*** P1 June 2015 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

what exactly was the requirement for part d of question 1 ? my memory is bit rusty right now :p

many thanks for your reply and i believe u are correct. in the first part A i also wrote about the audit committe because they would have provided a whistle blowing function to the finance director and they would have taken some action. i also mentioned about shareholders power for calling in EGM since the situation was grave. i also mentioned about shareholders voting against the ceo in AGM because of that behaviour.

i think the points about audit committee were repetitive for those who did question 3

hope i did ok

wish you all the best.

yes it was and the difference was no agency cost and no concept of agency theory. however the full question ended with another requirement.

it was fair exam… not bad we can say

No professional exams are easy.

It was a fair exam but required some thinking to answer to the requirement.

In the audit question , part b) seemed oddly phrased as ‘considered independent’.

Q1 was a nice question and I thought Q4 was reasonable too.

I thought the paper was ok on the whole- not too challenging except for certain parts. I considered the key roles of the chairman in Q1 part d and how they would benefit Lysus but was limited in ideas for application to scenario. I did Q2 but struggled with the part on CSR strategy even though I had read the article. I spent too long trying to recall the definitions and had no time to apply them to the scenario. Also with the last part of Q4 (importance of sound internal controls at Pulpo) though I explained what an internal control is. The advantages of environmental reporting was straightforward- learnt from my notes.

Overall I think I have done ok but could not do justice to the last part of Q1 due to time pressure and shortage of ideas (regarding the benefits of having a non-executive chairman). The second part of Q1d seemed more straightforward requiring a description of the risk embedding process, with which i was familiar. Senior management commitment ~(tone at the top), communication to lower levels and part of everyone’s job description. Reporting arrangements and whistleblowing procedures for staff to report concerns; training in risk management and rewards/sanctions.

In Q2 the agency problems re RIA (institutional investor) seemed straightforward (from notes) – separation of ownership from management meaning it is difficult for RIA’s clients to monitor its activities. I mentioned information gap resulting (the clients have far less knowledge than the directors) and agency costs to monitor the directors (agents) such as publication of annual report and appointment of committees. I hope this is what was required.

I just hope for the best.

Please let me know how the rest of you found it.

Ashok Rao

I started off with question 1 simply because it’s where most of marks are and I thought I’d do it better if I start off with it. Let’s say you got 70% of the marks of Q1, you’d only need 15 marks from 2 questions to pass, which seems manageable even if you’re running behind schedule.

What did you guys write for strategic CSR? I wrote that since the local authority was a shareholder, it’s strategic to build the estate in their area to benefit them and keep their investment.

I missed to write an answer because I dint see the question and when I saw the question the time was over —diversity of risks in various sector something (8 marks)—I attended the paper quite okay …Does any one remember the marking of the questions …for the 1 st questions it was 10,10 , professional marks 4 and ? I am quite not sure will I have to resit or not just worried .Someone please reply

@boringaccountant said:
This was the problem, there wasn’t enough time to get all the ideas we would normally get in writing an answer while doing mocks or past papers etc.

Moreover, the 4th question, yes it was Post Conventional and although I answered it “stage 2 with Universal Set of ethical principals”, now that I recall, it should have been Stage 1.

I dont know, if we can justify our answers clearly enough, hopefully we get marks

It was surely a very fair paper, but its just not easy to get all the points you’d want to answer in such a limited time.

& btw “Ask248” – thats a very good start to your article, I know mine wasn’t that good, rushing it all over 🙁 !

Well the question did not specifically ask you to write about stages I doubt you will lose marks regarding the stage , you can check from past paper questions as well stages were mentioned only when they were specifically asked.

what if i focus on benefit of Non Executive Director on section d Q1. I know its ask for independent chairman, but did i manage some mark there? hmm

Its just a whole different level of paper, isn’t it ?

I mean if u compare with the F-level papers, they’re a 90% knowledge based and here in P-levels its just 10% probably, rest is all scenario..

I can’t even remember If I used any of the mnemonics,

CLARISSA, OAP SPASM, AIRDRIFT, PINKLAVR, SPPR, SNCCCPI, and so many more,

I might have used a few for NED’s roles in challenging the Board of Directors, but just a few.. lets hope our answers were good enough !!

But I definitely could have done a much better paper, just didn’t go as well as expected after practicing those mocks and past papers.. 🙁 & the sad part it was an easy paper, it wasn’t hard….. 🙁

It’s called a discussion, people can choose to come on here in their own free will. Since we have all done the exam, what we say here has no impact on exam performance and if anything its a good chance to information share when people’s ideas are relatively fresh in the mind.

Also in P1 as I have been told by my lecturer, there are many acceptable answers to scenarios that will get credit and may not be mentioned here or in the official answer solution.

@annie174 said:
what’s the point discussing what you wrote on the paper. This will have an impact on people who didn’t do well. Rule 1, never ever discuss after exams.

If there wasn’t a point, we wouldn’t have seen this forum on Opentuition in the first place 😛