Your easiest / hardest paper so far!!

I just registered for ACCA. Is f4 is a good one to start with. And which is the best book for F4 Exam.

I’ve only passed the first 5 exams so far, so I’m not in the best position to answer this. However, I found F4 the hardest to study for, because I’m not good at memorizing. However, I found the exam straight forward as I was very prepared.

I think I probably found the F5 exam the hardest as the questions I was hoping for didn’t come up.

I found F1 the easiest by far. I think I finished the exam in about 30 minutes.

Definitely F7 and F9…

Dear Friends,

i did this work to clear the air of the debate on hardest & easiest acca papers, also to help students prepare adequatly as they make right choice of paper at the P’level papers especially. the work cover 8 sittings covering June 2008 & December 2011.

Please pay attention to the last column, the average result over a period of 8 sittings.

from my analysis, paper f1 happen to be the easiest with an average pass mark of 69.5 while paper p7 & p4 happen to be the worst of all with 34.25 & 34.5 average scores respectively.
.

i hope it helps!

Gabriel.

June 2008 to December 2011

papers total sittings average
f1 83 67 73 66 64 70 70 63 556 8 69.5
f2 51 59 57 58 54 60 57 53 449 8 56.125
f3 48 50 55 59 60 60 55 54 441 8 55.125
f4 46 39 43 42 51 44 55 49 369 8 46.125
f5 28 30 41 52 57 41 37 38 324 8 40.5
f6 45 53 61 51 46 44 51 48 399 8 49.875
f7 33 42 30 39 28 47 38 56 313 8 39.125
f8 32 43 34 40 36 38 40 36 299 8 37.375
f9 42 40 42 37 43 40 38 38 320 8 40
p1 49 53 48 49 53 51 52 51 406 8 50.75
p2 48 54 44 58 47 51 50 48 400 8 50
p3 49 52 50 48 51 48 47 51 396 8 49.5
p4 36 36 30 41 34 33 30 34 274 8 34.25
p5 37 43 32 42 44 35 35 29 297 8 37.125
p6 36 41 37 39 35 44 45 39 316 8 39.5
p7 33 39 37 39 32 34 31 31 276 8 34.5

you may refer to this link for further info:
https://www2.accaglobal.com/students/examsx/rates/acca

So far i have struggled most with F7 and F9. I think a lot of my own problem was how i was approaching my study/revision though, aiming for the ‘main’ bits and neglecting the lesser parts.

For Anyone struggling with any paper, i really suggest looking into whether there is a kaplan ‘students guide to…’ book available, they have helped me a lot so far

P1 was the easiest paper, the only one I home studied for and passed it first time with one month study

listed in order of difficulty;
P6 (UK Version) The syllabus is huge. very difficult exam but interesting.
P2 Tough but enjoyable
P1
P3
P4/P5/P7 ( I have not studied yet)

My hardest has been P5 & F5!

I passed easily F7, F9, P1, P3 in one exam session (Dec 2011) and then P2, P7 in June 2012 and since then I am trying to pass the P5!!! I think it’s high time I’ve chosen another paper…
F5 it took me 4 times to pass it!! I hate performance management!! haha
What about P6?

easiest F4/F5

hardest to pass F8/P7

It is difficult for me to tell which one of the ACCA exams was toug, trust me. I am confused.

The fun Began in 2010 when I was preparing for F-05 eaxams. I read a lot of positngs by students in this forum that they found the toughest of all F level papers was F-5. I studied hard not because I was at sea on any area of the syllabus, but the fear that this is the toughest and terefore I might fail. You can say in one way that I was clean bowled, before a single ball was bowled. This fear weakened my confidence and luckily I got through with 59 marks in first attempt.

The next attempt was F-04 and F-09, (God knows how did I chose my exam sequence then. This time I learnt a lesson from the earlier session and gained abundance of confidence (later turned out to be overconfidence) and told to myself that there is no such thing as exam fear and pressure and no paper is tough. And I found F-09 questions in that session quiet easy. In the F-09 exam hall I took time to smile at the invigilator and streched myself at every opportunity and took enough time to answer the qestion.
Result-??? F-09-36 and F-04-50.

Craps!!! I found the whole advice of experts useless and slowly the first exam session of F-05 thing started gripping me. So next session I did not dare to attempt other than F-09. A turbulant period in my personal life, had very quality time to study due to death in the family etc. I dismissed myself as fail and even started studying for the next session, a time I lost completely lost confidence in myself. Result came , passed -51.

Oh dear!!! I am stuck what am I to do??? Now I found myself at sea for want of answers on assessing myself as it was becoming difficult for me to plan my studies.

Next session!! I thought I would take up F6 (UK) and f8. I was completely new to the taxation of UK as I reside in India and worked many companies and handled India taxation. (Ofcourse there is a stricking similarity on the tax laws and rules with UK, thanks to colonial rules of British). I found , (read as pre-concieved by the very look at the size of the study text arrived)F-06 is tough and if not prepared well I would fail. F-08 being discursive and have experience can clear without any problem. This time I completely ignored my age ( I was 45 then) and found stuck in the middle of F-08 exam with the pen in holding in my right hand unable to move an inch forward after one hour of exam. I cursed myself on not being given enough practice in uninterrupted writing. I was at pain and it was the turn of the invigilator now and he gave me smile whenever I kept the pen down and started massaging my arms. Result- F-06- 65 F-08- 48.

I am devastated!!! or anybody could have for that matter.

I have decided (read as forced) not to tune myself to a pattern and started studying for F-07 and F-08 passed at first attempt both. 73 and 51 respectively.

Then came June 13, I have appeared for p-01 and P-02 amidst lot of work pressure as I had to take up new job in a senior postion and was in travel most of the time. Took 10 days leave just before the exams and prepared just to give a try as the exam fees was already paid. I had no hope that I would have passed, although I wrote the exam fearlessely as I had no baggage in my mind that I have to pass these exams.
result–P-01- 60 and P-02- 56.

I decided to complete ACCA at one sitting in the following session and left my job and sat at home to study for 3 papers. Studied hard as I got ample of time. I took things for granted with a belief that now that I have plenty of time and in no way I can fail.

Result:- P-03-53, P04- 42 and P-05-56.

Lost salary of 6 months and could not complete ACCA as well.

Now Ijoined a firm and reappearing for my last exam in June-14,

The moral of my story for me is, I have no clue till date that which one of the ACCA exam is tough??

For Me, in F-series F9 is the easiest and interesting
F8 is the hardest and boring

In P-series P1 is the easiest but boring
P4 is the hardest but interesting

I’ve been exempted from all papers within the F level. As such, from the P papers, the easiest for me has been P1 and the toughest P4 !!!