my computer, that means READING, UNDERSTANDING, CONCEPTUALISING, SUMMARISING and LEARNING in my own words.
Tip 3: You will not learn if you simply read, without transforming the information into your own in a way that you can understand, visualise and ultiately remember.
Opentuition lecture notes are usually between 150-200 Pages, which is a fraction of what the official learning providers’ text books are. This makes it possible to go through the syllabus in about a week or even less as I did. Ideally one should condense these lecture notes even further into about 25-30 Pages of notes in one’s own words. This then provides the basis of content revision, which should be read at regular intervals and VISUALISED.Having almost given up, Open tuition provded me with the ressources to make my own notes on the entire syllabus for P1, P3 and P7, and begin revising these notes by November. At 1 month before exams, I began going through past papers. For me this meant going through each individual question, looking at the answers, understanding why, and then writing out in my own words the required answer. By doing this, not only do you revise the content, but you also see directly what the examiners expect.
I repeated this on 3-4 past papers for each exam, each time progressively reflecting more after each question how I would go about answering the question. Not only was I constantly learning throughout this process, but I was able to learn how to apply all the content in order to receive marksTip 4: APPLY the information in Past Papers. Either do them youself and look at your mistakes to learn retrospectively, or copy out the answers in your OWN words in a manner which you understand and learn whilst doing. If you just blindly copy word for word what the examiner has written you will learn NOTHING. You must understand why certain content is asked for in a given quesiton, and you must learn which information you need to write down to receive marks. By doing this you learn to utilise a structured proforma which you can apply to each question during the real exam.
Be aware that the answers provided to past papers can be expressed in a much more succint manner, they are often too long.After this I had 1 week to go before the exams in december. I went through my revision notes from Opentuition, and ALSO my answers from past papers. Highlight, underline, learn, memorise, and visualise.
On exam day, you must read, understand, and write in the manner which you learnt through past papers. Make it easy for yourself to get marks by writing, if you don’t write, you don’t get marks. For each exam I wrote 15-20 Pages. Time management is also crucial, if you find yourself spending too much time on a question, then write a quick conclusion and move on!
Using this method, which involved considerably less work than with the platinum learning resources I passed P1 with 56, P3 with 66 and P7 with 56, whilst studying at the same time for my exchange semester during which I also had other exams and coursework to study for. I applied this same method for the march sitting and passed P2 with 60, and P5 with 53.
In summary your method of preparation is key, be efficient, committed, intelligent and creative in this regard. Do not let yourself be discouraged by other people who themselves are drowning in negativity and desire nothing more than to drag you down with them. If you believe in your own capabilities, commit to the task, act accordingly and remain positive, you will succeed! I wish you all the best of luck and hope this will help some of you!
wow u are a monster, did u have a life for 6 months ?
i have to give credit to you as an individual are gifted not only in the rational approach and TO DO IT attitude but increased intelligence which not everyone possesses , so rather be safe than sorry and not taking a huge burden on your head and stress.
Personally my style of studying is kinda mesmerizing one, i relish on the information , like sipping a hot green tea at night.
BPP as a study text is clearly rubbish and Kaplan is sometimes too concise, OT lectures are definitely worth to touch upon but they dont highlight all the aspects.
ACCA is all about energy and effort, personally i dont find it more time constrained rather than difficult,
Dedicating 6 months is worth the try but many people especially working cant do the same in 6 month.
in the end thanks for sharing the miracle u pulled off, top 2 suggestions would obviously be read ll teh answers and understand and then write in your own words and if running out of time , simply write a conclusion.
Would u mind sharing your eating habits and schedule too please ?
Hi James ,
Thank you so much .. U will save me a lot of time and anguish in the future .. I am going to copy what you have done as i was using kaplan & bp & getting lost in the notes .. I am so grateful of u feedback
When i read this post, first thing that occurred to me was where is the like/upvote button. This is really motivating man i will always refer back to this whenever i feel like giving up. i gave F1(78%), F2(79%), F3(82%) & F4(68%) in two months (24/9/2019 to 20/11/2019) purely with Opentuition notes, lectures and ACCA practice tests. I am yet to give F5 on December 4. I was considering giving F7/FR & F8/AA in one sitting in March 2020 but i was sceptical if i can make it but this post just boosted my confidence. Thanks James, wish you luck ahead.
Hi James,
Thank you so much for sharing your experience upon relying on open tuition notes. I was wondering around to buy or not buy the BPP study material because it cost quite a lot for me. I plan to take SBL and AFM in the coming future solely rely on the study material from open tuition. I hope I have the same success as you. But one thing, do I need to purchase the BPP practice workbook?
For AFM the lecture notes and lectures and revision lectures on Opentuition are really good and lots of question practice.
Thanks to opentuition I finally passed afm!Same for SBL… And it needs more question practice in my opinion. But quite easy materials to grasp but it’s application that needs to be mastered. Will be giving my second attempt for SBL with proper preparation. Question practice is key. For all papers for that matter.
Good luck to you all.
And congrats for finishing acca to the person who created this post. Everyone should find their own way of studying and taking the papers how they fit their schedules. Agreed. Some can take many, some can take just one. But at the end, it’s passing that matters.
Wow. What else to say than congrats man, that is one hell of a achievment.
I didn’t catch from your post, do you have a full time job? Because i have a really hard time attempting more than 2 exams per year with my full time job, 6-year old daughter, cooking lunch, doing all the house chores, working out 3x per week, and above all that, having multiple sclerosis and trying to stay sane 🙂
Having said that, I will definitely try to attempt more than 2 exams during 2020. I have Taxation and all proffessional papers left.
Your advice is excellent – you cannot memorise text by heart, you have to understand it and practice, practice, practice… Past exams are gold, and doing them under real exam conditions is excellent way of testing yourself.
Good luck in future carreer!@belma said:
Wow. What else to say than congrats man, that is one hell of a achievment.I didn’t catch from your post, do you have a full time job? Because i have a really hard time attempting more than 2 exams per year with my full time job, 6-year old daughter, cooking lunch, doing all the house chores, working out 3x per week, and above all that, having multiple sclerosis and trying to stay sane 🙂
Having said that, I will definitely try to attempt more than 2 exams during 2020. I have Taxation and all proffessional papers left.
Your advice is excellent – you cannot memorise text by heart, you have to understand it and practice, practice, practice… Past exams are gold, and doing them under real exam conditions is excellent way of testing yourself.
Good luck in future carreer!Belma,
Don’t take up more than you can handle, you have to be realistic when making your plans. James had time to do it the way he did however, the same may not apply to you. Take it from another working mother who decided it was okay to sit 3 exams in addition to an already busy schedule. All it did was caused health issues after the fact even though I had passed my exams.
James had great strategy take from that what would work best for you.
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