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To everyone who approached this, whether successfully or not, I am wondering what is your experience? Have you decided to attempt options paper without attending classes but only studying at home? How did you find it? Was it very tough to motivate outside of working full time? Was open tuition lectures very helpful and how to obtain good study materials?
I am in the position of changing the jobs in the new year and my current employer stopped supporting my studies. New one, if they do, will probably support after my probationary period. I have a choice of waiting until at least march or more likely june 2016 to attempt my first option after attending tuitions in the class or take the risk of self studying for the december 2015 and only pay for the books and the exam. The risk is losing over £100 if exam failed and probably being not as well prepared as with tutor but the benefit might be progressing towards acca membership sooner by around 6 months. I just dont want to spend so much of my own money (usually 500 for tuition and the same for revision, which gives a total of £2,000 for the final two papers).
I look forward to hear your views and opinions.Thanks opentuition team. Now, I am hoping to also hear about those who were not that fortunate. Only this will give me a true and balanced view on the matter. 😉
I’m not saying that self study is the way to go for you. and that OpenTuition is the best for you.
just saying. it works for some students well.Not sure you will find many students here saying that it does not work.. those who think it does not work, do not visit anymore, why should they? 😉
here is a longer discussion:
https://opentuition.com/topic/can-i-self-study-the-answer-is-yes/search the forums. there is loads more 😉
I am sure there are many that didnt succeed but I would like to hear from those who did about the challanges they faced etc. rather than just saying, yes yo can because i passed. If you could provide a contact details for the people mentioned in the article under the link you provided (especially kayleigh), that could be very useful.
Hey, of course I can’t give you contact address 😉
The site is community based my private support ..I should not be even part of this discussion, but only wanted to point out obvious posts to read,
I hope other students will join in..
I did it, yes it was hard, i also have a family at home and a senior role at work
I did all my exams self study, no more than a study text, question book and the internet, i preferred self study
Admittedly, i didnt pass all my exams first time, but Im not fussed, no employer has ever asked if i have, and i dont think it proves anything
I understand privacy policy but if the person has the account on here, whats the harm of asking them through message if they would like t answer few of my questions on this frum? Of course, this is also only if you would be kind enough. 🙂
Oh, and thanks for your input, much appreciated.
Carl29, many thanks for your response. It is interesting to read your learning path. For me it will be almost other way round. I thus far had attended both – tuition and revision for each paper, except f1 which i was exempted from. My worry is that i will find it too difficult changing suddenly to self studying, especially for the last and most demanding papers. If i put lot of effort and fail, it my knock my confidence down. I dont really care for the exam and study materials fees as the risk is probably still worth taking in case if I pass.
Pawel: You can send private message yourself 😉 little task for you 😉
although. I really encourage public discussion.. not private one
I did have some brief tuition early on in my study, through BPP. I didn’t like their style, bypassing parts of the syllabus, learn this, skip that – I wanted to learn how to be an ACCA accountant, not just pass exams, so self study was better for me, I didnt finish the BPP tuition. I could spend my time learning the syllabus in its entirety, which made it longer and more difficult, as i didnt know what was important and what wasnt, so maybe I wasted time, but i do know i retain a lot more of the knowledge than colleagues seem to that had BPP tuition (could be down to the individual though)
But I understand my learning style, i have to learn through my own efforts, not being shown, and not being told a method, i have my own method
In my opinion, if you have used a certain way to study up till now successfully, it wouldntbe a good idea to change things right at the end. The option papers are vast and difficult, it would make it even harder to tackle a new way of learning it
I have a similar approach with trying to cover the whole syllabus and when i read so called predictions, I just smile. Even if something will not be repeated from the previous sitting, it doesnt mean I dont want to know t for my own benefit. Of course by saying this, I would do it to the extent of how much time i have avilable etc. i had few resits but mainly due t lack of preparation. I think lsbf (my school) is generally quite good and in some cases excellent that i can truly recommend – e.g. Martin Jones for p2 but i need go over p7 syllabus to see the audit scope because i found f8 quite ok and like the subject so perhaps would have better chances of succeeding in the exam. Not really keen on spending over £1k for each paper (p6 as well).
I think it also depends on the paper. I didn’t have tuition for P1,P3,P7 as they were more theory based. P2 and P6 I went to a revision course because it involved more numbers. There is the cost element to consider as well for tuition so i don’t think its worth going for every paper!!
Hi Pawel, What do you think about the LSBF lectures for papers P1 and P3? Were they helpful? How did you find the revision classes? I’m trying to decide whether I should try the self-study route, using open tuition resources or if I need the additional help. Many thanks in advance.
Hi Pawel,
I recently passed my final exams in June, all of which were self study through Kaplan. I have never been to an exam session, study group etc. I passed them all first time so it can be done.. All you need is a hard work ethic. You need to spend at least an hour a day revising and when you get to a week before the exams around 6 hours per day. Any questions please ask
Hi mariannajane. I found p3 tuition and revision very helpful. Both were lead by David Laws who has a great knowledge is very approachable and what is important for me, does leave some room during his lessons for questions and brief discussions about the topic, even if they sometimes cathc very detail of the chapter. Unfortunately I cant say the same about p1. John Cope who was my tutor has definitely the knowledge but i find his style of tutoring very unappealing. Going through the notes with almost a several hours monologue (i attended weekend classes) with no interaction or students’ engagement with the subject but listening and noting. What was distinctive is a way his notes look which is trees for each matter that look literally like a genealogy tree. I think this isnt helpful when revising so I had to make my own notes from scratch based on the study materials I had.
Thanks Robert. I think I will go for P6 and P7. As i just studied p1 i am wondering whether its better for me to take p7 in december as it could potentially have some areas in the syllabus catching those of p1 (internal controls, internal and external auditors, risk management etc.) but i need to go over the syllabus first. Otherwise I would go for p6 first so it would be a nice change from learning pure theory. However, with p6 i am a bit afraid that it would require some tutor approach since its theory and numbers question. Anyhow, would you recommend kaplan materials for these or any other provider and how to actually obtain them? Perhaps you know some website I could get second hand books?
Hi Pawel,
I did P6 and it is difficult. The hard thing about P6 is not the content but the volume. It is very, very difficult, next to impossible, to revise the whole module. I would pick and choose chapters wisely. As I mentioned before I never used a tutor/extra help and I passed it with 56% first time, why? Because I revised the key chapters thoroughly until I S**t them out of my mouth lol. Honestly, you have to put the time in, nothing else can compensate for that.
Kaplan materials were fine for me, if you can buy them on ebay or something otherwise you will have to buy them direct. I would skip the pocket tip document, just buy revision note and exam kit.
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