ACA Exams

Claire21

Hi

I was just wondering if anyone sat the financial accounting top-up exam yesterday for ACA? And is so, how did you find it?

Ive just recently started ACA in Sept after finishing my AAT.

mowzer

Hi

I sat the paper in newcastle yesterday, and still recovering!

I started aca in sept as well, didn't even find FA that bad (was doing audit as well) but totally ran out of time in the exam.

I didn't have time to finish the last question properly, only did half of it so definitely lost 5 marks already :crying:

How did you find it?

I'm trying to focus on the marks i think i should have got and trying to tell myself it's enough for more than 55%, but I'm not convinced!

Hope you had a better experience

:001_smile:

Claire21

Yes i sat the FA and audit in newcastle yesterday aswell!

I started well with the FA, went straight into the income statement and think I only messed up with the b/fwd minority interest.. so feel ok about that.

The last question I totally messed up the first half with the cashflow extracts, got confused and left it out so I lost 5 marks there too! The second half I think was ok, got a load of points down. But I panicked when I saw I only had about 3 mins left so just had to guess with all the OT questions. Think I've definitely failed!

How did you find audit?

I think the time pressure is just so ridiculous for the FA exam. Its practically impossible!

AdamR

I only got onto ACA in October and so only had the FA top-up to worry about but that didn't make it any easier! I did the OTs first, looked at question 2 and gave up, and went to do question 1. Think i've made a mess of that so I'm not holding out much hope. I did have a crack at question 2 in the end but only on the differences between UK and IFRS bit..

Annoyingly, I was scoring 80+% on the mocks!

7 weeks until results:001_unsure:

mowzer

I feel so relieved reading your posts. I got high marks in fa mocks too so I had actualy been confident for that one!

There are lots more marks to be picked up from just writing things than getting the right answer to the income statement, so you might have got more marks than you think.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up though just in case :001_unsure:

I thought audit was loads better, the question asking for the two columns seemed pretty straightforward and it was worth 25 marks. Having said that, my answer to the last one (the audit report one) didn't look like it was anywhere near worth 18 marks...

How did you find it?

Btw Claire were you at kaplan?

Claire21

Yes mowzer, I go to Kaplan, FT in Newcastle. And Im the same, I have passed all of the mocks Ive taken for both FA and Audit. The FA Top-up mock I did during the revision week I managed to pass even though every figure I had worked out was wrong, so Im holding a teeny bit of hope for the exam...

Im just trying not to think too much about where I might have got marks from, I was doing it straight after the FA exam and worked myself right up about it just before Audit!!!

I found the audit paper to be quite ok, I got finished within the time aswell - just! The last question was worth 20 marks I think, it seemed a lot of marks for it though. I wrote about a page for each scenario (but my handwriting is huge).

I just wish I could find out straight away how Ive done rather than wait till the end of Jan, its so frustrating!

mowzer

Yeah waiting is really frustrating, it's not as long as for the aat at least, but i'm quite worried about these...

That's really enouraging though about the mock you passed, so maybe it isn't so bad.

I was totting up marks I thought I should have got after the exam too, went to starbucks and just sat traumatised staring into space for about 45 mins with my calculator. Must've looked like a complete lunatic, and it really didn't help to do it before audit cos it turned me into a nervous wreck.

Never mind, it's all part of the fun, roll on 23(/6/9?) of January!

mowzer

So, how did you do?

AdamR

Somehow passed AFAT! Completely messed up section 1 but I guess the £20 note I attached to the back of the paper was enough to keep the marker happy!:tongue_smilie:Only disappointing thing is that my boss found out before I got back off holiday to tell him:sad:

1 down, 5 to go!

How did you do?

mowzer

I passed mine too, done top up and audit now so only 7 left till end of aca...

I looked at the statistics and only 65% of people passed the fa top up, compared with between 78 and 80% for other papers, so it was definitely a hard one. Congratulations on passing :001_smile:.

I'm finding it hard to feel happy though with so many still left to sit!

Oh well onwards and downwards to bs and bf :thumbup:

AdamR

Congratulations, well done! I've got a meeting with the boss tomorrow (hopefully) to talk about what I'm doing next - I'd like to do two in June but it's a lot of money and time off for a small practice:sad: Still, you never know!

mowzer

Good luck with that. I work in a small practice and they don't mind the time off, I think the way they look at it is the sooner you get qualified the sooner they can hike up your charge out rate, you could always try suggesting that to your boss!

And if you're only allowed to do one at a time look on the bright side, you're more likely to pass them all first time :001_smile: