APM*** P5 June 2014 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

I did that payoff table for 3a not 3b and I. I mixed up the maximin, and wrote minmaxi.... I feel like crying

Was q1 i doesnt ask you to focus on cost measure and report on that instead of commenting about the report struction coz in the middle of scanerio it was written ceo want that board didnt want financial as pect but more on cost structure and also the objective of the company was cost leader ship... May be am completely wrong feeling disgusted right now

I wish and pray I pass o.

Ive never sat any ACCA paper where i was happy with my performance, This was not particularly difficult but the wording of the questions made ne panic at first as i did not want to answer the wrong question. Its not like we Are sitting a shakespearan question. I have a Good command and mastery of the English language but still struggled with interpretation of requirements.

Brilliant student You need not beat yourself for not completing the payoff calculation. Neither did I and only a computer would complete all within the short time except you want to sacrifice other questions. I did something by telling the exerminer of what choice of return for both the risk seeker and the risk averse decision makers even though I didn't put the figures there. I simply said in my answers that if I had more time I would have completed the table but I have given him his answer even without completing the calculations.

What the hell was that paper! .. The examiner should be sacked! Very badly written, requirements were absolutely not clear at all. Too much stress, trying to learn models when nothing really came up! ... I did not know what to write on VBM - I used Fitzergerald and Moon! have no idea why building blocks came to mind! The first question asked about the fixed and variable, consideration for appendix 1 and then it asks for it again in the second question on staff (Direct and Indirect) and Fixed Variable. How many things can I write on fixed and variable. Staff was not clearly defined whether they were Direct or Indirect etc. EVA - There were some technical bits, had to be worked out! I messed up putting depreciation in Capital swell. I also have no idea what the 2 levels of tax were.. at least the examiner could have said something on tax! Suggest a way of performance, I used flaming performance prism because mission statement wanted to focus on employee satisfaction (stakeholders). At that point my hands where already numb and it was noon!! I swift along question 3 - It asked about minimin, maximin and minimax. Again bad written requirements, but managed to put calculations. i don't understand the second company. I thought the first one was a risk seeker and the second one was risk adverse, so first one used MV8 or whatever it is and second one used MV 3. Question 3 asked about joint venture and challenges of performance management. In my book, joint venture only has half a page!.. Again, I was just throwing what come out of my mind... Culture differences, Different systems, Different Reporting Standards etc. Then I started writing question 4 and thought, hell no chance. So I went to question 2 and talked loads of poo. It was about Business process engineering. I really have no idea what I've put on this. I just multiplied the salary by 10 staff and halved it. So it was £25,000 x 10 staff. Half of them where wasting time. So halved it £125,000 is cost that can be saved and replaced by purchasing department with a salary of £35,000 (Again, did not say how many people worked in purchasing department). So I deducted £125k less £35k and said here is the saving. Also mentioned that paper will be saved... Last question was about appraisal, and just talked about linkage with company objectives and opportunity for staff to say what went bad, how to improve and set objectives. Mind I remember all the above because i had 5 ginseng, 2 guaranas and 7 cups of coffee this morning so I am still very hyper... yet couldn't understand what the examiner was on about!! ..

Why cant the examiner test on some passable topics.

Another £100 for ACCA.

I just hope the markers will be more lenient as i'm expecting a significant difference in the answer scheme and majority of our answers. If you get an inexperience marker that just look at the answer scheme and mark point for point, i think chances of passing will be low. For now, lets jsut pray for good luck.

And the fee keeps adding £2 every exam

I thought the requirements were fair. My only small complaint was that there was too much info to read in the time given. It seemed very much like the examiner was trying to make it impossible for students just repeat information learnt off by heart as all the questions were very scenario based. Bit worried that I didn't fill out which questions I did on the front of the exam booklet. Praying for a pass. Good luck everyone :)

I just checked my study text and realised i answered a question incorrectly..i feel sick:.

In part A, I wrote a bunch of crap about ABM instead of VBM, whats on earth the differences between them? I think both encourage valued-added behavior/activities and try to emliminate non-value added. Can anyone rememer the requirements of Question 3, does it ask risk aptitude of T and R or only risk aptitude of VC?

The requirements were so confusing .he asked for something critically assess the financial perf in the questions section and the ceo wants something else Which is which. He is doing all to make us fail. An exam should be fair. I think he needs to write a textbook and exams kit so that we can get used with his style. The worst paper in acca. Acca should review that and must take into account our opinions. U are supplier and we are clients.

Mountain.ABM is activity based management based on activity based costing. Instead of writing about VBA, I gave a useless answer on How EVa creates value and its advantages over traditional ratios

Hi guys, Did anyone sit the exam in Watford? They had some sort of dance class above the exam room which had loud music that went on for a lot of the 15 mins reading time. Was so distracting. I am going to complain to the ACCA about this and if anyone else was there as well support me on this please. The invigilators were not proactive enough in anticipating there would be a dance class above which was not considerate. A student should not have to point out the obvious in such a situation. Cheers, Adam

As for the exam the questions were okay but the topics were very obscure and not been examined that much before. What did people put for the rent/staff costs bit in question 1 and the JV part for question 3?

Adam complain away. I know far weaker reasons for which people have been given dispensation for 'noise'. Did you or anyone else mention to the invigilator.if so refer to this in your communication to acca.

Q3 (a i did a mistake i show the calculation of payoff table and in part b i only discuss thoery now i dont know whther i get the marks or not?

I know, I didnt actually mention ABM in my answer. I just wrote something about value-added and non value-added, which were basically the same as ABM. VBM should be something about company's value which is calculated using discounted cash flow....so I think I completely messed up...

Mountain..we are in the Same host..it was worth 10 marks too.

was my 3rd attempt...... 1st attempt was difficult and scored 44, my 2nd looked simple and was sure to pass but scored 32.... My God assist me becoz its the only paper left. I pray that you all pass too...

Was question 3 on Minimax, Maximax and regret table?

@mountain123 EVA is a VBM technique. We were suppose to explain EVA in that part plus the benefits of EVA

Hey regprentice, Thanks, I am hoping dispensation should be taken into account. I mentioned it to the invigilator during the reading time and the noise did stop after a little while. But there should not be a need to do that. You can not prepare for such eventualities in when you are preparing hard for the exam. You would have thought that co-ordination of what time dance classes should take place could be fit around ACCA exams. They had so much time to plan these things and I was very disappointed the invigilators were not proactive enough in making the environment the best available for students - "near silence". I have just written an e-mail to ACCA to complain. I find it embarrassing that such a lack of duty of care was exercised today.

Alizafar thats what i thought as EVA Is the sole measure for VBM so i implied that the question wanted us to highlight the benefits of using EVA over profit based measures

Can anyone remember the exact wording of the question for 1a? Was it comment on appendix 1

Tricky paper!!!!:(

I think it was 'evaluate'.

This paper was way tooo difficult...soo disappointed...felt like it was a waste of time studying all those models...and if the examiner is reading this I hope acca takes into consideration how many ppl thought it was not a good paper...it's soo hard sometimes to study hard and get a paper like this....very disappointed