ACCA Articles

What worked for me: a personal perspective

In this article, our regular contributor Annette Smyth (known as ‘Bluewednesday’ on the forums) explains how she got through her ACCA exams.

There are often posts asking for the best way to get through the papers.  The purpose of this article is to explain what helped for me, what tutors have told me and how I did it!  As this is written from personal experience I have only been able to talk about the option papers that I took and have not been able to include the knowledge papers.  I have also excluded any papers which no longer appear in the syllabus.

For every paper, the absolute minimum resources I used were:
• The study text;
• The revision kit;
• Examiners reports; and
• Past papers

I also found the audio revision CD’s (such as BPP’s Success CD’s) really useful for the theory papers.

It is also worth using ‘Student Accountant’ as the examiners often write articles on issues which will come up in their papers.

Business Tax 2.3 (now F6)
This paper involved lots of rules learning and as such was a ‘rote-learning’ paper.  Sometimes there was no rhyme nor reason to why something was the case – you just have to accept that it is!  Question practise after an initial run-through of the text was essential and a thorough review of the answers was (and is) required.  This is a case where an attempt of every question in the revision guide was required.  Our tutor guaranteed that if we did every question – we would pass and he was right!

Corporate and Business law 2.2 (now F4)
I found this to be yet another ‘rote learning’ paper.  I often see posts about whether it is necessary to learn case names; I was advised that cases should be learned, if you couldn’t remember the names then just quote “in an established case….”.  Again, as with tax, sometimes cases didn’t seem to make sense and needed to be learnt.  I did find that often the same cases would be useful time and time again which was evident in past questions.

Management Accounting 2.4 (now F5/F9)
This paper was the one I was expecting to find hard.  In my previous qualification I had not enjoyed the costing style papers and at the time this one had the lowest pass rate.  This paper requires much more of an understanding of the concepts involved and rote learning is less of a benefit here.  I found much more referral to the text book was required to find things written differently to help comprehension.  Again question practise was helpful here to ensure the principles were soundly understood.

Financial Accounting 2.5 (now F7)
This paper was much more my cup of tea!  However previously I had learned UK standards but had opted to take the international variant which meant relearning accounting standards.  This is a real mixture of rote learning and understanding.  The standards do need to be learned and question practise is vital for the consolidation techniques.  What helped here was writing out mind maps for each standard, once you break them down in this way they aren’t that hard to learn.

Audit 2.6 (now F8)
Auditing is my nemesis!  I found this paper a very easy one to study for but a hard paper to score marks on.  This was definitely a reading paper where the audio CD’s would have been useful.  I have no work experience in auditing which I feel would be beneficial but even auditors would need to know the theory behind why they do what they do!  What did help me was having the most outgoing and loud ex-auditor as a tutor for some of this paper, no chance of falling asleep in his lesson and lots of real life examples.

Advanced Audit 3.1 (now P7)
Why did I take this when my previous auditing paper was such a trial for me? Simply because it was the most relevant paper to what I do in my working life.  This paper was much more interesting as it involved risk issues and a bit more common sense.  This paper looks at auditing from an audit planning point of view rather than an audit task view.  However it is really important not to forget what you learned in F8 as it is assumed knowledge.  I used an audio CD in the car to keep hammering the theory part of the paper home.

Advanced Tax 3.2 (now P6)
A monster of a paper!  All of F6 is assumed knowledge here so before taking this paper you really need to revisit the F6 text books.  The study pattern for this is similar to F6, lots of question practise required.  A good motivator for studying this paper was the fact that you only get a maximum of two bites at this particular cherry before the Finance Act changes and therefore the syllabus.  The tax examiners always write a tax update article in ‘Student Accountant’ which is essential reading.  Advanced tax builds on to the corporation tax and income tax already covered in F6 but also introduces inheritance tax.

Professional Accountant P1
This is a total theory paper where wider reading is vital.  I noticed in this paper that it helped to be working and able to draw upon personal knowledge of the business world.  That’s not to say that a full time student can’t pass this paper!  The BBC website (business section) was useful along with wider reading of key issues of corporate governance breaches.  I don’t believe it is necessary to learn the breaches of corporate governance as cases, as you do for the law paper, but I found it was easier to understand why safeguards had been put in if you understand the previous problems.  Some of the theory did require rote learning i.e. stakeholder theories.  Question practise was useful in this case as the examiner is relatively new (as is the paper) and it helps to know how he will phrase his questions.

Corporate Reporting P2 (previously 3.6)
This paper has been affectionately termed ‘the beast’.  I believe it is the hardest Professional level paper and the one that requires the most work.  Please refer to Clare Finch’s article named ‘Taming the Beast ‘for how to pass this one!  I threw everything I had at it; using the audio CD’s to reinforce the standards along with mind maps for each one.  Question practise yet again is essential especially as the examiner has not changed for years.

Business Analysis P3 (previously 3.5)
This paper is quite unusual in that it is a lot of theory with all the business models but also so much common sense.  Revising this one meant repeated writing of mind maps for each part of the syllabus involving constant reminders.  The examiner has stated that he will only use industries that can be understood no matter which country a student comes from so wider reading again helps with this paper.  The business section of the BBC website and a broadsheet newspaper gave a more comprehensive view of the business world than the textbooks could give.

This was my experience only please post any disagreements or hints of your own within the relevant forum topics.  Any comments regarding the papers which I have not discussed would be especially welcome.