SBL*** P3 December 2013 Exam was.. Post your comments ***

I think the only models that were actually applicable in this exams had been specifically given, SUITABILITY, FEASIBILITY AND ACCEPTABILITY. Then 4 of the 6 I's, Poter's diamond and any simple one you could add. I gave all the question good attempts with the exception of q2 where I really struggled. Though I treated the time series analysis in the pilot paper but the combination with linear regression threw me off balance. When I noticed it was going to waste my time, I quickly went on to do q4 and then came back to attempt q2 again. I then went to do the b part dealing just with budgeting, if you are lucky enough to pay attention to the b part, it had no connection what so ever with a part and one could score about 5- 6 marks in part b alone. I tried some calculations with a scanty explanation in part a and I hope to get at least 3 out of the 15 mark, that could make the difference that I need. My first time of feeling so horrible after an exam. I only hope I score above 50. Good luck to you all.

@smile2000, I really do hope and pray you score 45 out of 50 in q1 and pass overall after having spared whole 25 marks. I wish I have your type of confidence.

I tried to write as fast as I could, but I had only one hour left when I finish question 1!! Then I started to panic! I used about over 35 mins or so to finish question 3, I had only about 20 mins left when I started question 4 which suppose to be my favorite question! I pretty much left the last 10 marks blank! :( I actually budgeted my time for each section of my question wrote down the start time and the estimating finish time. However it is so difficult to execute the actual plan. I just hope I have done enough in question 1 to give me a pass! Good luck to those have more papers to sit!

Fair paper. Exactly as you said Q1 a : Advantages and Disadvantages of internal Growth, acquisition, strategic alliance no need for a model Q1 b: introduction SAF & conclusion Q1 c: Porter's diamond (missed 1 heading called it Rivalry instead of Infrastructure) spent 2 hours on question 1 Q3 : this question was a gift but did not have enough time so used bullet points, no use of any model Q4: 4I's and then effect of internet/media implementation on Subscribers, advertisers and financial viability again not enough time so used bullet point style with some full sentence. Hope I wrote enough to score 50

Hi Everyone I also thought the exam was ok just a little time pressured and I had managed to forget my calculator and only just found out when i went to sit at my desk so it threw me off worrying how many points I would lose out on. Needless to say the numbers in q2 freaked me out because of my lack of calculator so I didnt even really read the requirements here. I managed to complete the whole paper but wasted time on q1 by answering some of part b in the part a section so I am not sure if I will lose marks for repeating myself. The financial acceptability of the acquisition was rushed with very few calculations, I think I managed a rough GP and NP margin as well as ROCE, gearing and interest cover but I literally calculated roughly in my head and hoped for the best. I meant to scribble a note on the paper that I had no calculator incase I got them wrong and to maybe get a pity point or two . I ran out of time a the end to write it though so missed out there. I dont even remember what I wrote but I know q1 was all jumbled because I was stressed about the calculator. The first 20 mins I could barely write because my hand was shaking so much! Gutted because I think without that I would have done ok with the questions. I was confident on methods and direction of growth (used rough generic strategy cost leadership and forward integration of the value chain through the acquisition of Logistics company). Mentioned a lot about the importance of cultural fit for acquisitions and even a little on Ashridge portfolio (possible heartland business due to high feel and benefit) for the new proposed acquisition. I also saw enough in the question to relate Diamond Model in part c. I definitely waffled too much thought trying to make up for the marks i lost by not being able to do much financial analysis. Does anyone know roughly how many points financial ratios would have got? I think I did ok on question 4 and question 3 was a little rushed because I left this until the end and there was a lot of scenario to get through. I didnt apply any models really but used the problem areas as headings and made common sense recommendations relating to each. I cant really remember what I wrote but I think it was all taken straight from the scenario with not much theory in terms of models at all. I used an extra answer booklet but was shaking a little at the end and didnt attach it to my original, will they do that for me? I did write my name, student number and desk number on the additional booklet and the invigilator assured me that they would link it up for me but somehow I am unsure. The way they collect the papers is so unorganised, if it gets lost I will definitely have failed. I am trying to push it out of my mind until results are due but its so annoying that silly little mistakes not even to do with my exam technique or knowledge will be the reason I fail. Good luck everyone...enjoy the couple of months reprieve til it starts over again! JB

correctly predicted marketing question (both part a and b ) and porter's diamond(=35 marks!). i had strong feeling these two are coming up this time. i shared this with few other people before exam at exam center and they were thanking me after exam. qn 3, time series is in pilot paper but because of time pressure cud not finish well. 75 marks have been well attempted but hoping to pass.in qn 1 i went against acqn using johnson and scholes sfa test.

Same, I thought this was the most time pressured exam I have ever sat and I only have one of the options left to take. All those models learn for nothing, the whole thing just seemed to be basic common sense- I wonder if I would have just written the same as I did if I had not studied the textbooks at all and come into it 'blind' lol Let's see if I got a pass, I really have no idea at all when usually I have a fair idea. I didn't even have enough time to see how many points I had written for each section I just kept going to finish the paper on time!

Lol yeah it did look horrific, I knew it would prob come out as well but I just totally wanted to avoid! Congrats on baby, I was pregnant when did F7 and have had to do all the ones after with baby/toddler- not ideal. Good that you nearly finished ACCA :D

Sounds like you did really well, I'm kicking myself now as I was rushing so much I didn't use any of those models.

Q3- did anyone do calculation on profitability before and after suggested change in Park - advertising cost, fixed cost and caffe shop revenue?

i think question 2 was a gift from examiner just to use basic F5 knowledge to interpret and make some sensible comments...... and this question is also expected as in last sitting there is not much form financial analysis overall paper was ok

I have used marketing mix

I thought it was a fair paper. I nearly got carried away on Q1 when I realised I had spent 45 mins on part a and had still not finished, so I forced myself to wrap that up and got pretty much back on track (think I overran by about 5 mins on q1 overall). Had to thank opentuition as I had just watched the lectures on growth this morning! I'm not sure how well I answered Q3. Put lot's of suggestions down and done some calculations (showing the loss the advertising made and how much you would make by bringing in season tickets for example) but there appeared to be a lot of figures missing and so a lot of my suggestions could not be confirmed with financial figures - hope I still get marks for those. Q4 seemed reasonable enough. Though I think I may have repeated some points in both a+b.

wow.talk about time pressure. I also found it hard to apply models Q1..explained what is meant by each of the terms then concentrated on developments in the past, why they worked or did not used some industry cycle, integrating the value chain although I got the logistics wrong as a downstream. In future used some PESTEL, management style etc b..Report with Intro, SAF and Conc. for S..I mentioned cultural mix, industry and competition..A---stakeholders in both comp, exit cost, redundancies,etc..F - financial analysis more or less...no real model C - I could not link factor conditions to Machine shop..:( and forgot the name of firm structure......n rivalry did Q4..real nice question but rushed it a bit after spending 2 hrs on Q1, 4Ps given and part b ..analysis under the 3 headings they gave For sme reason i felt Q3 would be too much to read and interpret in 20 mins so looked at Q2 and saw budgeting and a light bulb came on...my only issue was trying to tie it back to question sufficiently. Then i gave up

Thought that Q1 was a bit cheeky - not enough info to really get your teeth into any particular model; bits and pieces of PEST, SFA, PND, culture, P5F - How can we apply PND to Arboria when there's about 3 lines on it which only tell us that the customers are assertive? Others were ok, but again no real models, just ideas and common sense. Time was an issue.

Always the way - every tuition provider does revision and examples of standard, gimme questions with P5F or Pestel written all over them, and obvious reasons for unacceptability. Never comes up in the exam you sit though! Same goes for all the ACCA exams!

For part a it was mere explain nation and evaluating the growth options

For Q1a) i didn't use any model, just explain what each methods were and applied it to the case study b) Done in a report format ans included some financial analysis but not sure if it was relevant enought c) Tried to apply it to to the case study also attempted Q3 - Q4 but ran out of time

Hello all, I struggled a lot with time as well. Q3 was alright, I thought. Just worried I didn't have enough points.The whole exam was ok, however like what some of you said, I could have worked much faster if information was given in the case, rather than generating from your own. Thinking takes time... Got carried away answering Q.1 as well. Only had 10 minutes left to do part c... I can't seem to find something to write for supporting and related industry, so I just started saying how Machine shop is from a prosperous industrial country, the gov must've contributed to make this happen... Someone asked about factor condition, you can actually write how the industrial country has experienced workforce. I was especially lost on Q4.b.), write a short report to address specific concerns that victor has over the impacts technological/media change has on subscribers, on advertisers and on the financial viability if BA Times. How do you address his concerns? He's the one who assumes people don't have internet access and that he assumes there are people like himself who wish to remain reading from printed magazines. I'm very worried that I didn't write enough to pass the exam. I did ok in Q1 and 3 but struggle with Q4 b.) which still worthed 10 marks. Really don't want to resit P3. Hope for a PASS!

I am laughed during exam while answering Question 3, I said the best for the GHT is to open a branch of Mcdonalds and KFC this will help them with short term financing and long term financing. bad time management. May ALLAH pass us all Ameen.

one needed to use the SFA by johnson and scholes to evaluate the 3 options i guess

OVAISLAKE good one really liked your comments for me this was no different paper than the previous papers i sat its my 7th ettempt hope to pass this time Inshallah

u are very similar to my case... I think this time very hard to pass.. not to dissapoint u... this is because the paper is relatively easy. Marker will be very strict. sry to be very pessimistic:(

yes, but never know, best of luck to all of us, i have a similar past patern for P1 as well Let see tomorrow on P1 also, what happens

I began with question 1 which took be 10 minutes over my schedule one hour and a half, consequently I was behind for the rest of the examination A. Three method of growth and how it can assist in the development (i) Organic (ii) Acquisition (iii) Strategic Alliance I didn't mention any generic advantage and disadvantage, just the fact that they have resource and competence with i and ii, iii was no-no as they do not have the know-how, experience or the resource to take this on B. Is all about using S A F to determine a potential acquisition of a company in Ceeland using a report format C. Porters Diamond was applicable in this area to determine the industry in Ceeland and in Machine Shop's country Q#4 A. Four of the six "I" was applicable stating the definition and using them for the improvement of the problems B. Don't remember much about this part , but I think i answered it, Oh I think is was to write another report Q#3. A. Only answer about why the park was loosing money and then use turnaround strategy for the recommendations as the place was in a crisis. B. Did not have time to do Did 90% of the paper hope I did enough and the right things to pass the paper this time around Still praying and hoping

Have to agree with a number of comments. I saw regression etc so didn t even reading. Would have liked to see more variety in the paper - this one seemed heavily orientated around marketing. Thought q3 was rubbish - effectively picking at the same knowledge twice. I cocked that up. Q1 was pretty good question and q4 was heavily tipped so no surprises there.

Some people can be very optimistic. How can you expect to pass after attempting only 75% of the paper? I attempted about 92% of the paper and I'm still very very very worried.

q1 was not that but there was no as such model to be applied. q2 was surprise and i dont understand why such a question is given to explain when its already been examined in F5. exam was time pressured and i think everyone else felt the same way.

it was the worst day of my life i had a car accident on my way to the exams , i was in shock , i was having back pain from the crush but finally i got to the exam center with 1 hour delay thus i only manage to do Q1 and Q3 part a and some bullet point from q4 overall i attempted 70% i do not hope for anything!!!!

I couldn' t find any much models on that , simply porter diamond , 6 'I , I find the exam a bit more of common sense that theory , finger cross in february