I've had a quick look around for information on CIMA/ACCA exams and was wondering if these qualifications are going to open up for more exam sittings per year instead of the 6 monthly periods. Maybe they do already and i've been reading the wrong pages.
no idea about the CIMA exams but know a bit about the ACCA ones and the two do seem to follow each others moves pretty closely so if ACCA do something you can bet your life that six months down the line CIMA will have followed suit.
There's plans afoot for exams on demand but it's not going to happen anytime soon (think that they're looking at the moment at conversion by 2015) and there's loads of debate out there about whether computerised exams are suitable for quality qualifications where the bulk of the exam is in essay format.
How do you change essay format answers to computerised without dumbing down the qualification to multichoice and fill in the missing number questions espechially at this level where there is often more than one way to calculate the figures with totally different results which are all correct.
You just need to see the June 2009 advanced corporate reporting (P2) question 1 consolidated Income statement answers from the ACCA examiner, BPP and Kaplan to see what I mean... Totally different and all correct. How do you show that you know what you are doing in exams where the workings are in many ways more important than the answer.
Even though the ACCA seems committed to computerisation and exams on demand I wouldn't hold my breath for it for higher level papers although I can see no reason why papers F1, F2 and F3 at the fundamentals level shouldn't go down that path.
Moving to four sittings a year would be nice but that needs to go hand in hand with faster turnaround of exam scripts. At the moment you sit in June, results last week in August before you know what you will need to sit in December (where you will receive the results in late February). By late August it's already too late to just be starting studying so you will have been working towards the next paper before you know whether you need to resit the one's from June.
Believe me when I say that when you move from one paper to another whilst the information is still all in there somewhere you would not be able to resit the exam without redoing all your revision for the failed paper. Maybe it needs to be a different mindset that I need to adopt that you don't stop revising a subject until you get your results but then that would not leave the time to learn a new subject before the next sitting.
The markers are already very time pressured with a ridiculously low amount of time allowed per script. To increase the turnaround of scripts would mean more markers costing more money which would push up the prices of exams.
The sittings are not small affairs. When I did paper 1.1 (now F3) the sitting filled two huge halls in Birmingham alone with several thousand students. As you get further in and more people drop out the sittings become smaller with some papers now having only a hundred or so at each sitting. However, how do you go about finding venues with several thousand PC's to computerise this? Also that's major venues of similar size at major cities all over the world with exams starting at the same time.
If you have multi sittings which seems to be the benefit of exams on demand you can't have the same questions at each sitting otherwise those who sit first will just tell others the contents of the exam so those who come next would know the area's of the syllabus to cover.
If you randomly generate questions then people are not sitting the same exam so that is not fair on students. Everyone should sit the same exam at the same time.
The way I see it would be sittings in June, September, December and March.
If you sat in June and failed you could resit in September but there would not be time between June and September to study a fresh subject. People would get into the mindset of just keep retaking until you pass. then move onto the next subject which will take a minimum of six months. If you wait until receiving you results before starting study you would then end up missing one sitting rather than the current mindset that you start a new subject as soon as you've taken the exams and then if you've failed one you revise that at the same time as the new subject.
Conclusion is that moving to four sittings a year might improve flexibility as to when you take your papers but people will still only end up taking just as long as they do currently to get through the exams due to the necessity of not starting a new subject until you know that you've past those from the previous sitting asd the whole idea of fast resits only works if you continue revising until you get your results and don't start studying the next subject(s) as soon as you've taken your exam.
Personal view is that they should leave things alone. These are serious exams that take a lot of study time (forget having any social life at all) and having more sittings adds flexibility but I doubt that it will change the number of sittings that you attend or the time it takes to get the qualification.... But it may ease the markers life a little by spreading their workload over eight months rather than the current four.
Phew, didn''t intend for the response to be so long. Sorry about that. You've just hit one of those subjects where I have more than a passing interest in it.
Happy Saturday,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Thank you Shaun. Although, i personally, am a long way off from thinking about sitting an ACCA or CIMA paper i was wondering how people manage waiting for resits. The fact that you have to wait so long as you said, to find if you have passed or failed a paper before you can move onto the next or revise for the resit was actually what i was wondering about. It seems it is what it is. I'm glad i'm only AAT at the moment and can book an exam upto 2 days before the sitting. I can't actually see computerised exams coming...never mind in 2015 especially as the world ends in 2012, but maybe an extra sitting could actually work.
The other thing is, if you were to pass, say, just the operational or management levels of CIMA and carry on no further, would these certificates hold their own weight? or have you really got to complete all levels? i would like to land a job working for a company hence the AAT qual and wondered if i will be studying for the rest of my life. I'm not overly concerned about making chartered status. i'm not trying to wriggle out of anything but i was wondering whether a certain level would be apt for a certain role? if this makes any sense to anybody i'll eat my hat!
Cheers Neil
-- Edited by Spamkebab on Saturday 12th of November 2011 01:54:22 PM
my understanding is that when people ask for Part Qualified they are actually asking for people at that levl or above.
Using the ACCA equivalent again as an example it would seem that anyone who has sat and passed one ACCA exam is part qualified but that is not what employers want.
At the end of the skills level papers (F1 to F3 are fundamentals level, F4 to F9 are skills levels papers and P1 to P3 are core and P4 to P7 are the options (any 2 from 4)) you get a certificate to say that you've passed fundamental and skills levels. My reading is that PQ status comes from possession of that paper right up until you are able to get your own practice certificate (two years post qualification).
I'm assuming that CIMA is the same but CIMA is a little more lenient on what you are allowed to do until you get a practice certificate. ACCA don't change from when you sign up from bookkeeping to trial balance, VAT and Payroll (unless of course you are working in a supervised capacity).
I'm pretty sure that you will be one of those who moves up to an accountancy qualification so knowing what's what now should help your decisions as to which route to follow later.
Don't forget to keep an eye on the ICAEW rules as I think that most of us would have taken that route if it wasn't for the need to be in a training contract with a qualified employer in order to even be studying the qualification whereas with the others of course you can do the exams and then find an employer to take you.
Talk later,
Shaun.
P.S. Made perfect sense. Would you like ketchup with that hat?
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Thanks again Shaun, I thought you may think me slightly mad to be discussing and contemplating my options for the higher qualifications at this point in my studies. I missed a year of study through naivety, after finding my local college do the basic bookkeeping and computerised courses i missed the enrolment date by a couple of days and waited until the next year (last September) to enrol only to find that i could have joined in the lessons albeit slightly late. Kicking myself for that one. I've not only learned basic bookkepping skills and computerised accounts but also how to compose letters with Word, write C.V.s and what to expect at interview. My previous positions have come to me via recommendation, no interviews as such, ever in my life since leaving school so it's a brand new world. i am sure you can appreciate how much i have had to take on board and sometimes think myself slightly dumb for not knowing and having these basic skills before i set off on my journey, but not having needed to use them they were overlooked. As for the Ketchup, I'm more a Reggae Reggae sauce guy at the moment, especially since the Dragons turned that fellow down and now he owns shelfs in Supermarkets lol.
as regards ICAEW rules, you can sit the professional level every three months and the results come back within 1 month, which i think is quicker than any of the other "big bodies". The foundation level is on demand which is pretty good. However, they admit there is only so much you can test on a computerised system so they limit this to the foundation level.
But as you say, being on a training contract does make things difficult for prosepective students.
-- Edited by NickCraggs on Sunday 13th of November 2011 09:19:10 AM
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Nick
Nick Craggs FMAAT ACA AAT Distance Learning Manager
