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Although I am repeatedly advised to use assumptions in place of calculations that I either cannot do or finish, I am not sure the extent to which I should make these assumptions, or how relevant they should be to the case study.
I would like some guidance on effective exam technique regarding this.
I am surprised that whoever it is who is repeatedly advising you of this does not explain what they mean!!!!
You do not lose marks twice for the same mistake. So if (for example) part of a question requires calculations and you cannot finish the calculation, and are required to write a report (as always in question 1) which requires you to discuss the result of the calculations, then ‘invent’ a result (but state clearly that you invented it) and you can still get full marks for the discussion if you write sensibly about your invented figure.
I have heard it in the recent exam prep webinars done by ACCA and also from you Mr Moffat 🙂
I do regard the advice, but have been personally anxious to use that methodology to complete the exam for fear of sacrificing too many calculation marks for discussion marks (calculation is my strong point).
But I am surely realising the challenge to complete all calculations and discursive questions within the alloted time. Hence I wanted to know how much is too much assumptions. I’m guessing that it depends on how the marks are spread?
Yes, is does depends on how the marks are spread.
Always state any assumptions you make anyway when you are doing the calculations (because very if the assumption you make is sensible then you would still get the calculation marks if your assumption is different from that the examiner has made in his answer).
Question 1 almost always asks for you to state your assumptions. If you look at a few answers to past exam questions on the ACCA website, then at the end of the answers there is a marking scheme. From that you can get an idea of how many marks are allocated for each assumption you list. (And appreciate that the examiner always writes much more for the written parts of question then he expects from students, because he knows that students use the answers to learn from 🙂 )
Ok thank you Mr Moffat. I again truly appreciate your timely response, particularly as I am self-studying.
You and opentuition are providing students with an invaluable resource.
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