*** P5 December 2011 Exam was: Post your comments and vote in Instant Poll ***

Message to ACCA : If you are short of money due to economic slump then let us know and we double or triple the exam fee. But stop this monopoly, hiring an examiner someone like Alex Watt won’t help you.

This examiner is SICK; he does not comprehend that he is setting paper for students not for CEO/ CFO of a PLC. We are students, some of us are on junior and some on senior accounting role and we hardly or don’t experience something that was given in exam or the way paper P5 set. So, If we don’t have exposure then it is utterly difficult for us to judge and answer the question that based on real scenarios with the help of our knowledge/theory etc.

Q1 is completely stupid, it doesn’t make sense at all; you chosen a small part of syllabus and set 35 numbers questions just to show the world that “look I am the real ALIEN, come and catch me, I will ensure to bring down the passing rate of P5”

Truly speaking, I took tuition and revision from LSBF (David Law – excellent teacher for P5) then finished full BPP revision book (approx 85 questions), then 3 mock papers, watched interactive 3 times and I was pretty much confident for today’s sitting, but when I saw Q1 I was f***ing pissed off with Alex Watt. SICK Bas,,,,d. I was only able to answer between 5 to 10 Marks, rest of the paper Q2, Q3 and Q4 not bad. But Q1 is very crucial to pass this exam and if I score only 5 marks in Q1 then clearly I attempted only 70% paper. I doubted that I will pass.

F***ing examiner came from different planet and don’t know how human lives in planet earth. The P5 talks about controllability and look what you doing; you need to apply some knowledge on yourself – Ugly MF.

Previous examiner Shane was quite reasonable.

I felt like crying after this paper..i studied really really really hard…started studying early, 2 weeks off work..At first I thought it was really easy and did question 2, 5 and 3…and still had an hour for quest 1..did the part A..Got to part B and I did some calculations..cancelled it..did another one, cancelled it…then did more calculations which did not even make sense to me…so I probably lost 19 marks…I pray I pass…but only God can do it…

In all honesty I did not know what was being asked in quest 1 b…This ACCA is making me feel like a loser!

What a terrible, terrible exam paper. If this is the standard now required to pass ACCA then its time for me to quit and find a new job. Despite so much study and revision, nothing prepared me for Question 1. I don;t know if I am really stupid but I read the question through 3 times – and it was a long question – trying to make sense of it. I tried calculations but I made the variable cost more than the maximum purhcase price of $70,000 per APV so there was not even any +ve contribution towards the huge fixed costs! So how could they even make any decision to build 500 750 or even 1000 APVs? Maybe I was missing something. And the issue about steel costs. Well they signed a contract to buy all the steel that they would need at a fixed cost which would avoid market fluctuations so where was the risk associated with buying steel (unless open market price falls below their contract fixed price).

And Q2 nearly all on the performance pyramid whatever that is! I read about it briefly in the study text but my revision kit did not have any questions on PP so it was a subject that I did not revise. What utter, utter hell of a paper.

If future ACCA exam papers are like this, it will damage the ACCA’s credibility in the long term. If papers are seen as being this difficult they will lose potential new members. They need to have high standards but not to this ridiculous level.

12 out of 14 papers passed but now seriously contemplating quitting ACCA after this one.

With P5 being my final paper I felt confident this morning having attended a taught and revision course, learnt the course notes and having attempted the majority of the questions from BPP’s practice and revision kit.

I know the examiner has indicated his intention for P5 to be more discursive and less numerical based but today’s exam seemed very different to the vast majority of the previous exam questions, particularly Q1 part (b) worth almost a fifth of the total mark allocation.

I feel a bit better having read the comments on here but i was hoping for a comfortable 2 month wait having put so much effort in, just hope i’ve done enough to achieve 50!

Good luck to everyone else who sat today’s paper.

We should ask the examiner to print THE BEST SCORE paper that a REAL student has made! I want to see hoe “excellence” look like! I also want to know who managed to do that and WHY this paper has pass rates below the others!

The subjects were all in the syllabus, I admit. But to WRITE about them in full sentences in the time allocated is IMPOSSIBLE. SO WHAT IS THE POINT?
Why I am studying like a moron, jeopardizing my career as a result of non-passing the exam, my life, etc? For a STUPID examiner to feel comfortable and to say ” we had a well balanced diet?!?” He can take his diet and… do stuff with it!!
This is STEALING: Stealing my life, my hours, my money.

I will drop this ACCA, exam if I have just one left.. today’s p5, if I don’t pass.

i was hoping for more calculations, had EVA, RI and ROI down to a T.

as for Q1 b), most on here have said this was the nightmare, i felt quite the opposite. this could be my saving grace if i scraped 25 from Q1.

my method was to work out selling price (fixed on all three types) at 19% mark up on variable costs. this would then give you contribution.

then there was the 7.5m grant from the government, which i used to reduce the fixed costs for each design, immediately i could calculate break even point on each design.

then added the contribution multiplied by each quantity ordered to (FC less grant) to give me an absolute ‘profit’ from each outcome.

with this you can calculate maximin, maximax, in both cases design 1 as VC were fixed.

finally i applied probability to my ‘profit’ numbers to work out EV of each design, this suggested design 2, from 1, and finally 3.

I recommended Maximin as the most acceptable as Mackerel seemed to be risk averse (they fixed price of steel in question) meaning my suggested design was type 1.

drifted through the rest of the paper with theory dump and a bit of KPI/CSF/Visions blag in Q2. hopefully 25 in Q1 and 8/9 from each of the others, but could/should have been so much better.

Dear all

I read all the comments above and agree with you.

Do you know Alex Watt?

From the strategy point of view, we need to analysis the background of Alex Watt.

From the internet research, Alex Watt studied physics at Endingburgh for nearly ten years and trained to a accountant.

Alex watt is abnormal person and he is a strange person.

He just want to make us ugly.

I totally agree that Q1 is ugly and unfair. There are over 20 marks about risk and uncertanty. Is it fair? it is only small area of the whole p5 sylabus!!

Q1 is really unpleasant and nasty, messy.

Very odd, the rest of the paper is stupid and easy and meaningless!

@kano said:
my method was to work out selling price (fixed on all three types) at 19% mark up on variable costs. this would then give you contribution.

then there was the 7.5m grant from the government, which i used to reduce the fixed costs for each design, immediately i could calculate break even point on each design.

then added the contribution multiplied by each quantity ordered to (FC less grant) to give me an absolute ‘profit’ from each outcome.

When I threw down my scraps of numbers, I did exactly the same thing, but ran out of time before I did the last big bit, so it sounds like I may have picked up a few marks for that(even just 5, I would be happy with). Yay, feeling a little better now, that someone else took the direction I took.

hello frndz…
Any 1 can tell me about Q1 part a…??
What do we have to analyse? Means which type of risks.???
Risks about type1,2,3 report.?? Or about general matters like government related issues, prices, demand..?? Please rply….

On Q1, did we havd to calculate Breakeven points of each project??? I can’t remember, please help.

Also, can someone from Admin give us the correct solution, please? I can’t sleep at night due to this exam!!

I feel a bit happier now to see I am not the only one who thought the paper was horrible.
I was sure EVA would come up even for a few marks as Mr Examiner seemed to be particularly fond of it and of course there were 2 articles published in the last few months on it but not even a 4 mark part of a question (unless I really missed something)!!
If only I knew on Wednesday what I know now I would have spent the day doing risk and uncertainty instead of EVA!!
Q1 really threw me and I think if I had of left it until last I might have had a better chance of passing. But under pressure in the exam I just kept reading it and trying to make sense of it. I threw down some waffle about ev, maximax etc and spent way to long on it!! Hopefully will get some marks for effort at least!!
Ah well onto P2 study now hopefully can scrape a 50 in that!!! I feel like I will never be finished with these last two exams!!

@leighstallard said:
I don’t remember a requirement for breakeven point. But then, I don’t remember a capped price of 70,000 per unit either.

I don’t think the answers will be available for some time dude, ACCA don’t release the question paper straight away.

The cap of 70,000$ was there, forr sure. I did not use it, however, as it was stated that price is calculated on full cost * 19%. Damn…

Regarding the ACCA solutions, usually there are on the site before releasing the results..

Well, yesterday’s setting was my fourth attempt, wait guys dont judge me and say this guy is stupid , because i am not . actually i cleared 13 papers in 4 settings so i guess i m smarter than Mr. Alex watt, anyways , i studies like a sicko i solved the KAPLAN 64 questions and 5 questions of the pilot paper three times , plus all the kaplan questions suggested for the exam setting for June and December, i studies three separate study notes offered by London business school and opentuition itself and solved their questions as well finally i lost around 3000 USD to attend this exam including my forgone salary + exam fees + fees for special center ( being the only person in my country who attended the exam). having said that , this is how i feel about yesterday’s exam:

Q1: question from Hell, i mean 19 marks for one part , hello examiner where do you come from, what are you , and on what on uncertainy and risk analysis . actually we have to analyze the risk of having a crazy examiner in a reputable professional body like ACCA. and i was really not only uncertain but sure that the examiner knows nothing about P5. i well get 0 out of 19 marks at this part and maybe 5 marks on the other 2 parts being hopefully 5/35.

Q2: Performance Pyramid, i was sure that this question will pop up, not because i am smart because after 4 attempts i became an expert in this paper , maybe someday they will hire me a marker.. it was a nice question however it was lengthy one. i may get 21/25.

Q4: part a) was about the information this was good, part b was about management style, performance style and rewards, this was ok as well but the requirements were unclear hope to get 13 out of 20.

Q5: was ok as well but the scenario was rubbish and did not make sense to me, qulaity costs, Kaizen and JIT. i may get 14 out of 20 . totally as per my calculations i may get around 53 but you know what my only concern is whether the markers of the exam come from the same planet from which Mr. examiner comes from then we may get like 40 or 25 in this exam let us see, best of luck to every body.