*** P5 June 2015 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

First sitting of P5 and im here wondering if I have done the exam or was it a trick. Its the First I have done an exam and cant figure out what the requirements were. I think its better to set short hard questions. Three pages of information. Darn. I actually got lost in the information. This exam was horrible. It might turn out to be an easy exam but the examiner was doing trial and error with those requirements for question 1. Wish everyone the best despite the odds.

This was my first attempt at p5…My answers were super messy considering the vagueness of questions. Also the scenarios asked for more requirements than the questions themselves..or atleast that’s what I thought…used expected values to calculate the profit…I saw someone mention payoff table..?!?! Q3 was really easy..4 and 1 not do much. My answer to EVA was so text-bookish as I was racing against time..they need to fix the paper pattern man!

I used expected values as well. Since it said decision under risk, not decision under uncertainty. Did not do maximax minimax.

@hannah153 said:
i thought the question asked on expected operating profit..where should we use the maximax minimax? although i am aware he stated there under risk decision making uncertainty

I don’t think we need to use maximax and minimax?! I guess the management is risk neutral

You are absolutely right! You have pointed exactly the core.

this is what i have done in exam.

comments on the actual ratios.

reveune ok
operational profit ok but can be changed to profit margin
roce – to be switched to EVA

I have added 2 ratios for brand awarness and awards plus comments.
Did not succesfully related all with SWOT.
A lot of bla bla ..looking for inspiration from heaven.

b. calculated the loss from v1 which deacreased the profits by 5% overall.
4,2 from 2 mil pieces, 0.5 + 0,8 audit and commercial.
qualitative factors – I do not remember exactly what I was inspired to say at that moment.

c. V2. around 105 K extra to recover the loss.
potential selling capacity – calculate using the probabilities.
If i remember well it was slighlty under 2 mil , 1960 or something.
given that the market is limited to 6, 25 mil I notice that MS must have 30-33% market share to be able to sell all the production in Ceeland. Adapt the ceo dashbord with this.
discuss about the ability to go outside the ceeland borders

i did not recomend v2 because of lack of expertise.

value chain – I wrote that is not appropriate for MS since its CSF is the ability co promote but with proper information can be utilized to assess the third parties (wtf??).

q3. i did it at the end, confused about the ratio to determine on time vs rapid time delivery.
– very condensed on reward system. – to be clear, fair, motivable.

q4. I wrote about EVA, mainly positive.

b)
ROI / RI adjust controlable profit ( PBIT – management fee- R&D)
Ri – instead of using notional cost of capital i have used wacc.

both was positive, like EVA.

management attitude.
for chocolate i said it should have more freedom to act since it has limitative power and has proper knowledge in industry.
same for baby.

a lot of others bla bla comments in the paper.

gl all!

hug hug,i got the same breakeven units as yours.

Hi.

Yes, I found that the exam was set to trip us up and it was not testing our understanding of performance management, but was testing our ability to solve puzzles.

There was simply no time to use SWOT that was already provided. 2 different questions asked how the metrics were affected. I got completely confused.

I managed to calculate the 3 operating profits, but there was no time to show the workings. I got so confused that I calculated the breakeven point but with different figures! The breakeven point was not even mentioned in the question, it was in the scenario.

I found this exam to be disastrous. No wonder the pass rate for P5 is only 29%, the worst of all the subjects.

Regards,
Ashish

Very annoyed! I had to read the question over and over again to try and understand what the examiner was asking for! Is there a procedure to make a formal complaint to ACCA about the paper being unfair and vague?

Thank you Latty. To be honest my first words when I walked out of this exam were “It seems I will never pass P5”! Just like someone has commented on this platform that they were doing a mock every weekend, I did at least 5 mock exams, read all articles concerned with P5, examiner’s comments, quality newspapers, etc.attempted as many questions as I could, re visited the study text, for topics I wasn’t sure of , and, this was on top of the earlier full time lectures, revision, mock exams from preparing for the previous exam which resulted in failure. So I felt I was pretty well equipped for the exam but on the day, I was completely paralysed by my inability to apply all that knowledge to the paper. You can now see why I am seriously contemplating whether or not to give P5 a final trial or go for another option!

By the way I noticed at my exam centre that this time there were fewer people sitting the P5 exam than the previous sitting! They could not all have passed because the pass rate is so low but who knows may be, just may be they have decided that enough is enough with P5 and moved on to something else. What a smart move if this is the case!

Nobody is asking for free marks or easy options, but when one has prepared themselves for the exam, they should not be penalised by the style of the questioning. To get to this level we surely have proved our intellectual capabilities and that we have what it takes to be qualified ACCAs! Why are we really failing to prove this to the P5 Examiner? There is no excuse that the standard of this paper is post graduate level but so are the rest of the other options which some of us have already passed. We cannot be spending the rest of our lives attempting P5!

I am really disappointed and it is pointless for me to wait for the results. Like some commentators on this platform have already said, I too are just giving myself a quick break to recover from the recent exam and start preparing for September. The problem is now I am not sure what I will be preparing for.

90% of the comment are that the paper was very confusing difficult style.but will acca hear uus..wul they take action.or should we kept lamenting

Okay here are the facts:

The lowest pass rates for any ACCA paper since 2011 when Alex Watt took over:

P4 – 1
P5 – 4 + 1 tied bottom
P6 – 0
P7 – 3 + 1 tied bottom

So benchmarking P5 we see it scores top of the league table for difficulty

However lets look at the % difference between P5 and the next paper in each case over those sittings

Dec 2011 – 2%
Jun 2013 – tied bottom, bet lowest paper – 3%
Dec 2013 – 3%
Jun 2014 – 7%
Dec 2014 – 3%

SO I would say apart from Jun 2014 – there is only a 3% variance in being what is deemed the “most difficult” or “unfair” – does the presentation or bases for benchmarking obscure the understanding?

What should Alex Watt do? Does the cost of changing his exam creation technique outweigh the benefit? What impact will this have on the ACCA qualification? What systems will need to be changed and processes with markers?

Should he undertake a BPR initiative or look for linkages across the papers using the value chain?

Does the benchmarking take into account demographic factors? Should the exam be benchmarked internally or externally with CIMA? Should Alex Watt be benchmarked on controllable factors – he has to award 4 professional marks – are these marks controllable?

More of these exciting insights to follow after my September re-sit….

@nav1980 LOL brilliant real-life application there! Which other optional did ou attempt?