General ACCASection A or B first?

You ask about my personal experience! My personal experience is that I am able to tell the time and I know that, after 90 minutes, I stop whatever I was doing and move to the next question But WITHIN that 90 minutes there are typically 5 or 6 sub-questions - some for as few as 5 marks and some for up to 20 marks So, and this is a BIG secret, I actually allocated my time to those sub-questions as well as to the overall question Let's say that question 1 has 6 sub-questions worth 10, 14, 6, 4, 10 and 6 I would allocate my time as follows: 18 minutes, 26 minutes, 10.5 minutes, 7 minutes, 18 minutes and 10.5 minutes That gives me exactly 90 minutes But here's another BIG secret! I would then allocate time for actually just PLANNING an answer to EACH of those sub-questions (During the 15 minutes reading and planning time which, incidentally, is now the first 15 minutes of an examination that takes 3 hours 15 minutes, I would have read through all 3 option questions to see which one I would not be attempting and then I would have started into question 1 with a highlighter pen So, I'm telling you about allocating time for actual planning For those 6 sub-questions that I mentioned earlier (you by now have finished reading the question 1 scenario) I would PLAN in bullet point format enough points for each part so that I stand a better-than-average chance of passing each of those 6 parts And the time spent in that planning exercise? 5, 7, 3, 2, 5 and 3 At the end of the first 5 minutes I now have a plan that contains 10 separate markable valid relevant points. But I have to write them down and I only have 13 minutes left of the original 18 How many lines can you write in 1 minute 18 seconds? Well? How many lines can you write in 1 minute 18 seconds? Try it now and let me know how many lines of A4 can you write in 78 seconds? Get a sheet of A4, a book or magazine, a friend (who can tell the time) and a stop watch Instruct the friend to say "Start" when you are ready to start copying from the book or magazine and to say "Stop" after 1 minute 18 seconds Then do it And post on this page to tell me exactly how many lines of A4 have you covered simply by copying out, with no thinking involved, for 1 minute 18 seconds The time now is exactly half past the hour I'm expecting a response from you before 15 minutes to the hour!

Hi Mike, Thank you for your BIG secret and I will try to practise as suggested. When speaking of the speed in writing, It has something to do with my english abilities. That is a big issue bothering me all along. Now it become more evident at professional level, theory paper in particular as English is not my mother tongue. Do you have any tips to improve writing skills in a short period? Thanks.

Mr. Mike well explained. But when you working in detail and time calculate according to allocation of numbers. Then much of time consumed in detail planning. Q1 scenario also long and much of time required for reading and understanding. Can we paper complete with in time?

You have 3 hours and 15 minutes Can you complete the paper in time? You have 3 hours and 15 minutes! No matter what happens, after 3 hours and 15 minutes you have completed your attempt (because you won't be allowed to continue) So you HAVE to apply examination technique! Your chances of success rise exponentially when you follow basic exam technique rules Your chances of failing remain very high if you fail to apply those basics! Anyone can complete an exam paper given unlimited time ... ... but you have only 3 hours and 15 minutes so make sure that every one of those 195 minutes is well spent