*** P7 December 2013 Exam was.. Post your comments ***

Hello All,

I had made a formal complaint to ACCA concerning the P7 exam. I must admit that the paper was a fair one, however they are not giving us sufficient time. We need an additional half hour to at least secure a pass. See the reply sent from ACCA below. I am appealing to every one who wrote this exam to send a complaint at students@ accaglobal.com as this will be considered in the marking process. Guys we need to all clear this paperand remember majority rule. Lets support each other.

In setting an exam, ACCA undertake a large number of quality assurance
processes to ensure the paper is fair in all respects. The exam paper
is completed by a number of people throughout the process, including the
final exam version being taken under full exam conditions to ensure
timing is appropriate.

If students do feel an exam has been unfair in any aspect, then it is
important that the student completes the post exam feedback as that is
one of many factors that we use in determining results.

The balance is there providing you don’t overwrite your answer and put a lot of waffle in. However, it would be interesting to know who they test the papers on……are they students like us with nerves, brain freeze and general panic about it being an exam or do they use others who have maybe done the exams before and who aren’t nervous because it means nothing to them (ie potential pay rises, jobs, promotions etc) or accountants/people who know the subject who can therefore be concise and relevant in their answers.

Actually audit is becoming increrasingly litigous with the auditing oversight board commenting that (this may not be word perfect, please look it up yourselves) :

– Auditors seeking evidence to corroborate rather than challenge management
– Auditors placing over reliance on management representations
– Auditors accepting unreliable, inconsistent and contradictory evidence as sufficient and appropriate

There have been several major mid and top tier audits that have failed reviews by the board and the above were the findings.
With this background is it surprising that audit exams are keen to ensure that those taking them are really on top of their game.
Whether one uses audit in the future or not is immaterial in that the fact that you are taking the exam means that the audit door has been opened and ACCA need to be careful who they let through it.
You make a good point over not making partner without many years of practice but I think that yuou miss that often the person that you may become is the one that the audit partner is reviewing in many of the questions and to see that person as superiors see them helps to hone the skills for mid level roles.
I think that overall this was a very fair exam, well thought out, well timed. In parts challenging yes but no more so than should be expected at this level.
I for one would not like to see it changed and I do not think that the ACCA should alter there current stance of allowing more than 30(ish) percent through on any sitting otherwise the market becomes flooded with ACCA people and the qualification becomes devalued.
That may actually be something else that you are missing. Did you read the PQ article on when is 50% not 50%?
If too many people are getting through then the pass mark is adjusted until the numbers getting through come down to an acceptable level.
It is always supposed to be the best 30-40 percent that get through at each sitting.
The average pass rates (all figures rounded down) since change of exam in 2007 has been :
P4 – 34%
P5 – 36%
P6 – 40%
P7 – 33%
Lowest pass rates in that period were :
P4 – 30%
P5 – 29%
P6 – 35%
P7 – 31%
Just my two penneth as I do not think that this paper is one that should be complained about…. Actually, I think that regardless as to whether I pass or fail it’s one that Lisa should be complimented on as it seemed well thought out, well structured and well timed.
The fact that there were hidden levels to all of the questions was particularly well thought through in that where most would be able to answer the questions there were hidden twists between the lines of the questions.
At this stage of the qualification the last thing that I want is to be getting used to the question style of another new examiner so please will others join me in saying well done to Lisa before she gets fed up of only getting negative feedback.
kind regrads,
Shaun.

And hopfully now that you seem to have calmed down a little in answer to specific points made in your previous posts

1) The difficulty hike in papers has been phased in post 2007 to reflect that P7 now comes after P2 rather than before it so P2 is expected knowledge which explains the steadily increasing difficulty levels of the paper.
I did not think that this question paper was any better or worse than the last 4 or 5 sittings.

2) having an alternate opinion that disagree’s with yours is called debate. It is not simply “dashing out” someone elses opinion.

3) The statement over pass rates is a regurgitation of fact not opinion. Read PQ magazine article on when 50% is not 50%. You seemed to take that as me suggesting that was what should be rather than what is.

4) 15 years ago was pre Enron. The world and audit has changed a lot since then and we now seem to be on a path to being less watchdog and more bloodhound. (As Lisa has stated, the Kingston cotton mill case was from 1896 and is no longer appropriate).

5) People are free to judge me (and you) but I hope that they will do such from the perspective of reading what I wrote rather than filling in gaps as seems to have been done by yourself here.

Let us not forget that I was replying to a post where you have put in a complaint about the exam and by association the examiner to the ACCA which I for one feel was entirely unwarranted for this paper which was to my mind excellently constructed and delivered.
I for one do not want to see a change of examiner on this paper or a dumbing down of the qualification.
Anything worth having has to be difficult to achieve or it loses worth.

I agree with keyboard, not with the attitude as i think we should control our temper. However, we have to give Jack his jacket. Finishing the papers is not the end of the journey as we have to gain experience also. As PQs we should not have to suffer the torture and the turmoil, as if to say fail until we decide to give you a pass. There are a lot of students out there that know their stuff, but due to time constraint we are not given a fair chance to pass. Every one is different and cannot cope under the same circumstances. It is costly and time consuming for us to waste all our effort on a paper that we will eventually keep failing.

I did the paper P7 for the first time this sitting. It was fair in content, but trust me only an experience person could really complete the entire paper within the time allotted. We need to demand more time for our investment. At least an extra half hour should be enough to have some decent passes, but LISA wants to prove that she is the best examiner for ACCA. That is “CRAP” give people what they deserve. If there is fear that the market will be flooded then a lot of us need to reconsider and seek another profession instead of wasting time and money on ACCA. In fact i lodge a complaint also about the allotted time for this paper. Just imagine F8 (level 2) papers getting three (3) hours and we at a higher level getting the same 3 hours. Does that make any logical sense. think about it yourself
In addition we need to demand an earlier result period as we know they can do it. Lets say January .That is my contribution

can someone explain to me how the professional marks are allocated?

“Professional marks for the overall presentation, structure and logical flow of the briefing notes, and for the clarity
of the evaluation and explanations provided.”

can someone explain this?

for the ROMM and the disposal of broadway, as it happened in Sept during the year,
I spoke about possible discontinued operation re the SOCI, separate disclosure of profit before tax of discontinued operations. and also HFS assets during the year which would require impairment prior to being classified as HFS
which would be prior to the actual sale in September.

the above is presuming that the decision to sell since 1 january 2013, and thats what i was looking for evidence of in the other information part of the question and it meets the definition of a discontinued operation ie separate line of business, i forgot to talk about this but had a look at the question and would appear that it would be unless has other subs in the same line of business.

I hope i was along the right lines, i dont think i could face sitting this paper for fourth time 🙁

And you went on the defencive on the assumption that I was attacking you where I was attempting to have a well considered conversation.
Thats a two way thing. You made your points, I made mine. You were supposed to come back with measured debate.
Tell me one thing in my post that deserved the infantile diatribe that you regurgitated on the preceding page?
As I say, just because people do not agree with your point of view does not make the other people wrong.
I personally believe that you should appologise for your terrible behaviour that is not at all becoming of someone at this level of the qualification.
As I have said before, if you will now start talking reasonably and respectfully towards others I for one am quite willing to let your previous outbursts be bygones.

I think that your just embarrassing yourself now keyboard.

@05008967
but read back through those posts. Thats not arguement on my part, that was a completely legitimate post that I made followed by a lot of pointless slander on the back of keyboard reading insult into a post where there was non.
Where my post was only constructive I cannot for the life of me see the cause of that unwarranted attack on myself unless post exam stress is being vented here with myself the unlucky one to have dared to have a differing opinion.
Now it just seems that KB wants to continue purely as he/she is too embarrassed to admit that they were wrong.
Just go back one page and read the flow and you’ll see what I mean.
Yes, I have since passed a couple of mildly snide comments in responses but see if you can see where the justification was for that initial unprovoced attack which was personal and derogatory.
In the last thirty four years in this business I can quite honestly say that I have never been spoken to with such unwarranted disrespect before.
I suppose that its the issue with the medium that people feel that they can say what they like without fear of repurcussion but regardless of how invisible one is behind a site userid one should still be respectful of fellow professionals.
Note that even though I am in no way to blame for this, twice I have offered an olive branch of forgetting the unprovoced rant only to get the above “You may be ok with me but I am not ok with you”.
This is not the sort of behaviour that I would expect of someone at this level of the qualification.
And before you say that it takes two to argue, as I say, go back to page 9 and reread the thread and tell me that I am in any way to blame for this.
I’m quite happy to put this down to post exam stress on KB’s part and draw a line under it.

The Senior Lecturer & Associate Professor will wait for the last results for
F9
P5
P7

James Nkhungulu-Zambia

I wrote in due dilligence more focusing on fact finding that has not been clearly reflected in the audit report, this might include the following :-

UN provided or undisclosed contingent liabilities that may be crystallizing later on
the fair values identifiable net asset of the target company
any asset pledged for the loan taken
any customer or supplier contractual agreement that may have impact on the targeted co. if UN fulfilled
W heather the web sight designer will continue with employment after change of ownership
clear about any obligation that may have negative impact to the prospective acquirer
Any legal claim that was pending & might have future blow to the acquirer
I should have to clear my responsibility that i may propose the purchase price of the targeted company