*** P5 December 2014 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

Completely agree miqtis!!!

I too thought the question on Corporate failure was missing some info but then had to do with what was available. Z scores and Q scores are both quantitative models and since the scores calculated were both above the threshold for companies doing fine 3.5 n 3.1 I thought the best analysis would be to include a qualitative analysis model as well like Agenti’s A score which talks about defects like having an autocratic CEO, an unbalanced board, a weak Finance Director, CEO and Chairman being one person etc……..these defects will lead to mistakes like high gearing, overtrading failure of big projects etc and then symptoms of failure will be things like deteriorating financial indicators, creative accounting etc……..straight from the book is the way I tackled it since there was not enough info. could be wrong but better than not writing anything.

Tough paper, primarily due to the usual time pressure. Q1 was fair but forgot to add the two additional P.I.s that were requested.

Q2 was also fair, unusually “real world” type question which I think allows an examiner to judge if a student is capable.

Then you look at the clock and realise that this is P5. The examiner is not a real world kinda guy and gives you question 3 and 4 to send you packing for Christmas in a really bad mood. Could not understand how one could justifiably contrast one “highly dubious” corporate failure model (Z Score)with one that has been made up for the exam (Q model)!!! The more I think of it the more I’m expecting the examiner to publish a solution that illustrates the examples with fictitious numbers that “good students should have come up with” to put a bit of context on the question. Scrambled for a few marks on part c to avoid corporate failure but nothing substantial. I pray that I got most, if not all of the heavy lifting in 1 and 2 otherwise it’s back to books!!! #newexaminerpls

What did you guys get for 2 additional performance measures in q1?
There was an info on number of potential customers, I realized it is of significance, however wasn’t sure how to incorporate it into a sensible measure and just mentioned that company needs to monitor closely the number of potential customers and conversion rate on sales contracts.
Development costs also seemed significant to me as company strives for high quality and innovation, but again, didn’t know how to incorporate it into a sensible measure, just calculated dev. Costs to sales ratio, suggesting that Boltzman spends more on innovation and therefore future success. ??

if the pass rates continue to be dismal then ACCA should surely evaluate this examiner…. in fact if you ask me they should have done it last sitting when 71% of students failed….

Anyways all the best to you all

@ipatel
IT was quantitative

This time it is fair from Alex. But the whole problem was time. P5 is such a paper where students need to think and organize their understandings as there is no unique answer. 15 minute reading time mainly used in memorizing different materials to be attempted but at the time of dealing with a particular question this is not easy to put all the things in a organized way. Time is very crucial and I guess everybody feel in the same way. Anyway hope for a sympathetic consideration from Alex’s team for everyone who are suffering with this paper.

P5 is harder than other papers. We know that from looking at the pass rate. P5 had 29% pass rate, so 71% are going to fail.

In the question about Z score there was no additional information. There was no need to calculate anything, because, as I understand, the question aske us to suggest what will make a difference in those figures.

I don’t understand why most of ppl thinks the paper is not tough and yet the pass rate is always low, I bet this round the pass rate will still be around 29-31.

Hi guys, I wish we all pass but somehow I dont think I made it this time due to my poor time management. I was so happy to see Q1 but then I started panicking what to write and lost the track. 12pm and I was still working on Q1 🙂 I then moved to Q2 and Q4 and did not know where to start. I dont think it was that that bad as what I heard that P4 was this sitting but absolutely no time to think, I felt like a machine to write something done in order to get some marks but I know it will not help me in P5….Feel disappointed by myself, I was not probably ready enough for such a demanding exam but I am not sure how to improve the technique to write 5 hours in 3 hours….. 🙂 Well, I am still going over my answers if I can get 50 marks but I dont think so, I think they will find my answers confusing without structure. Why did I got there with the determination to stay calm, give them the headings, plan my answers and why I did not do anything!!!!! Merry Xmas, enjoy your festive time….We will get there…. 🙂 🙂

The evaluation was done using the basis of the calculations, and the impact on the result when there are changes in the variables. For eg. what’s the impact on the score when assets lose value. Thats what I think.

Same so frustrated

@syed..i like your sense of humour!!..For the first time after my exams i actually laughed when i read your comment!