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P4 exam approach advice

Forums › Ask ACCA Tutor Forums › Ask the Tutor ACCA AFM Exams › P4 exam approach advice

  • This topic has 3 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 9 years ago by John Moffat.
Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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    Posts
  • December 6, 2015 at 6:15 pm #288279
    monzun78
    Member
    • Topics: 1
    • Replies: 2
    • ☆

    Hi John,

    first of all I want to thank you for publishing the Q1 past exam revisions. There are of tremendous help. This is going to be my third attempt for P4 and also I do understand the logic and requirements my brain tends to get stuck 🙂 under time pressure during exam. What do you recommend is the preferable approach tackling P4 exam. A) do not panic 🙂 and slow done, uff, try to write and structure it neatly and rather miss on the remaining bits B) try to answer each question but at the expense of neat and tidy answer. I do get your point to go and try every section of each question but it seems a challenge for me from time management point of view and I tend to forget the relevant details when I go back and forth between the questions. I got only P4 and P5 left but I struggle with those two extremely, seems one of the reasons I keep failing is my scrappy working, maybe handwriting, maybe English as I am obviously not a native speaker and it gets funny under time pressure :). However If I try to eliminate it I lose on time. And the last question 🙂 Would you think tackling first the section B question would be a good strategy?

    apologies for a long message, enjoy your Sunday and thanks a million!
    Peter

    December 7, 2015 at 7:19 am #288358
    John Moffat
    Keymaster
    • Topics: 57
    • Replies: 54659
    • ☆☆☆☆☆

    I personally would start with question 1, but different people prefer different.

    The most important things of all is to allocate your time. Apparently many people only attempt question 1 and spend all three hours on it. They are certain to fail, because it is impossible to get full marks on it however long you spend!!

    The main thing is to keep remembering that you aim is to get at least 50% on each questions. Write what you know but as soon as things start taking too long, then move on.
    With regard to keeping things neat – the main thing is that (for the calculations) it should be clear to the marker what you are trying to do. That’s all the matters – if he can see what you are trying to do then you will get most of the marks.

    Don’t write too much for the written parts. I appreciate it is harder when English is not your first language, but they don’t worry about grammar and spelling – all that matters is that they can get the point that you are trying to make.

    It might take longer to be neat, but it is better to have done less but got the marks, then do have done more but not got the marks because the market could not understand what you are doing 🙂

    December 7, 2015 at 12:08 pm #288454
    monzun78
    Member
    • Topics: 1
    • Replies: 2
    • ☆

    appreciated and thanks a lot again for those video Q1 revisions

    December 7, 2015 at 12:42 pm #288472
    John Moffat
    Keymaster
    • Topics: 57
    • Replies: 54659
    • ☆☆☆☆☆

    You are very welcome 🙂

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