Is it advisable to give SBL and SBR together?

I chose to do the 2 papers separately, and passed both first time (self study). I also chose to sit the exams 6 months apart to give myself more time to prepare. If you work full time I wouldn’t recommend sitting them together as they are both tough exams with large syllabi.

I found SBL to be a fairly logical exam and could honestly have had a good go at it without having studied the text. Despite it being a 5 hour exam myself and everybody else I spoke to ran out of time. Exam technique is key in this exam.

In SBR make sure that you learn all the IFRS/IAS standards and can write the definitions and how to apply them. There were several 6 to 8 mark questions in my exam on this area, and the calculation questions were very tough so I was glad that I gained enough marks on the standards.

As with other exams, do as many past paper questions as you can, firstly with your notes open and then without.

Hope this helps

Hi @plunia,

It’s good to see that you wish to take just 1 paper. Honestly, the professional papers are really challenging and not easy to pass! So you need to give ample time to prepare and practice questions in order to get that 50. Hence, I believe sticking to just 1 paper will help to secure a good pass.

@plunia said:
So if I am planning to give a paper in March, then which one would you advise could be done within 6 weeks of preparation?

If you really won’t to give a paper in March with just 6 weeks then I will personally recommend SBR. For 2 main reasons. Firstly, SBL is a case study paper and is recommended to keep it as the last paper. Secondly, in my opinion should be still manageable in 6weeks as compared to SBL.

All that said, 6 weeks is still below the recommended time for preparation by ACCA.
Now you need to consider the following things:
How well did you do in F7?
How well is your FR knowledge?
What are your commitments (work etc)?
Will you be able to balance studies with these commitments?
Can you give enough time to study the concepts and then to practising questions?

If you are a full time student who knows the accounting standards well then it can still be doable but you should ensure you utilise these 6 weeks to the maximum (and for that you will have to make a plan and need to stick to it!)

Hope that helps.

All the best!

@jetavi said:
Hi @plunia,

It’s good to see that you wish to take just 1 paper. Honestly, the professional papers are really challenging and not easy to pass!

I agree with this – if these are your first P papers then they will really feel like a step up from the Fundamental papers.

Hi! How did it go?
Any tips on how to do the exam aside from past papers?