is the study material shared in here official?

I do not know what you mean by ‘official’ 🙂

There is no ‘official’ material – there are many publishers and providers of ACCA study resources. The ACCA does have a list of approved tuition providers, but we are not eligible to apply for approval because one of the conditions is that we would have to monitor the performance of each student (such as keeping records of what lectures they had watched). We are not in a position to be able to do this because all of our resources are offered free of charge.

However all of our tutors also teach (or have taught) for one or both of the two biggest approved tuition providers in the UK – BPP and Kaplan.

In addition, the ACCA do officially regard us as a ‘trusted learning partner’ 🙂

As to where to start, you need to go to our main Paper PM page: https://opentuition.com/acca/pm/
where you will find links to all of our Paper PM resources.

First watch the introductory lecture. Then download (and preferably print out) our free lecture notes and start watching the lectures that work through each of the chapters in the notes – explaining and expanding on the notes. After most of the chapters there is a short online test just to check that you have understood properly.

If you have any problems on the way then just ask in this forum – we always answer within 24 hours.

When you have finished studying all the topics, it is vital to get lots of question practice. For this, the one book you need to buy is a Revision Kit from one of the ACCA Approved Publishers (BPP and Kaplan). It is full of past exam and other exam standard questions for practice, and practice is essential. Both of the publishers are fine, but you can get a 20% discount on the BPP Revision Kit if you click on the link on the right hand side of this page (you can get the book either as hard copy or as soft copy).

Again, if (when you come to practicing questions) there is anything you are unsure about, then ask in this forum and I will explain 🙂

Finally, I do not know your background and so whether you have taken the earlier ACCA exams of whether this is your first ACCA exam because you have a degree from university and were therefore exempt from the earlier exams. If this is your first exam then do appreciate that the exam is not easy and the pass rate is low. I do not say this to worry you, but the pass rate is low not because the students taking it are stupid, but because so many think that because they passed their university exams then the ACCA must be easy by comparison and so they do not study properly. (I must admit that I thought so at first when I took the exams many years ago 🙂 ). Everyone is capable of passing the exams (and I am sure that you are no exception) but it does mean studying properly by watching all the lectures and practicing questions using a Revision Kit 🙂

Although you are allowed to take the exams in any order, the ACCA recommend that they are taken in the order listed and that is the most sensible.

It is not that Paper PM is harder than the other papers. The low pass rate is because for many people it is the first ACCA exam that they take (because of exemptions) and do not appreciate that the ACCA exams do require proper studying.

You are welcome 🙂