Open Tuition


q1 Internal control problems, role of the Chair, the contribution that neds
can make to corporate governance
q2 Corporate social responsibility – why and what
q3 Internal auditors and their role in managing risk
q4 Ethical problems – possibly a money laundering situation
possible question – instead of any of those last three – a numbers question

BPP
In the long 50 mark scenario question you can expect to see all areas of the syllabus being tested. For this reason you should ensure that you have not neglected any of the broad syllabus areas of governance, risk and ethics. The topic of risk can be further subdivided between risk and control.
Some good areas of governance to look at are agency, stakeholders and directors’ remuneration.
Don’t neglect internal control reporting.
Ethical theories get tested regularly, and professional codes of ethics are an important part of the syllabus. The examiner did not touch environmental issues in the June exam – you should ensure you brush up on these too.
Kaplan tips
•Corporate governance: external factors – stock exchanges & Company secretary
•Normative / instrumental stakeholder views
•Ethical Decision making – Tucker/AAA
•Risk perception and ALARP
•Directors Performance Evaluation
First Intuition
50 mark scenario question, to include: TARA risk model, ethics, absolutist v relativism, chairman and CEO powers need to be separate, also corporate social responsibility, ISO 14001
Optional questions to include: importance of internal control, NEDs and remuneration committee, business risks, Grays Owens and adams
Icount
•Transaction cost versus agency theories
•Board committees
•Risk management and the role of internal audit
•Controlling organisational risks
•Absolutist versus relativist ethical theories
•Professional ethics
ATC
History shows that the ‘well prepared candidate’ stands by far the highest probabiliuty of passing exams.
Exam Tip
Being well prepared means at the very least:
* Working through all of the sessions within your study (on the basis that a good study system covers the whole syllabus and not just a ‘best guess’ 70%.
* Working through all past exam questions and completing all monitoring/progress tests and mock exams under full exam conditions.
* Reading all the examiner’s and other subject articles – they do not write for fun. Note that examiners no longer write articles for the forthcoming exam – so articles that are at least six months old could be very relevant.
* Careful study of the examiner’s reports on past exams. These contain excellent tips of what students should NOT be doing.
* Ignoring ‘exam tips’ that are just a list of somebody’s favourite topics.
* Regularly visiting http://www.accaglobal.com/students
I have read various social pages, discussion of which tuition provider is the best at ‘tipping’ – none of us are! It is a myth – as this is P1, is it morally and ethically acceptable for a provider to mislead students into thinking that if they ‘go for’ the tips, they will pass?
At the 2011 ACCA Teachers Conference all examiners while understanding the desperation of students for exam tips, clearly ststed that such tips were a danger to a student’s ability to pass and MUSt be ignored.If you are not prepared to become a ‘well prepared student’ then I suggest you buy a Euro Lottery ticket. You will have a 1 in 75m chance of winning the jackpot and never needing to be a well prepared for any further ACCA exam – good luck!
The examiner – David Campbell
The examiner has now settled into his style and format. No changes are expected. Therefore attempting the last 4 real exams under exam conditions and then reviweing your answer along with the relevant examiner’s report is an essential pre-exam exercise.
David has made it perfectly clear that follwoing ‘exam tips’ is a sure way to fail the exam. He stresses the importance of covering the whole syllabus but even then students should not expect a pass just from being able to rote learn theory. Far too many students, for example, are able to list and describe ethical theories, but then completely fail to apply such theories to a practical scenario. Without real world thinking, exam tips are totally irrrelevant.
Do not be surprised to see a scenario within at least one of the questions, especially Q1, that you may recognise from a past corporate event. the examiner makes it clear that he bases his questions on real life – and the credit crunch/banking crisis of the last few years provides plenty of sources to cover just about every area within the syllabus!
Exam Technique
The diffreence between passing and failing is only one mark. Ensure you attempt ALL parts of Q1 and of the 2 questions you select from section B.
AREAS TO CONCENTRATE ON:
* Corpporate governance concepts, underlying fundamentals and arrangements.
* CG in other organisations eg public services, NGOs.
* Types and forms of CG, eg rules based, principles based, insoder, outsider systems, UK Corporate Governance Code, SoX (not sex – concentrate!)
* Agency theory, stakeholders, Mendelow.
* Board striuctures, CEO/chaiorman, directors, NEDs, committees.
* Internal control and business risk, Turnbull.
* Ethical theories and business codes – Kohlberg, Gray, Owen and Adams, Tucker, AAA.
* Professions and the public interest.
* Corporate social responsibility, corporate citizen, footprints and sustainability.
* Social and environmental auditing.
That just about covers the syllabus.
EXP
• Agency problem and agency monitoring costs.
• The harm to reputation that can be done by lack of transparency / openness.
• Absolutist/ relativist ethics
• Benefit of separation of chairman and CEO -possibly during a period of crisis (the chairman should deal with the public relations while the CEO manages the detail of the crisis)
• Balancing stakeholder claims.
• Corporate social responsibility perspectives.
• Risk and control –including internal control assessment.

Open tuition


1 Valuation of shares using PE ratio and using the dividend growth model (including using betas and using asset beta formula)
2 Investment appraisal – replacement and/or capital rationing and/or lease v buy
3 Receivables management (whether or not to offer discounts)
4 Part a) Rights issue and effect on some financial ratios
Part b) Foreign exchange risk management

BPP
Important areas to cover:
WACC: – any element of the WACC could be tested, including cost of equity, preference shares & different types of debt, along with their corresponding market values & then putting all of this together to calculate the WACC.
Investment decisions: the exam normally contains a question involving net present value (NPV), often with tax and inflation. In order to discount the NPV, you may be asked to first calculate a weighted average cost of capital (see above)
Working capital: questions on inventory management and receivables management are likely. Ensure that you are comfortable with working capital ratios as you may have to be able to put these in reverse
Sources of finance: a topical area, we would expect a part question on financing problems covering gearing issues and problems companies. Ratio analysis is likely to feature here with discussion of the numbers calculated. Ensure you are comfortable with the calculations of the different sources of finance. Islamic Finance was new on the syllabus for the June 11 exam but was not tested. It is possible it may come up in Dec 11, though if it does, it should be straightforward knowledge for a few marks only.
Business Valuations: commonly tested and a core syllabus area. The examiner often combines different syllabus areas within the same exam question – for example asking you to calculate a cost of equity and then use it to value a company.
Kaplan tips
Investment appraisal
The most common technique assessed is NPV with inflation and taxation although be prepared for a twist.
Working Capital Management
It’s been a while since we’ve seen the more numerical aspects surrounding receivables management or the models for cash management.
Risk Management
Foreign exchange risk has been examined more often than interest rate risk. However, both are fairly under-examined areas of the syllabus as a whole and so this is a topic worth being on top of.
First Intuition
Discussion of the economic environment and the impact on interest and exchange rates
Working capital management
Investment appraisal and cost of capital
Business valuation
Icount
•Net Present Value
•Working Capital Management
•Types of finance and WACC – change in Business Risk
•Analysing performance – financial & non financial measures
•PE and DVM valuations
ATC
The examiner identifies eight key areas of the syllabus:
• role of the financial management function
• impact of the economic environment on financial management
• working capital management
• investment appraisal
• alternative sources of business finance
• cost of capital
• business and asset valuations
• foreign exchange and interest rate risk management
The exam consists of four compulsory 25-mark questions. All questions will have computational and discursive elements. The examiner tries to test as much of the syllabus as possible, often combining several topics within one question. Hence candidates must have solid knowledge of all the topics listed above.
Candidates are provided with a formulae sheet and tables of discount and annuity factors. Candidates should bring a scientific calculator to the examination. It is essential to carefully work through the Pilot Paper and the December 2007 – June 2011 exams to become familiar with the style, time pressure and level of difficulty.
The examiner has written four articles in the Student Accountant magazine – “Capital Asset Pricing Model (parts 1-3)” and “Market matters”. In March 2009 an article called “Being an angel” appeared and, although shown on the ACCA website under the link to paper P4 Advanced Financial Management, is arguably more relevant to the paper F9 syllabus which specifically refers to finance for SME’s.
The September 2009 article “Receivables collection” focuses on the commonly tested topics of settlement discounts and debt factoring. Other key articles include “Advanced investment appraisal” (October 2010) and “Foreign exchange risk and its management” (July 2010). Islamic finance was added to the syllabus from June 2011 and has yet to be examined – ensure you read, summarize and memorize the March 2011 article on this topic. All these articles can be downloaded from the ACCA website. If you seek further insights into the examiner’s mind you could consider his book “Corporate Finance – Principles and Practice” (Denzil Watson and Antony Head). However your exam preparation should focus on question practice.
Exam Tips
• The Miller-Orr model and Baumol model
• IRR
• Islamic finance (for more detail refer to the March 2011 Student Accountant article)
• SME finance (for more detail refer to the September 2001 article “Business finance and the SME sector”)
• Rights issues
• Equity valuation
• Interest rate risk
Exam Technique
• Attempt all parts of all questions
• Allow yourself 45 minutes per question and allocate you time carefully between the requirements
• Do not try to pass the exam by only performing calculations (or by only making discussion)
• In calculations show your workings and write your assumptions
• When asked to comment upon your calculations do not be afraid to do so even if you think your calculations contain errors – you can still get maximum marks for comments. If you could not perform the required calculation then write an assumed result and comment upon that.
• Structure your comments using sub-headings and bullet points (but write a full sentence after each bullet).
• Give real life examples where appropriate to support your comments – extra marks may be awarded
• Keep your presentation clear
EXP
• Using the Dividend Valuation Model;
• Working capital management calculations;
• The impact of gearing on the cost of equity;
• Calculating the cost of redeemable and irredeemable debt;
• The definition of Free Cash Flow;
• Calculating written down allowances and taxation effects;
• Calculating the value of a right (rights issues);
• Comparing leasing vs. borrowing alternatives;
• Understanding treasury hedging techniques using derivatives;
• Basic familiarity with Islamic finance instruments

Open Tuition

Q1 Inventory; stock count; computer assisted auditing techniques
Q2 Internal audit v external audit; parts of an assurance engagament
Q3 Corporate governance
Q4 Going concern and audit reports
Q5 Sampling


BPP
Q1 (30 marks)
This question will be based on a scenario and incorporate between 3 and 5 distinct requirements.
The areas most likely to be tested in this question include audit planning and the identification and explanation of audit risk, audit procedures (substantive tests and/ or tests of control) and internal control.
Q2 (10 marks)
This will be a factual or knowledge based question. It is likely to cover several areas of the syllabus with 2 or 3 separate requirements worth between 2 and 5 marks each.
Topics for Question 2 can be drawn from all areas of the F8 syllabus and questions could include the responsibilities of directors and auditors as well as other definitions such as audit risk, audit assertions, audit regulation and corporate governance.
Q3, Q4 & Q5 (20 marks each)
These questions will be scenario based but will also include some knowledge based requirements.
Areas which are likely to be covered in these questions include ethics, planning, the audit of specific transactions or account balances (including estimates), subsequent events, management representations, going concern, audit reports, internal control and corporate governance.
Note that the scenario may be set in the context of a profit making or non-profit making organisation.
Kaplan tips
•Ethics including fundamental principles/confidentiality
•Evidence: payroll, inventory, share capital, reserves, opening balances
•Specific standards/topics:
− ISA 530 (sampling)
− ISA 220 (review of working papers)
First Intuition
Q1 Substantive audit procedures and tests of control on a key area of the Statement of Financial Position eg inventories or non-current assets
Q2 Short 10-marker on ISAs eg audit reports, fraud & error
Q3 ‘Identifying and explaining’ the threats to auditor independence and ways of managing them
Q4 Management letter; identify the weaknesses, consequences and recommendations in a particular company
Q5 Subsequent events
Icount
•System deficiencies and controls
•Corporate governance
•Audit assertions and appropriate audit procedures.
•Written representations
•Ethics and safeguards.
ATC
History shows that the “well prepared candidate” stands by far the highest probability of passing examinations.
Exam Tip
BE WELL PREPARED.
Being well prepared means, at the very least:
Working through all of the sessions within your study system (on the basis that a good study system covers the whole syllabus and not just a “best guess” 70%).
Working through all past examination questions and completing all monitoring/progress tests and mock examinations under full examination conditions.
Reading all of the examiner’s and other subject articles – they do not write for fun. Note that examiners no longer write articles for the forthcoming examination – so articles that are at least six months old could be very relevant (e.g. the articles on analytical review and ratios for the December 2011 examination).
Careful study of the examiner’s reports on past examinations. These contain excellent tips of what students should NOT be doing.
Ignoring “Exam Tips” that are just a list of somebody’s favourite topics.
Regularly visiting http://www.accaglobal.com/students
At the 2011 ACCA Teachers’ Conference ALL examiners, whilst understanding the desperation of students for examination tips, clearly stated that such tips were a danger to a student’s ability to pass and MUST be ignored. Giving tips should be banned as they do more harm than good.
Having said that, it is only fair that I share with you what I thought was a “slip of body language” by the F8 examiner, Pami Bahl, in one of her presentations at the ACCA conference. As always, make sure you take a calculator into the exam with you as there may be a question coming up on materiality, dealing with errors and extrapolation of test results. It may be in December or even next June (2012) as examiners tend to write two or three exams ahead. Or, of course, I completely misread the situation.
Pami Bahl
Pami Bahl, the examiner, does not leave an audit trail for you to follow to identify what will be in her next examination. Just because a subject was examined in the previous examination does not mean that it will not be revisited in December.
Ensure you regularly visit the ACCA student website for all F8 articles, e.g. her article on her examination approach is essential reading. Reading this article and Pami’s examiner’s reports makes it clear that her examination questions will be practical and a purely theoretical study approach is unlikely to bring success. Her past exams have also shown a tendency for her to ask some “off the wall” elements within the questions – “out of the box” thinking required.
In addition to noting the guidance set out above, students should make use of ACCA past examination papers, pay close attention to articles published in Student Accountant and should read the Examiner’s review of the last examination session at http://www2.accaglobal.com/students/acca/exams/f8/reports.
EXP
• The audit of bank balances and investments
• Going concern issue and its impact on the financial statements
• Ethical issues – providing non-audit services to clients
• Management letter with weaknesses of internal controls
• Differentiation between fraud and error

Open tuition
q1 Consolidated balance sheet with subsidiary and associate
q2 Preparation of SoFP and SoI ( maybe Statement of changes in equity
too ) after making adjustments to trial balance or draft accounts
q3 Cash flow ( probably with an element of interpretation )
q4 Development expenditure – chat and short calculation
q5 IFRS9 – 10 mark chat


BPP
Q1: Consolidated SOCI and/or SOFP with one subsidiary plus associate with intragroup adjustments and fair value adjustments. May include written part on a group topic.
Q2: SOCI and SOFP preparation from TB or restatement with usual adjustments for depreciation, revaluation, current/deferred tax plus others such as leases/substance, financial instruments (change in FV or amortised cost). May include discontinued operation/EPS/SOCIE.
Q3: Interpretation and/or statement of cash flows. Could focus on specific part of SOCF or specific ratios.
Q4 & Q5: One question in context of conceptual framework, and the other containing one or two discrete topics, such as regulatory framework, inflation, government grants, discontinued operations, impairments, deferred tax, leases or intangible assets.
Kaplan tips
Question 1
Consolidated statement of financial position including an associate.
Possible adjustments to include:
deferred consideration/share exchange
net asset fair value adjustments
intra-group loan/current account
Question 2
Preparation of financial statements from trial balance including a SOCIE
Possible adjustments to include:
revaluation
financial liabilities
revenue recognition
tax and deferred tax
Question 3
Possible mixed cash flow/interpretation question to include:
calculation of ratios and a short interpretation exercise using the statement of cash flow and ratio results.
Questions 4 and 5
Leases
Impairment
Intangible asset
Investment property
First Intuition
Q1 Consolidated SFP, with associate, deferred consideration, Pups and fair value adjustment downwards
Q2 Single company accounts questions, including contract, lease, and intangible assets
Q3 Statement of cash flow and comments there on with no ratios
Q4 The framework with computation for no current assets
Q5 IAS 37/IAS 12 and deferred tax computation
Icount
•Consolidated group accounts with parent, sub and associate – with intergroup trading, items in transit and FV adjustments.
•Redraft of single entity accounts with adjustments 3. Statement of Cashflow with liquidity ratios.
•EPS/Construction Contracts
•Features of a finance lease, with computations.
ATC
The examiner is Steve Scott, and he has written an article in July 2010 Student Accountant relating to IFRS 3 group accounts. This is no major indicator as we know that Q1 will be a consolidation issue, however, please ensure that you have read this article.
The June 2010 pass rate from this paper was very poor, at 28%, and ACCA have now enhanced the F7 guidance for students in their website. Please ensure that you do visit the F7 specific area of the website and read the various articles included. It should be noted that these articles have not been written by the examiner but they should all be helpful in increasing your knowledge base. The December 2010 pass rate showed a marked improvement to 47% but the June 2011 pass rate was again very poor at 38%.
Q1 will be a consolidation question.
Q2 will be a final accounts question.
Q3 will be a ratio analysis or cash flow question or a mixture of the two.
One of the main reasons students fail the exam is their inability to write and discuss accounting issues, many students focus on the numerical parts of the exam, which may only account for 65% of the marks. You must ensure that you are able to write and discuss about financial reporting issues.
Exam Tips
Common areas that feature on a regular basis in the exam are as follows
• Leases
• Revenue recognition
• Substance vs form
• Convertible instruments (IAS 39)
• Accounting for taxation
• Accounting for assets, particularly IAS 16
Important areas that have not been examined in either question 4 or question 5 include the following
• Accounting for Taxation
• Lease accounting
• Impairment of assets
In the October 2011 issue of Student Accountant the examiner has written an article on the conceptual and regulatory framework that underpins IFRS. This topic features on a regular basis as a question 4 in the exam.
Exam Technique
Don’t forget the following advice while in the exam:
• Answer all questions, including the written elements of questions. It is very difficult to pass the exam by learning the numbers.
• Cross reference your workings, they are an integral part of your answer.
• Make sure you get the sign the right way round with any cash flows, the examiner sometimes only awards the marks if the sign is correct.
• Answer the question set, not the one you wished had been set, focus on the requirements especially relating to the written part of the answers.
• Look at the marks available for each part of the question, do not write pages of answers for a 3 mark part similarly if the question has allocated 6 marks then make sure you adequately answer that part, a line is not enough to get you 6 marks.
• For a 25 mark question you should be spending no more than 45 minutes on it.
EXP
Q1: Consolidated income statement, with associate, fair value adjustments, provisions for unrealized profit, intra group dividends;
Q2: Single company accounts from trial balance, including finance lease, revaluations, provisions, investments;
Q3: Question on interpretation of ratios;
Q4,Q5: Mixed transactional: IAS8, IAS18, IAS12, IAS17.

Open Tuition

F6 is very predictable so no tips as such Practise as many exam standard questions as you can. Make sure you do to time.
After the 15 minute reading time you have 1.8 minutes per mark. If a question is split between part (a) 10 marks and part (b) 10 marks then only spend 18 minutes on part (a) and then move on to part (b).
Look at all the requirements of the question, can you answer an easy parts first, for example one part maybe standalone and on something very straightforward, so do this part first You do not have to answer the questions in the order they are set, if question 5 is the easiest do this one first.
Question 3 will be the hardest so leave this until last but make sure you leave 36 minutes to answer it. Do not panic if you can’t remember something in a question, don’t spend too much time trying to remember it, have a go or even guess. Then you can move on to other parts of the question. Above all you need 50% to pass, so find the marks you can do. There will always be more than 50% of the question which is examining core areas of the syllabus, only a few marks will be fringe areas, but you do not have to worry about these as you can find the 50 marks you need to pass.


BPP
Question 1 will test income tax with maybe a VAT section attached as a separate part. The income tax will focus on a self employed individual with property income and some investment income. The VAT section could look at calculation of VAT payable, penalties and special schemes.
Question 2 will test corporation tax and could involve a long period of account, capital allowance computations for plant and machinery, computation of corporation tax payable and payment of tax.
Question 3 will test capital gains tax from an individuals’ perspective. This question will involve a number of different disposals involving entrepreneurs’ relief, part disposals, chattels and shares with a computation of capital gains tax payable. It is possible this question could alternatively involve a company disposing of shares.
Question 4 & 5 will test anything else. Possible topics that may be examined here are:
- commencement, cessation and change of accounting date rules for sole traders and partnerships
- inheritance tax testing the inheritance tax liabilities on lifetime gifts and as a result of the individual’s death.
- Group relief
- Overseas aspects of corporation tax
- Self assessment system
- Badges of trade
- Corporation tax loss relief
Kaplan tips
Income tax
Husband and wife
Joint investment income
Adjustment of profits
Income tax trading loss
Corporation tax
Capital allowances including IBA
Penalties for late filing of return
Interest on late payment of corporation tax
VAT
VAT return – including some discounts and impaired debts relief
Cash accounting scheme/Flat rate scheme
First Intuition
Resident status
BIKS and employment v self employment
Badges of trade
Adjustment of profits
Basis periods – change of year end
Capital allowances
Partnerships
Property profit
Income tax computation
Corporation tax with group relief
CGT – chattels, PPR, rollover relief, gift relief
NI – Class 1,2 and 4
VAT – cash accounting, default surcharge
Payments on account
Icount
•Adjustments to accounting profits to calculate income tax of a sole trader.
•Corporation tax basic groups.
•Chargeable gains for individuals or companies.
•Accounting for VAT, including registration dates.
•Income tax losses.
EXP
• Income tax comprising employment income (including bank interest and dividends –remember to gross up at 20% and 10% respectively) and trading income. Possibly husband and wife scenario or individual that has both employment and trading income. Additional rate taxpayer and/or PA restriction.
• Employment income to include accommodation, car and fuel benefit with provision of benefit part way through the year (apportion the benefit)
• Adjustment of trading profits
• Calculation of corporation tax with a marginal relief calculation.
• Capital allowances calculation (including AIA, special rate pool and 100% FYA on low emission cars).
• Inheritance tax on lifetime gifts and as a result of the individual’s death.
• Capital gains reliefs including PPR, rollover, gift relief and entrepreneurs’ relief.
• Corporation tax group relief.
• VAT –VAT payable and special schemes

Open Tuition
Target costing / Lifecycle costing / Environmental Management Accounting (short written part)
Multi-product cost volume profit analysis
Budgetting (written part) / Time series / regression analysis
Planning and Operational variances
Performance measurement – financial and non-financial / Transfer pricing


BPP
Specialist Cost and Management Accounting Techniques: Environmental accounting techniques have not yet been tested under the new syllabus, so could feature. Throughput accounting featured numerically in June. ABC vs AC or target costing is also possible.
Decision making techniques: There is a trend for pricing to be examined with other areas of the syllabus, for example learning curves. Relevant costing, CVP, make or buy or other short term decisions could feature as dealing with risk and uncertainty and limiting factors have featured recently.
Budgeting: Discussion marks often focus on the appropriateness of budgeting types or the behavioural impacts of types of budgeting. Numerically it could be tested via time series as a forecasting method.
Standard costing & variance analysis: Variances are likely to feature in the exam, students should be prepared for mix and yield variances, planning and operational variances as well as the basic variances and operating statements. Questions typically require thought about the most appropriate layout and could include discussion of variances which have already been calculated.
Performance Measurement and Control: In June, there was a change in emphasis, with this being the first paper not to contain a question focusing on interpretation of performance and financial vs. non financial measures. Detailed knowledge could instead be required on any of the performance measurement tools. Transfer pricing has not been examined recently, so could feature.
Kaplan tips
Performance Management
•Payoff tables
•Multiproduct breakeven
•ABC
•Linear programming
First Intuition
Target costing
Life cycle costing
Relevant costing decision making
Forecasting
Fixed overhead variances
Financial and non-financial performance assessment
Transfer pricing
Icount
Linear Programming
Analysing Performance using Financial and Non Financial Indicators
Activity Based Costing
Relevant Costing
Budgeting
ATC
The examiner has warned candidates against relying on tips, and the dangers of question spotting were highlighted in the December 2010 exam, when two topics that had appeared in the June 2010 exam appeared again in December. The examiner said that the linear programming question had been done well in June 2010. It was done badly in December 2010. Many candidates had clearly assumed that since the topic was examined in June, it would not come up in December. They were wrong. Please don’t rely on any tips therefore.
Exam Tips
Rather than tipping specific topics therefore, I would just like to give some general advice. The big difference between F2 and F5 is that at F5 candidates are expected to be able to understand, and discuss the calculations they are performing, rather than just doing them, as in F2. So please make sure you are aware of the purpose of all the management accounting techniques.
Secondly, F5 requires a certain amount of interpretation. Many variance analysis questions, for example, require candidates to explain what the variance is actually showing management. The examiner has stated that many candidates are not good at this. There are many past exam questions that feature this type of skill- a good one is the question Chaff co from the June 2008 exam. Practice these types of question and review the examiner’s solution.
Finally, don’t get bogged down by the many different types of variance in your study texts. The most important variances are the “basic” variances, Materials Mix and Yield Variances, Sales mix and quantity variances and planning variances. The other variances, such as activity based are not likely to feature for a large number of marks in any exam. Your effort is better spent improving your interpretation skills than on trying to cover all the other advanced variances.
Exam Technique
Provide some short basic exam technique information for your particular paper (this can be copied and pasted from last year’s).
EXP
Advance budgeting techniques: Possibly target costing and /or lifecycle costing
Decision making techniques: CVPis a big possibility along with a “one-off” relevant costing question
Variance analysis: A mix of numbers +interpretation. Interpretation may revolve around manager performance appraisal
Budgeting: Possibly an entirely written question. If numbers are asked, learning curve is possible
Performance management:A key area, almost certain to be asked. As always, a mix of financial and non-financial factors should be considered. Make sure you are confident in this area.

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