June 10 Exams – Paper P2 was … Post your comments here

I will def have to re-sit it….. Awfull feeling!!!
Anyone please tell me… Why did we 3 line of figures for amortised ocst of bond in Q1 if it was classified as available for sale and thus to be recognised at fair value/cost ??????

Hi All, Sorry this is really bugging me – can anyone remember what Q2 part (b) was? Something about impairments but I can’t remember the exact scenario (apart from the company name Cate) and hence can’t remember what I wrote (if anything!). Overall the paper was a bit hit and miss, so recalling what I wrote will help me sleep a bit better tonight!

By the way, if it’s any comfort to you guys, I was lucky enough to have been tutored by one of the ACCA markers. No inside info, but he did mention that whenever everyone finds a particular paper hard or considers it unbalanced (the ACCA listen to student and tutor feedback), the marking is more lenient, in which case a 47 or 48 (for example) is considered a pass and bumped up to 50.

Judging by the majority of comments here it looks like it was a tough paper – and I personally thought a sub-subsidiary income statement was a bit OTT, especially with the part sub, part associate thrown in! So hopefully the feedback will get through and they will mark leniently!

Good luck all!

This paper just knocked me down!
All least topics expected came up! Definitely the pass rate is gonna be very low this session!

I am so disappointed that SOCI came instead of a SOFP or Cash Flow.
I would have really preferred a Cash Flow question.

I never even expected leases to come either. Honestly I think there were alot of other questions relating to P2 current issues and foreign exchanges etc that could have showed up.

I think it would be a good idea for the P2 Tutor to do video lectures showing the working out of Past Paper questions (say for the last 5yrs), because the methodology he uses to calculate stuff in his lectures is much more comprehensive and easier to understand than those shown in the Answers for the past papers.

That would greatly assist online students especially those doing self study (like I did) to see how how it all comes to together in a exam type question.

Did anyone attempt the Management of earnings question?
I havent heard of it before and i didn’t attempt it at all. I am a bit worried now that i thought of it. This question was 15 marks of the exam

There is a lot of queries on the meaning of earnings management. I think the question does mention that it’s the process of smoothing the profit/loss by the company, obviously to make the results and position look good to the market & shareholders. One of the many ways to do that is by reporting “below the line” i.e reserve accounting. As regards the question, by reclassifying financial asset to Available for Sale category, then this gains/losses pass through STGRL i.e accounted through reserves. By doing, the performance on ordinary activities will look better wth respect to key ratios. Hope that helps. But I still think I failed as it was a very testing and time pressured paper.

In case anyone wants to email a letter of complaint to BPP for the rubbish revision notes and practice and revision kit that didn’t go over the scenarios and topics that came up in the exam (can’t decide if it’s BPP’s or Holt’s fault) their email address is:

putitright@bpp.com

Hopefully they can get their act together before it comes to resits!! Out of interest – did anyone who studied with Kaplan find the exam any better than the BPP students?

Regarding Q2 b as far as I remember the entity claimed that its investment got impaired but did not want to use market share price as basis for fair value and insted used different methods, that did not confirm the decrease in value. And as for operational lease, a possible new standard (long term project) MAY result in lease being treated as asset and liability. However, it is JUST mentioned in one of the articles in ACCA magazine.

At least BPP ‘s mock covered Lease question.

the key to passing P1 is to master the IAS in and out and remember that every aspect of the kit is important. I believe the paper ws a rather fair paper.

sorry i meant P2

The paper was fair only that it was alittle bit different from the past papers.