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

Q1b) fixed v variable had me stumped in the exam!

@ ashabiggs06…I do not fink june 2012 question is a reflection of question 1. june asked to critically assess, but this question as for evaluation of performance report and specifically mentioned appendix one…I fink the examiner expects general opinion abt the financial statements….on d fixed and variable…all I said was that the coy should adopt the ABC approach as against the current absorption line on labour. and cost should be apportioned to individual sub. it will be out of place to charge overhead of cafe to juicy. also for the variable element, costing should be allocated according to line of service.

Hi Guys – could anyone email me Kaplan P2 mock questions and answers for June 2014 please?

swaggarv@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks

Dear Sir
Is there any hope of lenient checking this time as pass rate for P5 has been noticeably low and paper this time was difficult one
Deep

The more I read some of the comments the more I realise how incomplete my answers were and how much of the information I missed or misread.
I didn’t write a lot for any question and was able to complete the paper this time. If it were 15 marks I made about 8 points and if it were 8 then about 5 points. Tried to explain the point and apply it to scenario. Thus it was, for me just enough time to complete the paper the way I completed it. Hope that attempting all the questions payback well. Last time I was able to complete about 80% of the paper and got 44. Previous time about 75% of the paper and 41. Will see what happens this time.

Hey Rushan
you did well by comparing the VC WITH THE FC.
But i actually did the same thing but i did 1 assumption by ignoring the depreciation..

correct but depends on the evaluation/comments attached to each point in scenario context

Anyone know about how much the syllabus will change for December if we have to resit. Will we need new study materials?

hi,
i read nearly all the commments above, and these remind my situation about 2 years ago.

I passed this horriable P5 APM paper in 2012 after two attempts and eventually i passed it. I have got the exactly the same feeling. When the exam result is announced I cried. This is my last paper of our magic ACCA exams, so most of us, including me, wish to pass it as quickly as possible, however, P5 is a very terrible paper among ACCA exams. why? techically difficult? Not good at English language? Slow writting skills in exam? Lacking manangement experiences? Not lovely examier?

I guess you yourself best.

In examination hall there were 2 girls , one on left and one on right and seemed like they both started doing calculations for Q1 (i) and they both moved on to Section B in less than an hour which means they possibly didn’t attempt VBM. Which is a sign of nervousness, not reading scenario thoroughly, poor preparation! I think examiner tries to design the paper to catch this weaknesses rather than just trying to test your knowledge of syllabus. He probably doesn’t even think for a minute what area or model he will test us on, but he probably spend 99.9% time on designing how can he catch / trick those students who didn’t read scenario properly, didn’t balance his studies between numbers, theory and application, don’t have commercial knowledge (its imp to have commercial knowledge such as how management reports looks, how shareholders react, stock markets etc). 40% of this paper was tailored to be for those who work in good organisations with enough knowledge on reports, business change , organisational structure and reward system.

This is what I did for my exam

Qus 1(i) was about evaluating the report and not any calculations. There were many flaws with the report..such as no comparison to previous year , no variance(actual minus budget), information overload, no narratives, 2nd subsidiary numbers were presented to management of first company which is not relavant – again info overload, staff costs were presented before/above operating costs. no detailed comparison on non-qualitative issue, no price or volume variance . However it had good elements to it such as comparison to industry averages. Conclusion should be to revise the standard of report file to accommodate flaws I mentioned and design it to be more relevant to right subsidiary. Also, had to explain some details with elaboration of few examples here and there.

For 1(ii) I discussed the main issue around controllability of staff costs and property costs. ( which is variable and fixed cost). The hint of staff cost and property cost was given in case study on first page. The manager of division (subsidiary) should have had negotiation, controlling and ownership of this 2 costs , or else it would be unfair to allocate costs by head office( parent) to either subsidiary. I concluded with some calculation of linearity of average staff costs calculation against the number of staff per subsidiary from Apendix 3( again in case study CEO asked to use Appendix 3 for this part)

(iii) I did EVA calculation of Parent company and provided a brief 2 paragraph comment .however after exam I was double minded about whether EVA had to be done for both subsidiary as well because 9 marks seemed a lot for such an easy calculation just for parent co.

(iv) Asked about VBM usefulness as a tool and then its impact on implementation to the company. I spoke about VBM which is setting performance management around EVA, Market value analysis and shareholder value analysis. I then spoke about its relevance to this group – its relevant because the group was a listed company and in order to get future funding ( right issue) and investors’ confidence( EPS , PE and share price) its important to align performance management that achieves highest value to shareholders. Therefore performance should revolve mainly around achieving shareholder value to satisfy investors under VBM. I then discussed the impact on business – which is consideration of change on Systems, Costs, Management (targets and reward system) , Strategy alignment.

Q3 – I then completed Q3 – Maximax, Minimax , maximin regret , payoff table, their relevant to each company , the possible risk approaches each partnering company would like to take due to their current internal and external circumstances ( related to info given in case study) as well as the interest of owners( institutional investors vs family owners).
I then evaluated ( +/-) Joint Ventures on more general basis with explanation of each +/- and with some possible examples of company from scenario here and there.

Q4- I then attempted b and c in last 30 minutes , which were pretty straightforward ( as many points were mentioned in scenario). I left out (a) because it was numerical and therefore time consuming!

I think I attempted it fairly well , I completed 90% and I hope to pass. However I did all calculations and payoff table in very beginning of question three and labelled it Workings but also labelled it 3a. Which I think was a mistake but I hope I get some marks for calculations as no one seems to have found it easy, but I found it straightforward.

Very true!

Horrible exam….way too time pressured! Q1 took forever to read and for section B I literally just answered the first two questions I saw as I did not have time to skim through the whole paper (and looking back I would have answered the other question instead)! Way way way too time pressured! Also the topics that came out were weird….however, had I had enough time I feel I may have been able to pass (with a very low mark). Definitely failed this one 🙁