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This also applies to most of other ACCA papers, and many people have mentioned this… But why are the “real” model answers to the exam questions hardly available?
I’m referring to the very lengthy examiner’s answers with many sentences in one paragraph. Yet many tutors & advisers warn us that time management is very important, 1.8 minutes per mark etc.
They say the examiner’s answers are long for guidance purposes – I think it’s the biggest, massive load of c**p, doesn’t anyone???
I’ve studied using Kaplan, BPP & LSBF and a lot of the tutors say “make your answers concise, heading-sentence, heading-sentence” but they rarely provide answers in such a style.
Is it really difficult for tuition providers to demonstrate ALL the answers that we can actually write on 1.8 mins per mark basis? More difficult than creating a single global code of ethics?
I agree it’s very difficult to self assess your work given that the model solutions are so detailed. Many times I’ve read examiners comments and seen something along the lines of ‘insufficient explanation’ which further adds to the expectation that a lot of detail is required which is fine, as professional accountants we should be expected to analyse in detail, however I found the 3hrs + 15mins for the P level papers to be extremely tight. It’s tough to get the balance between covering enough points and covering points in enough detail within the time available.
One approach I’d like to see to help students understand what is expected would be for ACCA to publish a couple of the best scripts along with markers comments. This would give students a great insight into what is expected under examination conditions.@keyboard said:
all the professional papers are scenario based. i would recommend following to guide you regarding query:
1. how well yyou’re prepared
2.what to write
3. how much to write……….Thanks for your posts but you’re missing the point. That’s completely irrelevant to what I’m saying.
I agree with AJS90’s suggestions above – thank you.
“@keyboard”? On my screen it’s Elia-Shar-Ek!
Polaris, you’re right of course. (I would disagree with your description of the comments concerning examiners’ answers ” I think it’s the biggest, massive load of c**p, doesn’t anyone???”)
There are two articles in Student Accountant from about 18 months’ ago written by two different members of the P3 marking team.
In addition, I have also written a section on exam technique in general and also articles specifically aimed at the papers that I teach including P1. These are available on this site
3 hours and 15 minutes is unrealistic – there is no way on this Earth that anyone could write answers of the length that we find in revision kits nor of the length of the examiners’ own answers.
So, ok, let’s discount the idea as being unrealistic and impossible. The printed solutions are written not under time pressure, no adrenalin rush, books a-plenty to act as research providers and written by experienced (subject-specialist) tutors and, of course, the examiners themselves
But these authors HAVE to include all the valid points that the World of students could sensibly have included within their aggregate answer. Otherwise, you could write a perfectly good answer within the correct time allocation but then find the suggested printed solution has none of your points and you have none of the printed points. So you have to forgive them that.
And that in itself can account for the excessive length of the printed answers
The “heading – sentence” approach is probably the only way that you’re going to produce an answer with enough separate, relevant, markable points to get you a comfortable pass.
As a simple exercise, pick a book, open it, on a clean sheet of paper COPY with no thought from that book for 1 minute 18 seconds. Be strict / honest. Ideally, the book will be a revision kit and the page that you copy from will be one from the answer section of the book
Now, after 1 minute 18 seconds, how much have you written? And more to the point, how much of the answer did you manage to copy?
What you have just done is identify the MAXIMUM length of sentence that you should write to earn a single mark.
Multiply your copying by the number of marks in the question and that’s the length of your answer. Compare it with the printed solution. Is the solution around twice as long as your extrapolated copying? I guess it probably is.
The lesson: DON’T PAY ATTENTION TO THE PRINTED SOLUTION AS A GUIDE TO WHAT IS EXPECTED OF YOU IN THE EXAM ROOM.
It’s not going to happen.
The solution: spend an appropriate length of time in planning your answer (number of marks divided by 2 = number of planning minutes). Count up the number of markable points in your plan. Did you get 50% of the marks available? Well, that’s not enough, sorry!
What if the marker doesn’t agree with one – just one – of your points. Now you’re scoring less than 50 – maybe just 48%!
Keep practising this as an exam preparation exercise and slowly, vey slowly, you’ll build up speed and technique so that your plan is scoring 70 / 75 / 80% of the marks available
Of course, having planned, you now have to write and that’s where 1 minute 18 seconds comes in. Because you have spent so long planning answers, you now have only 2 hours 10 minutes (130 minutes) to write out your 100 points = 1.3 minutes per point = 1 minute 18 seconds
Try it!
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