Exam

System

Just come back from my IAC exam and I dont think I have passed!!!

Hope everyone has done ok!!

System

Re:Exam

You may have a nice surprise!

Just forget about it until results day - it'll do you no good to worry about it now.

All the best

Gem

System

Re:Exam

Hi

Good advice from Gem, I know it's easier said than done but you are better off putting it out of your mind until nearer the results day.

Best wishes
Eva

System

Re:Exam

Oh my god!

Totally with you on that one how stupid am i? Do you think i could get my trial balance to balance??

System

Re:Exam

hope it went OK for everyone

I did the IAC today. Thought some things on section 2 were a bit more iffy than i thought they were going to be. I hate questions like name 3 of this and explain this and that, but hopefully on the whole did just enough. But who knows, fingers crossed.

Chris

System

Re:Exam

Did anyone else find IAC question 2.8 weird?

The question showed a Subsidiary Sales Ledger account, but the entries on it, Bal B/F, that months invoices and Bal B/D were all credits. From past papers I see the AAT can insert a swerve ball or two, but to have a whole ledger account transposed is... verging on my definition of a 'trick question'

System

Re:Exam

can't remember how the question went

System

Re:Exam

Hi

I agree that a few of the questions in section 2 were a bit more "iffy" than i was expecting too, but on the whole it was ok.

I think there were a few basic changes in the structure/format of the questions in section 1 compared to the last two papers which we used to practice on, but nothing which we could not handle.

There was one question in section 2 that had me a bit baffled though and i think it was down to complicated wording in the question. it was the one about an invoice dated 1st December "should be paid on the 30th day of the month following the invoice date." Does anyone else find the wording a bit complicated?

Anyway let's hope the time goes by quickly so we can all get our results faster!!

System

Re:Exam

Genie

tell me a bit more about the question, I can't remember that particular set up...

System

Re:Exam

Oh No

I have only just clicked that everything was on the credit side. What an idiot. I did everything as if it was normal. Oh crap thats another flipping answer I got wrong.

I cant believe how many questions there were that required an explanation, i cant recall there being that many on previous papers. That was just mean. I hate those kinds of questions.

Am eating 2 bars of Galaxy chocolate and will sit and feel sorry for myself. (There's always June Exams I suppose)

Bex

System

Re:Exam

I agree with Genie on question 2.8 about the customers sub sales ledger - all of the entries for this account appeared to be on the wrong side of the account and I'm pretty sure it wasn't a 'trick' question because of the 2 related questions that followed. I queried this during the exam as I know others did and I was advised to answer the question 'as best I could'!

System

Re:Exam

Junglegirls, yes the question re: payment dates was not at all clear, I read it at least 20 times, and eventually changed my answers for one of the chgeques and the CHAPS payments. The 'company policy' stated, would have benefitted from using a comma in the appropriate place. As it was you could not tell whether it meant the 'xth' date following the invoice date(same month), or the 'xth' date in the month following the month of the invoice date.

p.s. The Subsid Sales account that had all credit entries had an opening balance of £10,417 CREDIT, and you had to compare it to a cheque received for £10,000. I'm sure it wasn't a 'trick question', but I do wonder what the motive was to present you with a ledger account where every entry is back to front...

System

Re:Exam

did it have anything to do with sales returns?

System

Re:Exam

Re question 2.8 Maybe there was a 'motive' as I find it hard to believe such an error could be overlooked by the people who check the exam papers prior to them being issued for examination!!!

System

Re:Exam

does anyone know when the answers will be available on the aat website?

System

Re:Exam

I am really intrigued now as to the answer to question 2.8 I didnt clock it was on the credit side of a sales ledger and answered it normally. would be interested in how some of you answered this question as I cannot figure it out even now how it should have been answered.

Chris

System

Re:Exam

I thought the vast differences between the two IAC past papers and the one we sat yesterday were really unfair. They changed the structure of the exam in so many ways. Does anyone know if a contract was formed in the question about painting the office? My understanding is that there was an offer (albeit verbal) and it was accepted, so yes a contract had been formed. We were never taught that it had to be written. I think I got about 90% on S1 but I know I got about 60% on S2 so I'm gonna fail! .... :?

System

Re:Exam

OH dear!!

Reading all of your replies has made me worse!! I didn't even think the questions you have queried were any different then what I was used to and knowing me I probably didnt read them correctly!!!

Yeah defo failed!! But as you said there is always the June exam to sit!! I really didn't want to though but such is life!!!

In Section 2 the Wages Control my mind just went blank and I just did not know what to do I didn't even balance it as I couldn't think of what side things went on!!!

Are the results issued in Feb??? And when will the answers be available online??

Thanks!

System

Re:Exam

I thought that there could not be a contract as there was no value. (he offered to do it for free)
So I answered no!

System

Re:Exam

Hi everyone

Our Tutor at the FTC posted this on our discussion board so I hope this helps people.

The chief assessor has confirmed that there was a mistake on task 2.8 in the unit 30 exam. The exams are supposed to have been 'tested' to make sure that there were no errors, so how on earth this happened I'm not sure!

The AAT will have to adjust their marking scheme accordingly to take this into account.

System

Re:Exam

Stop press:

The AAT have confirmed that there were errors in IAC Q2.8!

System

Re:Exam

Knew it! Do you think we'll get additional marks for spotting the error!!!

System

Re:Exam

I also stated that a contract was formed. But after thinking about it afterwards it was not legally binding, so i think that it may be an other question i have wrong!! I am not feeling confident about section 2.

System

Re:Exam

Me too. I have to say that I have really struggled to inwardly digest any of the legal stuff though.

System

Re:Exam

Latest info on website suggests the paper will be available next week. Dont know aboutn anyone else but Ive done every past exam (PLB &IAC) and have never encountered one like this! :roll:

Also did everyone else cover wages before the exam, our group definately didnt so I lost all the mark for the wage control account as its quite a complicated calcualtion to establish the figures that need to be entered. Very unfair I thought and nver been touched on in past papers. Qustion on invoice payment dates was very ambiguous, must have done it at least 3 times before I decided to leave in the lap of the Gods :!: :evil:
Niki

System

Re:Exam

The AAT have said 'questions' will be out next week, but I have seen no indication that answers will be released next week or any time soon...

FTC issued a revision pack, with the two real past IAC exams, and four others that FTC had written... just so you had more to practise on. If I recall the Wages/WSCA did come up in one of those (I forget which one now).

Re: invoice payment dates, the lack of punctuation in the 'company policy' stated, meant you could have interpreted the payment dates in two ways, which would have altered the correct answer to two of the four payment dates required. However, the assumptions at the very beginning of the exam included, to assume 'Today is 30th November, unless you are specifically told otherwise'. So, on that basis, as you were not told otherwise in the question, that determined what the uncertain payment date had to be for one of the cheques (the only alternative would have been to schedule payment, for a two odd weeks previously, i.e. not possible). On the same basis, that meant the CHAPS payment would be made in some time in January (I forget the date). But in this case you would have sat on an invoice for something like 6 weeks, only to pay a large fee to rush to pay it same day by CHAPS (business sense would suggest you would pay it a few days earlier by cheque). I'm waiting to see the questions again before I comment to the AAT on this one, but yes the wording struck me as atrocious... we shall see!

Surprising AAT have nothing to say (yet) about #2.8; maybe they have not worked out how to mark it yet! My frustration is that if they had set the question correctly, it was intended to be answered quite easily (a minute for two?), in return for one or two marks. However, the best answer possible in the circumstances (i.e. along the lines of 'your question is wrong, but if I am right, this is what you meant, and here is the answer'...) was so far out, anyone who got it right must have spent some time thinking it through many times. It certainly took me 10-15 minutes to get something down approaching a 'best' answer. Will I still only get 1-2 marks, for time I wasted and could have used profitably elsewhere? There is almost a case for bonus marks if you got it right, and not being penalised if you didn't...

Hmmm!

System

Re:Exam

With regard to the question about which method of payment to use chaps, cheque, bacs etc, I thought it was quite straight forward which leads me to think i have misunderstood the question completely on hearing some things on the thread. It sounds like it wasnt as easy as i thought. My interpretation was that the invoices were to be paid by a certain method by the 15th of the month after the date of the invoice, so since the date of invoices on the exam were all after the 15th Nov I put down the method of payment to be used for each and all of the invoices to be paid by 15th Dec.

Have i completely misunderstood the question?


Chris

System

Re:Exam

I agree with a great number of comments here. I think the AAT are going to have a hard time working out some kind of fair marking system. They could just give everyone full marks for the two main 'problem' questions, ie the one with the postings on the wrong side and the one regarding invoice dates.... As for the change of structure in the questions, i think that's just bad luck for us all, but if you learned the course work thoroughly enough they were not too difficult to answer.

I personally feel that I have done enough to pass, BUT there were definitely some students I spoke to after the exam who say they were so completely thrown by it all and the seeds of doubt set in and they changed all their debits to credits and credits to debits!!!!!! I feel for them and I believe that they should demand a free re-sit in June at the very least!!

System

Re:Exam

They could just give everyone full marks for the two main 'problem' questions, ie the one with the postings on the wrong side and the one regarding invoice dates.... As for the change of structure in the questions, i think that's just bad luck for us all, but if you learned the course work thoroughly enough they were not too difficult to answer.

I expect different people will have differing opinions, depending on how they feel they did...
But re #2.8. I talked to people who said they found it straight forward, simply because they did not notice the reversed entries! With your suggestion people who took a minute and got it wrong, would be equally rewarded as those who took much longer to get it 'more right'. That does not seem fair.

Invoice dates. The wording was so curious (to me), I'm going to wait to see the paper before I discuss it further. No point alarming anyone here unecessarily meanwhile...

Re: lay-out, agree. With a new exam we had the disadvantage of not many past papers to get a feel from, but this applied equally to all of us, and you can't expect the same questions to come up each time.

I personally feel that I have done enough to pass, BUT there were definitely some students I spoke to after the exam who say they were so completely thrown by it all and the seeds of doubt set in and they changed all their debits to credits and credits to debits!!!!!! I feel for them and I believe that they should demand a free re-sit in June at the very least!!

Really, that would be very unforunate, as a six month delay could have a major impact on some students plans (it would mine!). Perhaps the AAT should identify people who changed their entries as you describe, and have some interim test for them?

Working all this out, is probably why it is taking them some time to address the issue!

System

Re:Exam

I also think it would be very unfair if the examiners do not mark question 2.8 at all. Credit were credit is due to those who spotted the error ( I made a note of this on the exam paper to whoever marks it). Once I had convinced myself that the question was wrong (not easy to do since you don't expect an exam question to be incorrect!) I had no problem answering it but like Genie I probably spent 20 mins in total on a question which would normally only take a couple of minutes. I don't think it would be fair if they don't mark the question at all or give full marks to everyone but I would be very interested to know how they will deal with this.

In addition, I believe that some less confident students may have looked at question 2.8 and thinking that this was how a customers sub (sales) ledger account should look (with sales invoices on the credit side), would then have gone back and changed all their answers to reflect this - not good!

System

Re:Exam

It will be very interesting to hear what the AAT has to say about this. My guess is that they will probably ignore these questions, as we don't really receive an actual result (there are only 2 results either competant or not competant) I suppose it won't be too difficult for the examiner to work out who is competant and who is not no matter what.