Publishing Past Exams

First off, it’s really cool that students can do exams FOUR times a year. We’ve never had that flexibility before. There never has been the need before for ACCA to do this.

We also have a large selection of high quality question books providing loads of questions from 2005 or so, with more particularly from 2010 onwards. Question practice is vital, but we have enough material to work with to prepare for exams.

What we don’t know is how time-demanding and tough it is for ACCA to prepare and publish exams four times a year…and do whatever reviews and checks they do. It is a constant cycle of exams and I guess everyone needs a break and a bit of time to do things properly. If this is one of the compromises for students getting extra flexibility in exam sittings, I’m all for it.

I was dissapointed not to see the September exams as I wanted to check a few things, but I can understand that there must be good reasons why the papers weren’t published yet.

I don’t think the reason is that they want to re-use questions in some form. That wouldn’t be sensible.

I agree with ” Chris “, ACCA has strange policies, which at times make one wonder if ACCA cares more about making money or helping students.

If they really cared about students, the four sessions a year should have been implemented years ago. And posting the exam papers for all the sessions is a must, don’t know what they think they can accomplish from their lazy attitude of only posting papers of 2 sessions.

I humbly request ACCA to post the exams of all the sessions if they truly care about their students!

Considering how much students and members pay for ACCA services, i think in some respects and areas, what they offer is poor, the student and member portals on the website are terrible, they look like something that was around at the birth of the internet, not something that screams the presitge of the qualification

It cant take much to upload a couple of PDF documents onto their website, it probably takes about an hour of someones time at the very most (lets face it, its probably about 10 minutes), and they have always managed it before, surely this should have been something they planned for when deciding to do the exams 4 times a year

…maybe someone needs to sit P3 again

Interestingly enough before introducing the 4 times exams a year ACCA rightly carried out a survey. Very good outcome and I supported this during the survey. I believe ACCA should also have carried out a survey before taking the decision of reducing the amount of Q/As per year.

There are two suggestions I can make on the issue of Q/As per year:

1. Publish all Q/As. There is no evidence to suggest that it will over significantly increase pass rate eg increasing pass rate from 45% to 65%.

2. Publish all questions per year and then have two Q/As per paper year. This compromise will ensure ACCA do not have to pay too much on Q/As. Most books and learning resources take this approach. The questions should not be taken away from students.

Is anyone here who have sited F8 & P2 exams for September’15 exam? Please can you tell what topic was questioned this sitting?

Back to back papers are rarely very similar (where ‘choice/option’ questions are included). The common sense approach seems to suggest the ACCA are trying to avoid us all looking at September and ruling out topics accordingly for the next sitting. Therefore the ACCA statement that the approach, “highlight[s] clearly the resources that add most value to students’ exam preparation” seems appropriate when considered long term.

I highly doubt anyone could conclude the change was to do with the time taken to upload a few papers on an already overloaded website.

Nb this in no way suggests I agree with the approach.

Simply. Students need to past papers and answers in a of the exams conducted. Students need those questions to help them prepare for subsequent exams. Others need them to be able to tell themselves where they went wrong is writjng that exams. I am preparing for P5 in December 2015, after not passing it in June. I was looking forward to seeing those questions and answers. Am so disappointed.

@opiod said:

However, it is my suggestion that ACCA considers publishing at most the last four sittings past papers and remove those past papers which are more than four sittings from its website.

I can’t believe my eyes..
What? ACCA should not publish more than 4 last sittings?
WHY??

Mate.. not everyone can afford buying revision kit. every year..
maybe to you 20 pounds is not much,.. for some students in other countries it maybe is a lot..

I just dont understand why you would want to limit it??

Questions have to be written 2 (or 4 now) times anyway..
and students sitting the exams paid for them.. ACCA examiners are not writing questions because of charity.. this is their job

so effectively,, since students paid for them.. they belong to students.

ok?

There are several reasons why this is a backward step. As a tutor, I have no issue with not publishing MCQ from the F papers. It would be nice to publish a couple per sitting perhaps, just so we can keep an eye on question style, but an MCQ is an MCQ so it is hardly a major issue.

But long questions are a different matter. They can change in style a lot over time, especially when the examining team changes – and with 4 sittings per year now, it will not be 1 examiner setting everything. I am already hearing that P3 was a bit odd in September, but I have no way of guiding students as to why or how it was odd as I cannot see the paper.

Not only does this decision prevent tutors from doing their jobs as well as we could do, it also represents a lack of accountability. If students report questions were off syllabus, unclear, or a paper was hard overall, there is no way anyone can feed back on that. Of course ACCA has assessors on each paper, but that does not stop a few strange things creeping through the system and being open to outside criticism is a strength (accountability and transparency being key concepts of good governance that are taught on many ACCA papers).

I presume ACCA have some reasons for doing this – perhaps so that the official publishers are the only ones who get access to all the questions – but I cannot see how any potential benefits of this decision could outweigh the massive downside for students.

If this is really the way ACCA is behaving it is because they only care about making excessive amounts of money and not about helping people with their accounting career. Look at it, these constant raises in prices every time: every year the subscription fee goes up, after every exam session the entrance fee goes up. ACCA is without a doubt making many times in excess of their costs.

If the publishing of Q/As is about time and cost saving, then ACCA should allow question papers to be taken away after the exams and only deal with the publication of answers. I feel ACCA should show much concern about pass rates and find out issues that confront students of late

For your information, ACCA doesn’t repeat exam questions so soon. That’s 1, and 2, I have no time to waste giving ‘your cost and income breakdown analysis’.

It may not apply to you but there are many of us who have to pay ACCA using currencies with a ratio of 1:3 or 1:4 and, depending on the current conditions, even 1:5 all in favour of the GBP Sterling. There are many customers of ACCA as students or other forms who are residents of so-called third world countries who fatten ACCA’s coffers along with the rest of its customers from so-called first world countries. What exactly is ACCA doing with all that money why they have to increase the exam entry fee CONSISTENTLY after every exam session as well as the registration fee every calendar year?!!!!