I have my exam on Monday next week and trying to revise as much as possible before that. Would you recommend just using the Practice and Revision Kit or using the text book for the last few days???
What is your experience (ACCA) - how different are the actual questions in the test to the one in Pilot paper??? I have been doing the Pilot on ACCA web site - 90% mark, plus the questions in revision kit too - 85%. I am really nervous and panicking.
50% is a pass, any more is a safety zone. Employers don't see marks, they see passes on your fundamentals level sheet that you'll get when you get through F9.
From the scores that you are already getting in your mocks your going to be fine despite the BPP book leting you down somewhat at the final hurdle.
Don't let nerves get in your way on exam day.
Get to the centre in plenty of time.
If you get stuck on a question leave it and come back to it. Better to pick up the easy points from the answers that you know inside out and upside down (which may give you enough for a pass on their own) than fail bacause you didn't have time for those questions because you were pulling your hair out in frustration with one of the more difficult ones.
Make sure that your pens work that your calculator and backup calculators batteries are both fine (sad muppet that I am I normally go into the exam hall will a desktop calculator in each jacket side pocket plus an emergency backup pocket calculator!).
Some people recommend no revision the day before the exam... I personally think that's belony and will spend the entire day before going through decks of index cards, ensuring that I know all of the pro forma's and testing and retesting myself.
Between now and Monday I would stick with the P&R kit. If anything gives you jip go back to the questions in the study text but in general terms it should be all question practice now.
F1 to F3 are different to the other exams in that the number of past papers out there are restricted. I assume that you've already done both pilot paper from here :
I don't know about you but I find that the formulae that I needed were never those from the formulae sheet, just make sure that you can do all of the basics (Ratio's variances, NPV, IRR, regression analysis, etc.) and go in there full of the knowledge that you got 90% in the pilot so you can darn well get better than 50% in the real thing.
As for the variance between the exams on the site and the actual exams. The pilot papers tend to be very slightly more complex if anything. All other resources for later exams are actual papers as they were sat so no difference at all when you get to those.
Good luck BJ, you'll be fine. Don't foget to give all of us on here a post exam debrief to let us know how it went.
kind regards,
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.
it's 50% for the whole paper.... That sounds so simple, just 50%... Now ask yourself why only 28% of people passed paper P5 at the last sitting! To get that far these cannot in any way be considered stupid people.
Actually, I fully expect to see an examiner being given the long walk for that paper. I've read it and with question 1 it's a major achievement to work out what the examiner is actually looking for. If you get that on the first question then you end up overrunning which messes up your other four answers and before you know it you've got one mess and three or four rushed excuses of answers where if time had allowed you would have done much better on those ones.
Even after all this time I'm still not sure of the markers stance on people doing answers out of sequence as in some ways it would make more sense to do the peripheral questions before question 1 which is always the monster of the paper and sometimes can carry as much as 70% of the marks (although the question will have multiple parts).
Actually, on that matter I think that the last examiner to be given the long walk was for setting a particularly difficult question 1 where all parts of the question were dependant upon getting the first part of it correct. Get that wrong and you might as well just give up as there was no way to get to 50% even if you did everything else in the paper correctly.
One has to ask for quality control on these things and do they actually get sat under exam conditions by normal students to test them first?... Mmmm, don't suppose you could due to the risk of leaking what's in the papers.
Anyway, enough meandering. It's just 50% accross the entire paper so dropping points in section A can be made up by doing particularly well in the section B questions.
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.
I wasn't trying to make the ACCA exams sound easy, it's just that i was wondering about the marking system. When i first started AAT i was under the impression that i needed a 70% pass rate for the combined exam.
Anyway i could pass all the ACCA exams without touching a text book, so i don't care, so there lol.
Neil
( I hope none of the ACCA markers ever read this post)
sad muppet that I am I normally go into the exam hall will a desktop calculator in each jacket side pocket plus an emergency backup pocket calculator!).
LOL a vision of Shaun going into the exam hall with specially sewn in pockets inside his jacket (like shoplifters have) full of calculators, does'nt it confuse you Shaun which calculator to use in the exam. This site is so witty. Been side tracked now must get back to my studying. Kind Regards Sue
well, there's were twins which were twin Xerox XRX-250's (Excellent calculators, very sadly no longer made ).
They are sealed disposable units and the battery ran out on one of them. How sad is it that I worked out exactly how to prise it appart without damaging it so that I could change the motherboard battery inside it (which I could only get from Tandy).
A tragic accident involving my side pocket and the car door (on an exam day!) trashed the display on one of them.
I blame that incident for my first failing of paper P2 (I was in mourning for the loss of my beloved XRX-250 that had been with me for every paper since 1.1)
Anyway, I've now replaced them with Staples 550 calculators (After a brief trial period where I tried several makes of desktop calc I bought four just in case of anymore door issues!).
For Performance management exams I also use a Casio fx-85es as I can't do MIRR calculations using standard desktops. There's no way that I'm going to buy more than one of those though as personally I hate scientific calculators.
Exam backup calculator is a Xerox XRX-150 and I've managed to get a back up one of those from America.
My eldest boy finds it highly amusing how I only work with certain makes / models of calculators and nobody else is allowed to touch them. However, to my mind these are the tools of our trade and breaking in a new model of calculator really slows you down...
Yes, I know, I'm a sad muppet.
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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.
No your not a sad muppet, I also am attached to my calculators, my favourite is casio fx-85ms, which my son converted me to. I have also got an texet SL612 which is huge, my friends laugh at me when I take this into exams, but I love this as you can alter the settings to up to 4 decimal places, also got a diddy casio SL-460. Right back to cooking the dinner, then another couple of hours studying. Kind Regards. Sue
Shaun is the only person i've heard of who needs a calculator to keep tabs on how many calculators he owns lol.
I use a LOGIK LK-183 scientific calc that one of my kids 'borrowed' from one of their schools. If i knew which school it came from i would return it, honest. I also use a 'big button' calc for the easy calculations in exams as i have a tendancy to hit the wrong button over and over again on the smaller keypads which in turn makes me angry, then anxious, then flappy doodle doo because time is running out.
Has anyone had any problem taking certain calculators into exams? im sure i read about a Casio i think, that was banned.
anything that' can store text is banned from exams... OMG, my youngest boy can make any calculator display read BOOBIES. (5138008 then turn upside down) I'm really stuffed now!
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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.
I had one where the "3" was a bit hit and miss, it made things a bit more tense when waiting for results. I now use one that I found, it adds things up, subtracts them and all sorts of stuff, including writing boobies oh and boobless. I have one at work that does lots of stuff but I haven't a clue what. I suppose my calculator of choice will always be excel.
Sorry.
).
