Hi,

the questions are always old ones as they are taken directly from the actual ACCA exams but they rotate them and also bring them up to date.

One thing that I have often done in the past with retakes or missed sittings (occassionally work has got in the way of exam sessions) is to alternate the Kaplan and BPP exam kits.

Both use the old exam questions as a basis. Even the ones that do not say which years papers that they are taken from just tend to be recycling of questions from the old syllabus.

One thing that you may find interesting (not at F3 but after that) is to take answers given in the Kaplan kit, BPP kit and the stock answer for the year from the ACCA. Quite often you will find threee completely different answers but all three will be completely correct.

Note that the pilot exam never changes unless there is a change of legislation meaning that it needs to be amended to current standards.

With F3 there has actually been no major changes since 2012 so if you wanted to use last years practice & revision kit the contents are still completely valid.

HTH,

Shaun.

I actually think that the Kaplan study texts are about the right size in that they use repetition with progressive variation to drive subjects home.

You will really apprecuiate that in later papers such as when you are playing with group accounts which can get horribly complex when things like mid year acquisitions and foreign subsidiaries get thrown in the pot.

BPP are only half the size but they get there via a different learning style which is more of a rote learning approach than the Kaplan look, learn and then try yourself.

My only real issue with Kaplan is the qualitty control on the questions in that some years there are ridiculous numbers of errors.

Then again, when you get to the right answer and you just know that the study text has the wrong one maybe that is a mark that you are really ready to be examined in a subject.

I find the Opentuition lecturer for tax at F6 very difficult to listen to but the Mike lectures, espechially at the higher levels are an absolute joy to listen to... He stays on subject about as much as Neil and myself do on here! His crowning glory really has to be the P7 lectures that really bring a boring subject (audit) to life.

When preparing for the exams, beyond the study texts and exam kits have look at the actual ACCA syllabus for the paper and go through the detailed version point by point to ensure that there is no element that has been missed from your studies.

Whilst I swear by Kaplan I will admit that there are occassions when the BPP text covers a subject better.

Certainly for the waffle rather than calculation papers (F1, F4, F8, P1 and P7) BPP is well worth considering.

HTH,

Shaun.

I actually changed from the UK stream to IFRS because I hate UK GAAP cashflow statements.

Thinking back, when I did the fundamentals levels papers (which just used to be 1.1 through 1.3 whereas now it basically covers the first 9) I used BPP texts but the further that I went into the qualifiction the more that I found Kaplan the better option.

I do not think that I could look at early texts objectively as I would come to such with too much ingrained kowledge from the later texts so the sequence of things would not phase me but I can understand how it would cause issues where things are out of sequence.

One thing that I have noticed with both Kaplan and BPP is a tendency to recycle chapter both within the same qualification and accross qualifications.

For example, Cima, AAT and ACCA share whole sections of text but with bits removed (usually from the AAT text).

The same is true of the BPP I-Learn CDs to the point that if I knew then what I know now I would have invested in the courses from the higher papers and studied those rather than buying all of the courses only to find a great deal of repetition.

Personally I've not had a problem with the Kaplan texts for self study (except for mistkaes in the answers in the study texts ... But never in the exam kits, weird? Makes one think that the mistakes in the study texts may realy be there on purpose).

The gaps and wide margins in the texts are for readers to add their own notes (a reason both for and against buying second hand).

That said, my most annotated book is the Audit Practice Board standards and guidance and in that one there is hardly any spare space at all (and you almost need a magnifying glass to read the writing in it).

One key issue that you may be missing is that with the ACCA qualification you are very much learning the syllabus rather than learning a book. Whilst the publishers attempt to get as much into the books as they can the whole subject matter is huge and the examiner can pull from any of it providing that it falls within the syllabus.

The Kaplan or BPP texts are great starting points but they very much need to be read in conjunction with the ACCA reading list for that paper. As examples, at P1 you will also need to buy Exploring Corporate Strategy by Johnson, Scholes and Whittington. For F9 you will need Management and Cost Accoounting by Colin Drury.

No wonder I now need glasses as I think that I must have worn my eye's out with this lot.

Trust me. As you progress you will get to love the Kaplan texts.

As for personality in the books... No, I would have real difficulty taking a book seriously if it was trying to be freindly. I want serious books for a serious subject but I want to think myself rather than simply be told which is why I prefer the Kaplan style over BPP's.

Of course, you could also try the GTG texts? I really don't like those one's but some people do.

You should always try several texts to find which approach suits your learning style and for some papers you will find that you need to buy both texts plus additional books in order to understand the subject.

Hope that helps,

Shaun.