Suggested time for cash flow statements

System
System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
edited June 18 in AAT student discussion
Hi

I have been practicing the cash flow statements for the new IAS standards, and both specimen exam papers say the suggested time is 30 minutes. This is impossible, at the moment it is taking about 1 hour to do. Is anyone the same? It's OK is suppose if it balances straight away!

Comments

  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Suggested time for cash flow statements

    Hi

    I haven't done cash flow statements for the new IAS standards as thankfully I passed DFS in December.

    According to my tutor it is possible to pass an exam without finishing a single question, as long you have done enough of each to show competancy. However if you run out of time and don't do enough questions in section 1 or 2 to show competancy then you fail.

    Stick to the recomended times, move onto the next question and go back at the end if you have time.

    With practice you will probably get quicker at doing them and then won't have anything to worry about. :D
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Suggested time for cash flow statements

    The key to passing any exam is your time allocation. AAT give you a time allocation and therefore if you run over you are clearly under pressure which, in turn, makes you panic and ultimately you fail the exam.

    The key thing to remember is you aren't going to pass with 100% so why get bogged down? If a question has 50 minutes devoted to it, spend 50 minutes on it and not 50.5 minutes. The reason being that the more time you spend on one question means ultimately losing marks on others, failing the question you overran on and then failing the exam.

    When I did my ACCA exams, we had 1.8 minutes per mark. I NEVER EVER EVER overran on my time and always moved on to the next question/task regardless of whether I had finished the question or not. It got me through and it is important that you don't get bogged down in certain parts of questions because you could, ultimately, end up failing.

    Forget whether the cash flow balances or not - the chances are, under exam conditions, you aren't going to balance it (I never did)!

    Kind regards and good luck
    steve
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Suggested time for cash flow statements

    Steve's advice on timing is excellent. When I sat my first set of AAT exams, no one had told me how to approach the questions or to time my answers. I remember clearly finishing the first question and being about half way through the second question when the invigilator announced there was ten minutes remaining and I still had another two questions that required answering! :shock: I remembered my tutor having said that we would get marks for the format and basically rushed out the blank balance sheets and P&Ls in my last 10 minutes.

    Somehow, I managed to scrape through and can only put it down to having learnt the blank formats so well and my over allocation of time must have meant I was close to 100% correct on what I'd done.

    I studied at a different college for the next stage where the tutors drummed in to us the importance of allocating our time. They recommended allowing 5 minutes to read through the whole paper first and then dividing the exam time in to minutes and seconds per mark and multiplying that out to get the amount of time per question. We were told not to spend any longer than our calculated time per question unless we had finished all the questions and had time to spare at the end.

    This is the way I took all my exams from that point on and recommend doing so to anyone I know who is taking exams.

    With regards to your Cashflow statements, I would recommend writing out the format first and slotting in the numbers until your time runs out. Once this happens, leave it and move on. The format will be there and gain you marks as the examiner will be able to see that you knew what you were supposed to do and just ran out of time.

    Good luck.

    T
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Suggested time for cash flow statements

    Hi

    Another point is practise. The more you do something, the quicker you can become at it. Form experience I would say that time alloted in exams is quite tight, but at the same time long enough to be able to get good marks.

    Neil
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Suggested time for cash flow statements

    Thanks for all your advice, I remember in Intermediate that I didn't balance at first, then panic set in!

    Practice makes perfect! and in a shorter time too!

Categories

Privacy Policy