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What was the “turning point” or things you did which helped improve your pass mark from 35% to >50%?
Gonna be taking my 4th resit in March
Same, I’m losing the motivation to carry on and don’t know where I am going wrong. I’ve been struggling on my last exam for a while now. Any tip and help would be appreciated.
I passed ATX on my second attempt with 50%. In my first attempt I scored 38% which is the lowest I have ever scored in any of my ACCA exams.
I think ATX is one of those exams where anything can happen as the syllabus is massive and no matter how hard you focus on learning the material and applying the knowledge, you will always miss something out. I remember that on my first attempt, I didn’t touch Q4 as it was about a director’s current account and benefits which I had completely forgotten as I had mostly focused on topics such as SSE, Rollover relief and overseas aspects of tax.
What I did was to check where things went wrong, identify the areas on which my knowledge appeared to be weak and went back and developed those areas. I remember that during my second attempt, I focused a lot on inheritance tax for example and on my second attempt there was an IHT question and managed to score quite a few marks there.
What I understood from the exam is that the first 3 questions are rather normal level (revision kit – based) and the 4th one is a question which tests rather “unexpected” topics. I remember that the 4th question on my second attempt was a liquidation and you had to mention how the timing of distributions changes the nature of the funds received (before the administrator is appointed and after), how the tax rates change based on the timing of distributions as the receipts will be classed as either dividend or capital (so either dividend tax rates + DNRB, or CGT rates + AEA) and how you are supposed to split the accounting year between two accounting periods. If I remember correctly, there was also a substantial shareholding exemption element in that question too.
My advice is to identify the topics on which you think your knowledge is not sufficient enough and develop them further. Look at your mistakes in your previous sittings and see where you think your knowledge needs improvement. For example, my weakness in the ATX (and TX) exam was always inheritance tax, pensions, and accounting periods so I made sure that I was comfortable with those areas of the syllabus.
Lastly, there is a factor which I hate bringing up when it comes to exams in general but I think in ATX is a rather contributing one – the factor of luck. The reason I am mentioning luck is because the syllabus is so big that your chances of encountering an area of the syllabus familiar to you are not as high as in other exams. I know luck is not something you can control directly… the only way to get the factor of luck to work in your favour is to focus on understanding as many areas of the syllabus as possible, that way you are more likely to encounter a topic which you are familiar with.
I hope this helps.
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