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

@owensn said:
I do understand your frustration, but this is your first exam and when you have completed more and gained more experience you will get to know that ACCA do this with the exams all the time. It’s not that they are unfair, just that their exams are challenging.

Exam technique is a vital skill and ACCA know students will freak when they see the change of paper (I don’t really see it was THAT different). The trick with any exam is deep breath, get rid of the negative thoughts and gradually work your way through the question doing what you can and picking up as many marks as possible.

The reason the pass rate is 50% is exactly why the exams seem tough. They could make them easier but with a much higher pass mark but this vital skill of coping under pressure would be harder to test.

Hard questions – yes, but with a fair pass rate (50%)

What I would say is don’t get too down now. Experience also tells me that when I feel I’ve done really badly on a paper I often have done quite well. (7 exams now avg 69% and no fails) and I thought I’d failed a few.

Just wait till the results come out, you may be surprised. If you have revised hard and covered the sylabus you stand a good chance. Belive me, I never try to guess what i have got as a mark because I have been surprised in the past.

Good Luck

Thank you owensn, I do see where you are coming from. I suppose i am just a little disappointed!

I haven’t been aiming for great marks as I have struggled with finding time to study (as we all do) but I have worked very hard and covered the syllabus and I was actually quite looking forward to the exam…. with distance learning I feel past exam papers are essential (along with thoroughly going through the text) and for me they are the key to passing as when I start practicing real past papers etc, that is when it really sticks and it just didn’t help that the exam papers that we were able to use all seemed to follow a certain pattern (as they have done since the pilot paper in 2007(I think?!)) …and then to get into the real thing and be faced with something quite different I feel was unfair – esp. to have not been even prompted in the running up to the exam that there may be some change. Also putting that to one side I actually found that the paper had no flow to it (like previous papers have) and I felt it was quite unclear in areas – which in normal circumstances may not be such a problem but with the added pressure and nerves of being in an exam – it just made it more confusing and awkward than it needed to me! ….lets face it, in the real world we have the internet and accounting offices full of accounting ‘bibles’, no-one is ever expected to have it all stored so I just think making the exam unnecessarily difficult isn’t fair – students do well to retain most of the syllabus without being mislead! This is just my opinion, but you are right nothing really can be done about this so will just have to wait and see!

I was prepared very well, but the paper was not good

Given half an hour of extra time might make this question fair..so dam lengthy. I finished Q1,2,3,5 & surpizingly there was only 1 mnt left for Q4 🙁

Any way we can sue the examiner ?

not “hard” – exam was badly constructed in terms of the skill of constructing an exam – Examiner fancied a change so mixed it all up and make up for it by asking non-tax specific easy questions like tax evasion etc that gave away silly marks….to compensate

But he didn’t put in place ways for the marker to see the student intentionally left out red herrings and figures – was that not the point of asking for £0 in adjustment questions??

Result –
bad students get guess marks and can deceive the marker they know the subject

good students didn’t get the opportunity to evidence the correct thought processes

i am sure there will be bad feedback from the markers – I looked at my paper and after 3 hours, knowing the subject inside out – there was hardly anything written on it, just not the opportunity to say much to the marker….

it was damn tuff,, hope it get me through.

I’m switching to iCAEW, was thinking of doing it anyway – the exams are 4 sittings a year and the first 6 testing the fundamental basics are multiple choice – the equivalent for this tax paper you can sit any time – after all its simply testing your ability to remember and apply arbitary facts, it means you don’t waste 3 months revising to get done over by a bad paper then have to wait 6 months to try again – you can re-take 3 months later in the next sitting and spread topics over the year….makes much much more sense to me.

Paper is out on ACCA website already, in Dec we had to wait till like a week before results for the question paper to be available, so people can give there views and what answers they got….

I didn’t study the BPP text’s so may have been at an advantage.
I didn’t find this exam too difficult but I think I may have had luck on my side as I have done my own self assessments for over 5 years and operate a flat rate scheme for my husbands business (at the rate given in the exam!) and looked into a partnership business for my husband when he and a mate thought about setting up business together, they ended up opting for a company so I have done their company tax returns. Then the open tuition revision lecture went through the motor vehicle possibilities and as there have been a lot of questions on vehicles I studied this bit more that some of the other sections as I knew very little about it but knew it was more likely than not to appear on an exam paper.
Also I like questions for 3-4 marks better than 10 mark questions as you have a better idea of what is being asked for and in this case the 10 – 15 mark questions were for calculating profits in which case you knew what they were looking for.
In my opinion this paper was designed to sort out the people who studied the whole text from those who only studied the main topics and reward them accordingly.
Surprisingly, I do expect to pass this paper despite having done very little revision for it.

I was taught by Open tuition video, and i thank them so much for the short clear cut notes, and cut my time learning to fingertips. BAN ZAI!

My exam was UOBeds, But i didnt study so hards, but the ACCA are BANZAI to, i dont know how can anyone do in 36 mins, length questions.

we cant even check our answers from anywhere because such questions never came! i did all the revision kits and i was expecting very incredible paper! now it makes me not want to study for the rest of the exams. specially q4. in the book of f6, it just says in last line of first chapter that auditor should take due care and diligence! what the hell? there was a 3 marks question on this! does the examiner expect us to memorise every little phrase in the book?

@superwoman said:
I understand student frustration about the exam however I still dont understand the point about VAT it was 10 marks only, no different to other papers. The examiner always tests VAT for about 10 marks. Why are you taking a punt on VAT? My students are always told they must learn all VAT as it will be tested. The adjustment to profit and capital allowances had nothing to do with VAT.
The VAT element was tax point. A Vat return showing output VAT on slaes and INPUT VAT on purchases and the Flat rate scheme. Why is this a joke, it is standard VAT question.
I really think the previous point by vinx98 is concerning. The paper was a slightly different format but standard syllabus areas. If you have worked hard and a praticised exam questions you should pass. Stop worrying and accept exams are difficult and you have to be prepared that an exam will not be a replica of previous exam papers. You will certainly find this at the Professional level.
As I said put it behind you and dont write off success because you were challenged.

we had two questions on VAT, I cant remember marks, but they were definately more than 10 marks. I studied VAT, and I will get some marks in this section, but not as much as corp. tax, individuals, etc mainly because the bulk of previous years exam was on those areas.
i think this is the first exam that I studied so hard for and thanks to the BPP material, I actually think I know a lot about tax now – but even with this, the crazy exam could still fail me. As I mentioned before, after doing a “mock” of last years exam I got a mark over 75%, but this year I could fail. How could there be such a discrepancy??
The fact that the exam is harder does not make it “professional”, it makes it deceptive. In a professional environment, you have all the books at your disposal if you have to look into a tricky situation. And also most professionals are pros because of experience. There are many tax experts out there who do not have and do not need to pass F6 paper, Im not downplaying the importance of F6, but its not right to say that it makes you a pro because you memorised a certain part of the syllabus correctly.
The only thing I can think of is that the examiner wanted to trick (ie fail) students, and it has been done.

This paper was very very hard. The questions were different from all questions in revision kits and past papers. This examiner was very MEAN to the students.

The enter syllabus was examined.

I am hoping I get 50% just to pass….