Has anyone managed to sit PCR today?

Lispre

I've no idea how I'm going to manage as I'm away next June so won't have the option to resit then. Gutted because this is my last paper.

SandyHood

Purple

Well said.

I ran a number of revision days, and found a lot of requests for the answers. You have quite rightly recognised that the right answer is not as important as the method used.

I hope a lot of future exam candidates can see your response.

Sadly too many revision students start from the model answer and try to figure out "how he got that answer" rather than start with the question and applying a sensible approach.

NAJC

I can remember some answers:1.1 the per tonne costs
200
40
240
189
51

Then got 52000 tonnes at 190 per tonne. I went forward with this.

I got a higher contribution and operating profit with 52000 tonnes. Put the higher result down to lower variable costs and higher sales.

Section 2
stepped costs
i got 37500
4800
4500
2200
2800
30000
Then x these by the 7 delivery vans for the flexed budget.

Commented on adverse variances for the variable costs.

All i can remember at the mo.

Newbie

I did not manage to get in which was very depressing, I too am hoping for another paper sitting before June as PCR is my last exam, I have to agree out of all the papers the last exam of PCR was so complicated and the one i missed sounds worse! , I think they need to remember we are studing to become accounting technicians not mathematicians, I understand the requirements of the syllabus but sometimes feels the questions are designed to install confusion to a relatively competent student.

Nikkih

1.1 are all the same for me and section 2 stepped is what i go aswell

fay1984

Hi sandy, I do believe my friend did ne of your courses for PEV and really rated you. I have never been taught about buffer stock or had to deal with any questions like task 1 on PCR today, i feel the examiner is questioning this exam on topics we're not aware of and the colleges say to use past papers yet this sort of question isnt in any of them?

fay1984

NAJC wrote: »

I can remember some answers:1.1 the per tonne costs
200
40
240
189
51

Then got 52000 tonnes at 190 per tonne. I went forward with this.

I got a higher contribution and operating profit with 52000 tonnes. Put the higher result down to lower variable costs and higher sales.

Section 2
stepped costs
i got 37500
4800
4500
2200
2800
30000
Then x these by the 7 delivery vans for the flexed budget.

Commented on adverse variances for the variable costs.

All i can remember at the mo.

Well youve made me feel a little better cause if i remember rightly thats something along the lines of what ive got but after task 1.1 it went pair shaped

fay1984

Newbie wrote: »

I did not manage to get in which was very depressing, I too am hoping for another paper sitting before June as PCR is my last exam, I have to agree out of all the papers the last exam of PCR was so complicated and the one i missed sounds worse! , I think they need to remember we are studing to become accounting technicians not mathematicians, I understand the requirements of the syllabus but sometimes feels the questions are designed to install confusion to a relatively competent student.

I completely agree with you these two PCR exams are a joke. Whats more annoying is getting the results in Feb, they should offer more exam days as well

noodles

purple19m wrote: »

I sat my exam in st albans and there must of been about 10 of us there.

I went with the extra 12000 tonnes, i worked it out with the total contribution, which was higher in my calculations (not saying they were right though!), but i almost added on £10 per tonne instead of taking it off, lucky i realised!

Funny as i remembered loads when i came out of PEV but can't remember much from PCR this morning!It's a blur!


I think my operating profit was higher for the 52000 tonnes so i made comments about the sales volume and additional delivery income, i felt a bit blank this time too be honest, i hardly got any sleep last night so i didn't feel my brain was alive today.

Section 2 i found okish but the stepped costs worked out the same as budget, did anyone do the same as i was thinking this can't be right i thought there would of been more calulations there, so now i am worried ive got confused somewhere.

I commented that it should of taken 6 vehicles to complete all deliverys but the adverse varaiances were mainly due to the extra vehicle and extra mileage per delivery increased fuel and servicing cost etc

I think i messed up the budget for the vehicles though, i put 7 down @ cost of 120000, reducing by £20000 for the ones to be sold and then 3 more required @ 120000 each as i took the 52000 tonnes it would of been 8 vehicles to cover this on section 1.

I answered every question and showed every calculation so fingers crossed, i missed off the delivery data on the operating statement though, so i had to write a note at the end of setcion 1 and put it there! not sure if it will be marked but never know!

All in all i feel good i answered every question fully even if not sure i tried, but few things uncertain about, but i'ved messed up papers in the past and still passed, workings are definately important with these exams!

I am so glad you had stepped costs as per budget as I did and was convinced that this was wrong. My emails were rubbish. I found that with the flexi budget the majority costs were adverse. This is the only part i feel happy with but now it is all a blur as I had to make so many late amendments im not sure what i have done. I guess we should be thankful we managed to sit it unlike those poor people who couldnt

accounts boy

I am also agreed with these figures. The only problem was 1.2 in the exam??

fay1984

I did too accounts boy, i think their asking too much in this exam. I hope i never meet the person who wrote this exam today

noodles

NAJC wrote: »

I can remember some answers:1.1 the per tonne costs
200
40
240
189
51

Then got 52000 tonnes at 190 per tonne. I went forward with this.

I got a higher contribution and operating profit with 52000 tonnes. Put the higher result down to lower variable costs and higher sales.

Section 2
stepped costs
i got 37500
4800
4500
2200
2800
30000
Then x these by the 7 delivery vans for the flexed budget.

Commented on adverse variances for the variable costs.

All i can remember at the mo.

these all sound familiar so that is a good sign, it was just section f which was horrible, really messed it up i am sure

NAJC

1.2 was a nightmare. Had a problem working out the variable overhead from the labour hours as they did on the actual results so just left it. So i know my variable total cost is wrong but my method was right .. i think. I did the 52000 units so i think my sales came to 11960000 or something
Also needed 8 vehicles ? . Not sure about that.

2.1. was actual and budgeted figures

157 143
22500 22857 kilometres
144 160

And 2.2 was just the budgeted i believe per tonne?

my answers were
200
112
14

I just hope i have done enough on the written tasks to scrape a pass

purple19m

Thanks Sandy.

The only way i remember how to do things is to understand why i am doing it, specially being a distance learner it is so important as no one there to ask.

Don't know if anyone else but I researched a lot of the management accounting online, with sites that give advice to managers on budgeting and performance etc, i found this gave me a different veiwpoint to what i was learning and it made a huge difference to me.

I flexed the budget and multiplied the stepped costs by 6 vehicles as this is how many i calculated it should of taken to deal with 1000 deliveries, then used the fact that it took an extra vehicle and the cost associated with that to explain the adverse variances as the actual was 1000 and this should of been possible to complete with 6 but actually took 7.

I then said that if i can only be done with 7 vehicles then the budget should be adjusted to reflect this and if not then changes need to be made so it is done with 6 vehicles.

fay1984

Well ive done rubbish i know i have i didnt know what to do so couldnt do the answers, my last exam to qualify and ill be re-sitting if i decide ill throw more money down the drain

purple19m

I think all my variances were adverse except one too.

I'm certain for the variable overhead labour hours it was something like 2.40??? per labour hour required so i multiplied this by the total hours required and this was my variable overhead based on labour hours.

I needed 8 vehicles too.

I can't believe how some of memorise most of your answers!!

noodles

what did everyone write about purchasing the new vehicles, i really didnt understand what they wanted as to me it sounded straight forward at 2 vehicles layout and 4000 gain but that surely could not be the answer. What did everyone do for this?

sma22

fay1984 wrote: »

I did too accounts boy, i think their asking too much in this exam. I hope i never meet the person who wrote this exam today

go on what would you do if you did ayy??

bemusedstudent

Hi guys
Unfortunately college was closed and this should've been my last one but i couldn't take it, sorry it sounded rough, hope you all did better than you anticipate and Merry Christmas

Elsie

Hated this paper. Couldn't believe how hard it was. Went wth the 52,000 tonnes but then with 5% wastage you needed 54,737. I then added on the buffer stock to get to 57,237 so opted for 60,000 tonnes because you had to buy in batches of 5000 tonnes. This gave me less contribution than I worked in part 1.1 and definately less profit than the previous year so guessing I'm wrong. Didn't know what else to do with the buffer stock??????
Worked the budget on 7 vehicles and 1000 deliveries to compare like with like.
Just hoping that I pick up lots of marks for effort, otherwise have failed miserably.
I did dozens of practice papers too and spent hours on revising the theory of budeting and didn't get to use any of it.
Anyway got to get this out of my mind because I'm taking PTC tomorrow and hoping for a knder paper.
I suspect that there aren't many people on here discussing this because quite frankly I couldn't bear to look earlier in case everyone else found this really easy.

Chalky

I felt the same about the paper - hated it too. I posted early on saying it was awful but thought it was just me! So glad I am not alone - this has made me so miserable as I put alot of effort and practised papers and text books just so that I was better prepared, how wrong could I be!!!

fairycake

I had to laugh when I opened this paper and saw the product was gritter salt after the nightmare morning I had getting to the college! The examiner jinxed us!

I found it a bit tricky to get my head around at first but gave it my best shot, I found the budgeted operating statement a bit long winded though, it took ages! I went for 52000 as the total contribution was higher (assuming fixed costs would stay the same)

I think I got a cost of 340000 for the capital budget, does this sound familiar to anyone? I haven't ever done a capital budget before, I assumed it was just the cost less the proceeds?

Also I may have muddled this, but I thought the buffer stock was for the raw material salt, rather than the processed/finished product salt? I haven't seen buffer stock before so I guessed that it is just the minimum material stock they want to hold at any time. I used it as the closing stock figure on the material purchases budget working, although the actual closing stock figure was higher as we had to round up the purchases to the next 5k.

I also used 6 vehicles for the stepped costs on the flexed budget ie the same figures as the original budget. I deliberated over it for a few minutes but thought I'd go along with the 6 as they asked us to calculate this in the previous question and I wondered why if they didn't want us to use it!

I wasn't really sure what to recommend for part d of the email on section 2. Were we supposed to recommend a different budgeting technique or costing methods or what?

That's me done for this week as my PTC tomorrow has been cancelled by our college. With the deep freeze coming I hate to think what the roads will be like in the morning... good luck and safe journeys to all who are doing PTC!

Urszula

Hi All,

Terrible paper! Very depressing! It was my first sitting for PCR and I wished they had given us easier paper. It was not even similar what I had on my tuition and revisions...And opening and closing stock was very confusing in Section 1! Section 1 was the worse. I have attempted all tasks, but I have a feeling I will fail.

At least I am glad I am not the only one who has this awful impression about this paper.

Good luck to everyone!
Urs

noodles

Can someone please explain to me why on the NVQ route we study the same text book for unit 8 and 9 as the diploma but they only sit one exam called MAC and we have to do PEV and PCR?

A-Vic

nscuffell wrote: »

Can someone please explain to me why on the NVQ route we study the same text book for unit 8 and 9 as the diploma but they only sit one exam called MAC and we have to do PEV and PCR?

Because we cover the both units as one whole unit am not sure how other colleges do it but we studied dipolma as part -time so no time to do extra units