June ’10 Exams POLL – Paper F6 was … Post your comments here

To be honest I didn’t actually remember the part disposal thing on damaged assets, if all the proceeds wouldn’t have been reinvested then I would have got it wrong.

The rate of interest was actually given in the paper so it’s not something you were supposed to remember. It’s just like a mathematical error and wouldn’t really be penalized for more than a mark I think. You would be given credit for remembering the correct percentage of penalty.

Ya I honestly cannot see myself failing this, I don’t know how I’ll handle that situation if it happens. The only question I completely messed up was the losses one and it was 7 marks so I am not really worried about it. In fact I am expecting 60%+ and wouldn’t be surprised if I got 70%+. Unlike subjective papers, it’s not difficult to get 100% marks in tax questions. Good luck to you 2, by the looks of it I am sure you’ll pass.

I was so confident on getting above 80 before I sat for the exam. Everything went shattered upon opening the question paper. It was damn different from the one’s in the exam kit of Kaplan and from the previous question papers! VAT was almost everywhere. My head was on a spin with the Motor cars even though I was so thorough with Capital allowances! I am so upset! David has let us all down 🙁

You defer the gain to a future period. It’s a fancy way of saying rollover or holdover. If you understand the theory of it. Say you reduce the base cost and in the future you get the same proceeds, you will not be taxed today but will be taxed when you finally rid of the asset for that portion that was attributable to relief. Therefore, you “defer” the gain to a future period.

In this case, it was a damage to property which would be eligible for deferment if the proceeds are reinvested within 12 months from the date of disposal.

this was one of my best paper prep…….I was very confident…..but…I dint know wat examiner wants.

It was more of a theory paper than usuall tax.. Irony is we weren’t required to calculate tax in TAX paper :p over all paper sucked BIG TIME 😛

I truly fink the examiner give us the P6 paper and vise versa.. zats weirdest paper ive seen… lets hope the examiner pity us and not b 2 strcict wgile correcting the papers

Guy’s,
I too thought this was a tough paper. However, everyone is having a go at the examiner and I don’t know why. There is no set format to this exam. Everything on that paper was in the sylabus. Every examiners comments posted on the ACCA’s website say do not question spot. If the exam carried on the format of the previous years everyone would get at least 15 marks that have been on every paper.

These are my last 2 F level exams and maybe I’m fortunate because I have come across this before. F7 changed the format when I sat it and F9 last year was very strange. But these are professional exams. What you have to do, is not panic, take a deep breath and focus on breaking the question down and getting the easy marks.

yes the paper was strange, but that question 1 was actually pretty fair when you got into it.

I was hoping for a large score on this based on previous papers (as I’m going for the degree) I still hope to get a good score but probably not as good as if i sat the exam last year. that is my major gripe, that success can be determined by which paper you sit.

However, question spotting is a way to fail. All the ACCA will say is a well prepared student can pass the exam. Breaking the paper down, if you had revised the relevant parts you could pass:

Q1) Partnership and VAT (calculating trading profit is part of the income tax calculation is it not?)
Q2) Corporation Tax (PCTCT calculation)
Q3) capital gains (all on syllabus and pretty straigtforward apart from the shares, but at BPP we did study this)
Q4) Tax evasion (not a major topic but one even an unprpared student could have had a decent go at surely)
Q5) Penalties (Again not a major topic but c’mon it is most definately on the sylabus)

From what I’m hearing the reason people didn’t like this paper is that they didn’t revise all the sylabus – major reason for failure – check the previous examiners comments. one of the main reason people fail is by not revising all the sylabus.

Never expect anything in an ACCA exam. they are testing knowledge, application and the ability to think on your feet. if we freaked at the format that’s our fault not ACCA’s.

If it wasn’t tough we wouldn’t appreciate when we pass (and we all will)

Good luck everyone

2 platinumkp
yes you were right… repairs of £ 41,000 is kept as it is. but Cost of the building is reduced by holdover relief which is £ 36,000 and new Cost is gonna be £ 124,000.
BUT it’s already gone…. I treated the difference as a loss.
Thanks anyway..

@owensn

I don’t think you’re understanding the point. If you read back you will see that the majority of these comments didn’t say it WASN’T on the syllabus, but TOO MUCH of the syllabus was tested in the same paper. And if you read back you will also find that majority of these students WERE prepared and completed all or most of the revision kit, and went into the exam with a target of at least 80% or more.

It’s not just what was on the paper, the format was poorly presented and therefore made the paper time consuming. It consisted of a combination of topics in 1 question that had never been put together before. Also there was a lot of theory and again takes up time on the paper. Why bother doing the practice and revision kit only to find that the real exam is nothing like any of what we have just practiced? Isn’t the purpose of these past practice questions to prepare us for the exam? To prepare us of the topics, the timing and the FORMAT of the paper. We are not complaining because we were “question spotting” as you put it, it’s that we weren’t given enough time for the amount of knowledge required.

If the examiner wants to make a change to the format and make it more difficult, he should do it gradually over the years and not make it one big change in 1 sitting because it’s unfair and would shock people’s confidence during examination. If it was a small change or more time was given, I probably wouldn’t mind but the whole trend of the F6 has been flipped upside down like never seen before, how can you say that’s reasonable?

@sanjarbek

Holdover relief is a business relief and is not available for an asset that is not used in business.

The Damaged asset had all the proceeds reinvested. Therefore there was no loss and no gain. The base cost of the asset was then in fact 169,000 – 35,000 + 41,000 = 175,000. At least in my opinion.

“Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I’ll show you a failure”

– Thomas A. Edison.

im so glad im not the only one who thought. where’s income tax question? i soo messd i did so much revision, it did my head-in. i prob did about 80 questions from the BBP rev kit, i wana soo cry. i hope we all pass.

@acltang72 said:
@owensn

I don’t think you’re understanding the point. If you read back you will see that the majority of these comments didn’t say it WASN’T on the syllabus, but TOO MUCH of the syllabus was tested in the same paper. And if you read back you will also find that majority of these students WERE prepared and completed all or most of the revision kit, and went into the exam with a target of at least 80% or more.

It’s not just what was on the paper, the format was poorly presented and therefore made the paper time consuming. It consisted of a combination of topics in 1 question that had never been put together before. Also there was a lot of theory and again takes up time on the paper. Why bother doing the practice and revision kit only to find that the real exam is nothing like any of what we have just practiced? Isn’t the purpose of these past practice questions to prepare us for the exam? To prepare us of the topics, the timing and the FORMAT of the paper. We are not complaining because we were “question spotting” as you put it, it’s that we weren’t given enough time for the amount of knowledge required.

If the examiner wants to make a change to the format and make it more difficult, he should do it gradually over the years and not make it one big change in 1 sitting because it’s unfair and would shock people’s confidence during examination. If it was a small change or more time was given, I probably wouldn’t mind but the whole trend of the F6 has been flipped upside down like never seen before, how can you say that’s reasonable?

I haven’t missed the point, I did the exam too. I thought it was a tough paper but still finished with 15 mins to go. Q3, Q4 and Q5 were the same as previous years. Q3 gains, Q4 and Q5 anything off the sylabus. (Maybe more discursive then recent years but the examiner has never said that this wouldn’t be the case)

Q1 contained an adjustment for capital allowances (this was on previous papers in Q1) and a calculation of trading profits (this was on previous papers in Q1) national insurance contributions (on previous papers in Q1) VAT (on previous papers in Q1) the only difference was thast there was no income tax calculation including personal allowances (Max 3-6 marks)
Yes it looked different, but in essance it was the same apart from the marks for calculating the income tax (these 3 marks were in question 2 and represented easy marks)

I know people found it tough, and I agree previous papers were probably easier – that’s because we all thought this paper would be the same as the previous ones.

The examiner has obviously thought the exam is becoming stale and compared to other papers the pass rate is very high (so maybe he was right.) But this exam still covered all the areas that were covered previously (just asked differently)and did include some easy marks – and some tough ones.

Tell me anything that was asked that was unfair because nothing on that paper was something none of us hadn’t encountered before. Tough yes, but these are professional exams. If questions are asked regarding peripheral areas of the sylabus that may be unfair, but changing the format is par for the course and people should not expect each exam to be the same.

From what I’m hearing people thought this was going to be an easy 80 marks or so (maybe people didn’t study as hard for this as other exams becasue they thought it would be easy)

Maybe the examiner thought this also. My experience tells me, you never know what mark you are going to get. The exam is over wait until August for the results – I’m sure you’ll be surprised.

@owensn

I concur. I studied hard to try to get a high mark but that was a benefit for me because I didn’t try to game the exam and looked at the syllabus in detail, reflecting on my abilities and identifying weak areas for improvement. But that being said, I doubt I will get a high mark and will be immensely satisfied with four magical letters come August, even if it is marginal.

If the four letters don’t turn out to be so magical, I will blame nobody but myself and will learn from this experience… There’s no such thing as a free lunch.