General ACCA*** P1 December 2014 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

What exchange risk and why IC not full effective?

it was not a bad paper

I haven't heard of supply risk nor international political risks lol Paper was challenging but i thought p2 and p3 were worst

It was fine, much better than the last two secions, but also need too many definitions, hope to pass

it was ok, thought question 1 was straight forward. hope to edge out >50 though.

Thought it was ok but struggled on exam technique! Was panicking , when I got to 90 mins, as I hadn't finished question 1! How did you guys use your 15 mins before the paper started?

Agree with you. Same happened to me. I am afraid of the technique as it was lengthy

As for the exchange rate risks I wrote f9 material on exchange rates lol

I thought it was okay but the questions didn't let you show as much knowledge as they could so not straightforward to score marks - but P1 as with all written exams are always open to interpretation.

it was so hard to judge the paper... hope i pass tho..

why everyone is voting for "OK" , i don't think it's okay. q1a - i don't find the 2 stakeholder claim in the case, so i simply made up on my own q1b - can't remember what but it was ok q1c - i don't really know the definition of "exchange rate risk", "international policy risk" "supply risk" .had to think in the exam and explain using my own words. q1d - again i forgotten the role of corporate citizens, end up explaining what responsibility of the company as a corporate citizens. INTEGRATED REPORTING, AHAHAHHA, again, using my own logic 3a - roles of ceo, as spotted 3b - NED, again spotted 3c - conflict of interest - it was easy, which i don't bother to revise, and end for forgetting how to explain in detail 4a - need for internal audit, again as spotted 4b - limitation of IC - can only remember 4 points, 4c - can't remember on what but i think it was ok

Was a fair exam. Dont know if ive done enough to pass. The corruption question threw me. I know what is but not to describe. Also messed up with the ceo and put some chairman things down thats going to ruin things for me. The question on suitable neds. I just put down normal ned things. Wasnt sure what that was. Question 4 i guessed the second question. Hoping for a pass but knowing my luck with these papers will probs be a fail ???????? I didnt think it was that bad for time. Good luck for everyone. X

Hey guys could any1 please tell me that I was carrying an expired passport in the exam as an identification proof but the invigilators asked me to fill up a form of no identification ....what could be the consequences of this as I have done paper well and the invigilators told me that it's just a formality ...will the acca people check my answer script ...ha any1 faced such a thing please let me know..

hey guys in terms of q1: for stakeholders claims and conflicts what was your technique?did you identify sth and their claims and then conflicts that may arise? corruption that was a far too open ended to give a definition-it felt endless risks-never heard of international political risk what was that all about? did you do integrated reporting on the statement?did you put sub headings finance,intellectual,manufacturing,social,nature? in q2(the school): did you compare contrast to public vs private? q4:IC innefective i basically said failure to identify risks correctly(elaborated on that)as such ic ineffective rise of sitiuations that are outside the control of Lobo hence lack of controls in place generally tried and improvised on the idea that IC are there to mitigate risk rather and consequences of it materialising than IC being there to provide 100% assurance paper was really tough time constraints and i dont think i wrote enough and to P level-feels you need to have strong critical thinking AND strong command of english language what did you guys think?? BPP claims that responding in terms of writing down the theory wont get many marks you always need to tie it back to scenario and apply it.

Too lengthy, the questions were ok but with a case study nearly 1.5 pages to read was too lengthy compared to previous papers. questions 2-4 should have been shorter case srtudies. over exceeded 90 minutes for q1 Q1 risks. In pockets notes it clearly says several risks you have to define. e.g health & safety, techological. Supply risk , political risk not mentioned in sylllabus. not fair what do you write How does employees and customers conflict each other... difficult to put knowledge into this and gain full marks. Overall dont know what to make of it .... open to interpretation. alot of the questions were thinking and understanding the requirements. but becuase of time constrsints its difficult. why make papers that you cant finish.. what are they examining

Question 1: I identified the employees and Cheapkit as stakeholders, concerning the corruption question, I just wrote what could have avoided at any corruption point/stage, the risks were OK for me, assessing political risk worst and supplier risk to be also severe whereby exhange risk not that urging, coporate citizen: I just guessed... anything globalisation??? same thing for integrated reporting... very unstructured answer :-( Question 3 and 4 were more or less straight forward, although I surely catched not all points I finished just in time... preparing all questions ... but I stopped at any time when I knew catching the "difficult" points would to much time. Overall it was a paper with few standard questions and a lot to think... I am really excited whether I passed

i didnt use much of p1 in this paper but rather general knowlege...hope the examiner understands my points .. lucky thing no4 was printed at the back so i did the question even before the 15 mins time started haha. the rules are that u cant open the paper, didnt say anythinga bout turning it so they let me do it.

Supply risk referred to the risks of the company not getting the supplies on time and at an affordable price, since their strategies was based on providing low cost fashionable clothing. You could have also brought in issues relating to qualities. Also the ethical implications arising from the company getting its supplies from Cornflower was also an another risk since it was causing damage to their reputation. When it comes to the political risks you could have mentioned the corrupt government that Cornflower was operating in and how important it is for Western countries to be cautious of doing businesses with those companies in fear of their reputation. I know the syllabus did not cover these issues but sometimes you can just come up with some valid points. Hope this helps.

@acca123456 said: Too lengthy, the questions were ok but with a case study nearly 1.5 pages to read was too lengthy compared to previous papers. questions 2-4 should have been shorter case srtudies. over exceeded 90 minutes for q1 Q1 risks. In pockets notes it clearly says several risks you have to define. e.g health & safety, techological. Supply risk , political risk not mentioned in sylllabus. not fair what do you write How does employees and customers conflict each other... difficult to put knowledge into this and gain full marks. Overall dont know what to make of it .... open to interpretation. alot of the questions were thinking and understanding the requirements. but becuase of time constrsints its difficult. why make papers that you cant finish.. what are they examining

Employees and customers conflict each other because employees will want high wages, job security, career prospects, a safe working environment... that comes at a cost which means that this cost is likely to be passed on to the customers who want cheap prices for a certain level of quality.. the point is you can't satisfy both stakeholders and have to balance their claims. Risk one was common sense / general knowledge

Ice dawn lucky. I never thought of that haha x

Alhumdulillah completed 100%, hope for the best. Paper was of unique nature. Attempted to use comon sense at couple of parts, like curruption, integrated reporting risks etc

@moofr00tz said: the customers who want cheap prices for a certain level of quality.. the point is you can't satisfy both stakeholders and have to balance their claims. Risk one was common sense / general knowledge

that was also the direction of my answer. Just to clarify: it was asked from Cornflower's stakeholders' view... and stakeholder of it is Cheapkit, the firm selling the cheap products to Western countries... or am I wrong?

The question 1 case study was based on the Primark case. Primark is a cheap clothing retailer in UK and they get supplies from Bangladesh. Factory in Bangladesh collapsed and killed about 3000 workers and it was all over the news. I think that sad accident happened last year. Examiner sometimes takes real life stories and examine those. Question paper was fair overall and manageable. Stakeholder claim was asked on two occasions, one in optional and one in complosory question. Examiner asked stakeholder claims of Cornflower, not Cheapkit (I can see some people here can not find employees and customers. Employees are those who work in factory and customer is Cheapkit) Opentution was helpful identifying and reminding whats new to syllabus. Example, interagted reporting. Also, examiner has written an article about public sector which is also available in iTunes. (I didn't do question 2) I did question 3 and 4 and it wasn't difficult, both were typical P1 questions. My favourite part of the paper is ethics, sadly examiner decided not to ask ethics question this time.

@salmiak said: that was also the direction of my answer. Just to clarify: it was asked from Cornflower's stakeholders' view... and stakeholder of it is Cheapkit, the firm selling the cheap products to Western countries... or am I wrong?

That is correct. Cheapkit is essentially the customer I used as the example.

Hey ho - thought it a fair paper but too much reading and a sudden loss of memory didn't help. Unsure if I did enough to pass. I thought political risk could also be change of governments in country in which work is won, which leads to change in laws/regulations etc.

Forget to tick the questions I answered on the face of the answer booklet. Would that affect me?

The comments here seem logical, common sense is required and seems ok. But agin because too much reading and time pressure dont have time to plan and answer effiiently. Conflict between customer and employees, balancing claims and cheap, but of required quality. simple, yet in exam so difficult.

I am so happy: I think it was a peace of cake exam. If I ever score 100 marks, it will be on this exam today. My gratitude to open tuition and the ACCA web site - in my humble opinion these two resources are sufficient to pass for any prospect finance analyst (chartered accountant).

It was an interesting paper, I hope I pass, however, you never exactly know until you receive the e-mail :D

It was a fair paper. Q1 was based on the Rana Plaza incident in Bangladesh and Cheapkit is actually Primark!. The background knowledge of the case helped. Q1(a) stakeholders were employees of Cornflower who wanted decent wages and safe working environment which has a cost and customer i.e Cheapkit who wanted low prices, both conflict as low prices cannot be achieved if high costs of labour. Risk was straight forward. Exchange rate risk definition from F9, affects shareholders due to risk of loss from adverse exchange rate movements, Supply risk = risk of not being able to secure adequate supplies as 65% supplies from same country, loss of revenue and potential profits which affects shareholder wealth; political risk = being associated with corrupt government who practice bribery = reputation risk, affecting consumer demand who may take ethical stance and not shop from Cheapkit. Failures that led to collapse and loss of lives were all straightforward and in the question, Corporate citizen just guessed, couldn't remember exact definition. Corporate citizen = one that takes into views of all stakeholders and not just shareholders, waffled on benefits of integrated reporting, identified the different capitals which integrated reporting highlights.