ACCA OPENTUITION EXAM TIPS DEC 2011

ACCA OPENTUITION EXAM TIPS DEC 2011

F4 Corporate and Business Law-ENG

Numbers indicate questions to practice from BPP Revision kit
Precedent, ratio and obiter (6)
Consideration (24)
Terms (28)
Lifting the veil (63)
Resolutions and meetings (84)
Redundancy – explanation and rules (48
Auditors – qualifications, duties and powers (94 and 95)
Invitation, offer, counter-offer, scenario
Directors’ appointment and removal (88)
Alteration of Articles and binding force (69 and 70)
Compulsory and voluntary winding-up (98)
Shares and debentures (75)
Bribery Act ( Student Accountant article )

F5 Performance Management

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

F6 Taxation - UK

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.

F7 Financial Reporting

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

F8 Audit and Assurance

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

F9 Financial Management

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

P1 Governance, Risk & Ethics

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

P2 Corporate Reporting

q1 Vertical group, maybe a “D” shape, Statement of Financial Position,
some ethics or corporate governance
q2 Accounting treatment, possibly complicated inventory or substance over
form – but it could be any IAS / IFRS / Framework-based question
q3 “Various IAS accounting treatment” ( 3 or 4 different IASs rather than
a specific one as in q2 )
q4 Role of IFRS, the need for and an understanding

P3 Business Analysis

Q1 Normal appraisal and advice. Perhaps with takeovers and expected values
Q2 Marketing, particularly pricing
Q3 Project – project initiation documents and gateways
Q4 Strategic use of IT
Q5 Strategy and people

P4 Advanced Financial Management

Section A
Big investment appraisal / cost of capital calculation
Managing interest rate risk
Section B
Managing foreign exchange risk
Capital asset pricing model
Written on quantitative easing

P5 Advanced Performance Management

EVA
Non financial performance measures
Information needs of different business structures
Different approaches to budgeting; beyond budgeting

P6 Advanced Taxation - UK

P7 Advanced Audit and Assurance (INT)

q1 reply to an email from a partner about a new audit assignment /
assurance engagement planning exercise – maybe where there was a suspicion
of fraud last year and a change in management
q2 an ethical problem with conflict of interest implications
q3 roles and contrast of internal / external auditors, the need for and
justification of an internal audit function
q4 criticise an audit report
possible question – comment on the matters and identify the evidence you
would expect to find in the review process of an audit file