APMWhat is the best strategy for attempting question 1?

The key question is why you emphasise on Question 1 only. In the ACCA examination, you will win if you get 50 marks, regardless where you get them. Why does the examiner put a compulsory section of 60 marks? Why don't he allow you to choose? The answer is quite simple. If he allows you to choose, you will not choose it because it is more difficult and complicated than any questions in Section B. In other words, getting one mark at Section A is more difficult than getting the same one mark from Section B.

The sure-win strategy for any examination with a passing mark is simply as follows:
1. Get the easiest marks first in order to accumulate a passing mark as soon as possible. Don't be fooled by the 60 marks, which mean nothing if they are difficult to get. Where are the easiest marks? Of course, Section B and the first 20-30% marks on verbal writing. Although Section B cannot make you pass, it an facilitate you to get a pass quicker. Imagine that getting 20-25 easy marks from Section B and 10-15 easy marks from verbal writing. Your life in Section A will be easier. To conclude, attempt Section B first. Section A and complicated calculation will lock you down.

2. Don't stop writing in the first 1.5 hours. This is the critical period to accumulate passing marks. If you have no idea for a part, jump to the others. You must have some ideas in some parts. The marker will not grant you any marks for thinking.

3. Allocate your time according to the marks distribution and avoid overrunning. This is one of the reasons that I don't suggest to start with Section A because the computation there is complex. You will hardly give up when you engross yourself in the tedious calculation.

Finally, it must not be good to write “higher than”,”didn’t achieve”, or ”unable to meet” because it merely repeats the numbers in words. It is only better than write nothing. Instead, you should discuss the economic underpinnings, the implications, and the validity of the numbers.

with due respect, sosol, the question belle asked was to do with applying a better strategy for tackling Q1. it dont matter which Qs you do first but Q1 has to be done anyways.
after all, in p5 theres no guarantee section b will be any easier.. and imagine the pressure you can put yourself in having spent more than an hour and half doing section b and you have those long scenarios for Q1 and 2 to read and digest and calculate and interprate in less than 1 hour and half!

I would like to clarify that I do not suggest anyone to spend 1.5 hour for Section B. My point 3 has mentioned to allocate time according to the marks.

I agree we should do part B first to get as more marks as we can. Having say that, I think question 1 is also quite worthwhile for me to do some planning before the exam. Question 1 is always about the same as we need to calculate and then give comment on the company performance. Having planning the format of answer I would not stress out during the exam.

sosologos,

you quoted "Instead, you should discuss the economic underpinnings, the implications, and the validity of the numbers."

can you give me some examples? Thank you.

I would illustrate it by contrasting 2009 Dec Q1 and P3.3 2007 Jun Q1. The 2009 one, a school scenario, should be adapted from the 2007 one, a legal firm case.

For the 2009 one, Part (ii) asks for performance evaluation. The answer there is bad because it largely tells what measures should be used for comparison. Unfortunately, some measures mentioned could not even be found in the case. To specify which measure is appropriate for the comment is a must but stating some measures not appeared in the question made the evaluation pointless. Most of the answer was not evaluation at all but merely repeated to tell the numbers in words.

For the 2007 one, Parts (b) and (c) are on performance evaluation. The answer , conversely, was good, It made a real comparison by investigating the reasons and the implications from the numbers. By comparing the 2 questions, you should know what should be done in commenting on the performance.

A good answer, especially a comment, must be built around an analytical framework. The usual framework at Q1 is either the Performance Pyramid (PP) or the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). You should start with the overall financial performance (e.g. ROCE, profits, etc) of the 2 organisations and then analyse why their performance is so and so. If you use BSC, the financial performance should be explained by customer, customer by internal process, internal process by learning and growth. If you use PP, you should also analyse according to the linkage among the elements in PP.

Finally, you should take a 'why' attitude in any comment. If you do so, you may find a lot of interesting issues not mentioned by the 2009 answer. For example, why did BEC have a higher staff turnover rates? How would it affect the quality of lecture and the development of educational materials? Why could JBC have more students at Marketing and same student number at Law even though its tuition fees was more expensive? You may explore more yourself.

you can go on saying why figures are going down/up and take take clues from the scenario , they will show you the reason about the behavior of the figures. Now this reason is always there , yes , its always there and at this level you have to find it out.

Always do Q1 first, it contain lotsa marks but dont spend more than 1.5 hour , move on after 1.5 hour to next question.

all the best.

I have taught in a university course with a syllabus same as F6 for 5 years. However, I keep on using the old ACCA F6 paper style with a compulsory Section A (55 marks) and Section B 45 marks with choices. I do not follow the new format with all compulsory because the students must fail in three-month study.

I ask them to work on Section B first although Section A has higher mark allocation. Of course, students are usually rebellious and some of them will work on Section A first. The results are 90% of them will fail against a 50% failure rate for those working on Section B first. It is a hard matter of facts. When re-sitting the examination, no one dares to work on Section A first again.

If you are knowledgeable on P5 or on any other papers, you can work in any order; otherwise, start with some easy and smaller tasks. When you are fresh in job, your supervisor will not assign you big and critical tasks. You will then have a higher chance to succeed. To be knowledgeable enough for any paper, it must not be a 6-month work, especially for working adults. Mastering knowledge in a paper is a life work but passing a paper is a 6-month mission.

sosologos, It's not as you say 'rebellious students'. You cannot implicate that students preferred method is not as good as the one which you advocate.

Your supervisor so called example is irrelevant. When you are new on job , they give you much operational work which contains lots of details rather than strategic areas of work , similarly Q1 contain more details to work with than the other questions.

In any case , you should just state your opinion rather than to advocate that your opinion is indeed superior to all others.

Everyone have their approach which works for them , I am of the opinion , which many experienced tutor recommend , that do Q1 first than move on.

if you are confident about question 1 and have mastered your timing you should have no problem with Q1 nonetheless i think i agree with sosologos

I would like to clarify that 'rebellious' is not a negative word for me. I like students to be rebellious because it needs courage. At least, they act to prove I am wrong. This is the beauty of internal examination. They can try different strategies for their future examination with least costs.

Thanks for your clarification

sosologos and princeacid,

your approaches have enlightened me :) Thank you.

@belle said:
sosologos and princeacid,

your approaches have enlightened me :) Thank you.

Glad to hear belle , If you do Q1 first, you won't be disappointed!

all the best!

I am an advocate of doing question 1 first in this paper.this is because you can use about 10 minutes of your reading time to plan for the answer.and i also think its better done when you are in a less pressured frame of mind.you can imagine you do it last and you are pressured ,are you going to do calculations and then even interpret? whereas i think for the discursive question in section b you can even do it when you are remaining with 15 minutes because there are no calculations and you are just offloading whats on your mind.
This is my opinion

good thought metro1. That gives us another reason to do Q1 first!

Dear All, the matter here is time management and taking chance of easy marks. am siiting for the 3rd time ( and have delayed me to finish ACCA) and I have learnt that digesting Q1 of P5 last is like grilling yourself... I therefore made my personal desicion to tackle Q1 1st this time especially with 10min of 15min reading time and making sure I DONT OVERRUN TIME ALLOCATION! Sosologos opinion however is right, but still dont overun time allocation.

Its 4dys to go. Am wishing all the best.

I agree with priceacid, that it is best to do question 1 first.

However I also agree that more important than anything is to allocate time - not just between questions but also between the parts of questions.

Question 1 always has several parts to it, and it is very rarely that you need figures from previous parts to be able to attempt the later parts. It is better to have only part-finished all the parts than to have left some parts out completely.