Want to sit in September for F5 through self study – Is it possible and how?

1) You should use all the Open Tuition resources – especially sit a mock – which together with revision question practice from an Approved content provider is enough (see https://opentuition.com/acca/pm)
2) Yes – but make sure you sit at least one mock also
3) There are 8 weeks to the exam on 5th September. Although this is only half the recommended “16 weeks” of preparation recommended in ACCA’s self-study guide https://www.accaglobal.com/content/dam/ACCA_Global/Learning%20Providers/self-study/F5-self-study-guide-nov-2017.pdf you seem to have sufficient time available to you – see page 07 of the guide – being able to study for full days rather than evenings only means you should be able to condense this study plan to 8 weeks

Read the guide – it has been written for you 🙂

Well, since @kim2311 and @mandyofori have answered your questions.

I would just like to share my studying approach … Which i am finding helpful.

I will recommend you to go Section wise according to the syllabus rather chapter wise since exam practice kits have questions section wise.

Now u can start off with any section you want, whether you want to go with the tough and lengthy one first or the comparatively easier and shorter one first…depends on you study style. However, let me tell you all sections are challenging one way or the other.

But I will recommend you to go in the chronological order because it will be easier to relate between sections.

During the preparation there two stages…
Learning and revision… And you must strike a balance between the two.

So I would first of all, make a study plan either week wise or day wise (may be both) and most importantly stick to it.

I would consider, knowing I have exactly 6 weeks in hand from now, which would better first finished off the learning and then start the revision … Or to do the learning and revision simultaneously (the latter is a better option… Gives more time to practise)

I would then do one section per week and may extend the lengthier sections time period to about some more days…

The F5 has 4 Sections in the syllabus… So that would be “about” 4 weeks, the last 2 weeks of July and half of August.
Note I want to keep last 2 weeks of August for extra revision and practice.

How to go about the section per week?

Well, let’s say for ‘Week One’ I take section A of the syllabus…
I would watch the lecture videos and the read the lecture notes (I assume you will not be using a study text)

Once this is done I will do the practice questions from the practice and revision kit ( Bpp or Kaplan or both… whichever suits)
Please note a Practice Kit is essential for doing RIGOROUS AMOUNT QUESTION PRACTICE… THE MORE YOU PRACTISE QUESTIONS THE BETTER IT IS.

All this is done within the same week and i would break down by daily schedule for the week accordingly.
By the end of week 1 I am done with one section of the syllabus.
And I will continue so on and so forth…

But constant revision is important because it is highly likely one may forget what he did in the first week when he comes to the last week of the month.

So for that, I would keep 15mins to 30 mins daily of the previous sections that I have completed along with the one that I will be currently doing.
I will just be skimming through the notes and I will try to squeeze in some time to do some practice questions of the completed sections too ( I may repeat the ones that I have solved earlier)

Continuing like this I will have 2 weeks to do extra practice, extra revision, do the practice /specimen/mock papers under actual exam conditions and if it is a CBE exam I will do the section C questions on word and spreadsheet. I will also look into the Examiner’s Report from the Acca website.

As I am practising, I will make sure that I see my mistakes really well and mark myself in order to compare my progress when I will be repeating the questions and see which topic areas I may be weak at to give them an extra effort.

My apologies for such a length reply but wanted to make sure everything is considered.

Hope this helps.

Please note… This is just a general approach to preparation.. It has not taken into account any family/work commitments or your style of studying… So this may have to be adjusted accordingly.
But since you say you have loads of free time it could be a possibility that you could achieve more. Just make an achievable plan and stick to it.

I did F5 self study as I couldn’t attend the college days for this course. I did the full course within 4 weeks using Open Tuition and then a revision kit for lots of question practice in the 2 weeks running up to the exam. I have studied with both BPP and Kaplan in the past and would personally recommend Kaplan’s revision kit – I think their materials are far better! Good luck!

@jetavi said:
Is that so Kerri? I have been wanting to know which revision kit is better among Bpp and Kaplan… Actually Im preparing for F6 sept exam and had both the revision kit… Couldn’t decide on which one to practice from cuz doing simultaneously both of them doesn’t seem like an ideal thing to do if one is short of time in his hands.
So what would you say about the two? Thanks!

Hi Jetavi
Yes from my personal experience the Kaplan revision kit seems most similar to the actual questions in the exam. I find all their materials very clear and user friendly and my results have been much better since using Kaplan. I sat my final exam last month (P5) so now just awaiting my results on Monday and hopefully that will be me finished 🙂
Hope this helps you!