indirect tax

donnas1977

happy new year all

has anyone sat this exam? how did u find it? I have revision for this next week and not done much at all over xmas in way of studying!!!

Donna

mge

Hi donnas1977. I sat this yesterday (and passed - phew!). As would be expected, it's bound to have been a challenging time for the AAT switching to a computerised examination system, so I fully anticipated that things would not run totally smoothly. The problems I experienced were:

- I went into the room where the assessment was being taken, and I found that it had already started, and was 10 minutes into the exam. Unfortunately they couldn't do anything about this, so I lost those ten minutes.

- Twice during the exam I couldn't get back from section 2 to section 1. They had to pause the assessment, shut it down and restart it again. When it restarted, my section 2 answers had changed back to an earlier version which I had since modified.

- There was a considerable lag on section 2 ie. I'd type in my answers and have to wait a few seconds for them to appear on the screen.

- I felt there was an error in one question in section one, where the output tax was asked for a month for which it was impossible to know. I think they had just printed the wrong month by mistake, and it was fairly easy to see which month they actually meant it to be.

The first two problems have been reported to the AAT by the assessment centre, so hopefully they will be sorted by the time you come to take this unit.

As for the CBA itself, it was of the same structure as the practice one ie. 5 questions in section 1, one question (tax return) in section 2. The standard of the section 1 questions was similar to those in the practice assessment, but I felt the section 2 question was a bit harder than the practice assessment.

I also took Spreadsheets Software yesterday, so when/if you need I can give you the info on what to expect in terms of structure and the problems that I experienced with the setup (again there were a few problems).

These were my final two CBAs for Level 3, so now just need to wait for the results from Spreadsheets....

Good luck with this unit. I'm sorry if this post sounds a bit negative. Overall I felt the CBA wasn't too bad - I'm sure you'll do really well!

donnas1977

thanks for that, revision went ok, remembered more than i thought i had as it has been a good few weeks since i looked at it. Guess I better get head down as exam is in few weeks .

Am starting cash management this week as well and spreadsheets after that, how was the spreadsheets exam? Have you done the cash management one?

mge

Hi donnas1977. Glad to hear that the revision went OK

The format of the Spreadsheets exam is different to the other 6 units ie. it's not a standard CBA, and it took the assessment centre a while to work out how to access it. It is marked by your tutor, not the AAT.

It is actually accessed from your own MyAAT. You have to log in then click where it says 'Access new e-portfolio', then click on 'My Learning'. If your tutor has scheduled this assessment for you, a link to the assessment will appear on this page. You can't click on this link until the scheduled time.

Once you have accessed the assessment you have to download the questions and the spreadsheet data, and save them to your computer. A good tip here is to print out the questions, which makes things much easier. You then complete the assessment on the version of Excel which you have on your computer.

You have 2 hours 30 minutes, plus 15 minutes reading time. At the end of the assessment you have to upload your files and send them to the assessor (your tutor). The system wouldn't let me do this, so the assessment centre just saved everything onto a disc, and uploaded it the next day, having contacted the AAT.

I imagine it's very easy to lose your work. I was very careful to save on a regular basis. I also saved it in two different places on the computer, so that I had a backup if I messed up one of the files.

There is a detailed guide to how everything works here - https://www.aatlearnplus.org.uk/file.php/1/AAT_LearnPlus_e-portfolio_student_guide.pdf

The Spreadsheet assessment itself was very similar to the practice one on this site, except you don't have to print things out like you do in the practice assessment.

The Cash Management CBA was again very similar to the practice one on this website. I'm fairly sure there is a flaw in Task 2.1(c), which was repeated in the actual CBA. I just copied the format from the model answers on the practice assessment, and hoped that was what they were looking for.

The CBA is 2 hours long, and I found that there was less spare time at the end compared to AP1, AP2 and CRS. Mine crashed twice, the second time was about 20 minutes from the end and it was irrecoverable. Fortunately I could still press the Finish button, and I had passed anyway.

I hope this info helps. Good luck with these exams. Neither of them are too bad really, but it's worth really getting to grips with the practice assessments/CBAs as the questions for both were very similar.

donnas1977

Hi Mge

sat ITX today and was marked as incompetent. Apparently the centre was having technical issues again today with all of section 2 showing as not completed and this happened with all exams for ITX. Need to wait on aat marking this by hand to get results. pretty gutted as i thought it went ok and it was also my first exam that I have been marked as incompetent

mge

Hi donnas1977. I'm very sorry to hear about your CBA not working properly. It sounds as though you will have passed, but that you will have to wait some time to find out, which is not an ideal situation for you whatsoever. I understand how frustrating this must be.

I found with the last few CBAs I sat that I was a lot more worried about what was going to go wrong with the computerised system than the actual content of the exam itself. It's certainly been a very bad time for the AAT, and there are lot of very unhappy students.

Hopefully this is just a blip, and they will have things sorted soon. I hope you get your results soon, and that they find you to be competent in this unit.

donnas1977

hope so. i spoke to a few others who sat it and no one has passed this exam from the centre. at least i know its not just me

Chelle

donnas1977 wrote: »

Hi Mge

sat ITX today and was marked as incompetent. Apparently the centre was having technical issues again today with all of section 2 showing as not completed and this happened with all exams for ITX. Need to wait on aat marking this by hand to get results. pretty gutted as i thought it went ok and it was also my first exam that I have been marked as incompetent

I sat the ITX today and the results for me were incompetent (my first one too). I'm not sure if it was my own fault or that of the CBA.

The group before us had theirs crash on them. They were finding that if they pressed back to check their workings etc, it crashed on them and they lost all the work. SO when it came to doing ours, I was scared to press 'back' and check my work just incase it happened to me.

What I and everyone else is finiding frustrating with these CBA's is there is no feedback whatsoever to say which questions you got right or wrong! Even with the practice one, so if that comes out incompetent, you don't know which part(s) you need to revise more on.

freck59

I sat this exam last week and had a question on output tax which couldn't be answered either! Something about an error in March being discovered in September so what was June's VAT figure... erm.. dunno but I'll take an educated guess at Septembers as those are the figures you've provided me with! I didn't think it was too bad but my tutor said to make sure you ask for scrap paper when you go in as if you're used to doing it all on paper then it may 'settle' you to do it like that and then enter the results on screen.

I passed (thank heavens) and it all went very smoothly at the centre which was totally different from the Costings one in December which crashed many times. Luckily I sat it in the morning as the centre cancelled all the afternoon exams.

Its all a bit amateur isn't it. I had an email on 2nd Feb telling me all my CBA results are now on My AAT and providing me with a link to go there and check. And then that link tells me that this part of the site is unavailable until 14th February ... what a shambles!

I've got two prints outs that show me as competent and I'm hanging onto them as evidence!

freck59

Chelle wrote: »

I sat the ITX today and the results for me were incompetent (my first one too). I'm not sure if it was my own fault or that of the CBA.

The group before us had theirs crash on them. They were finding that if they pressed back to check their workings etc, it crashed on them and they lost all the work. SO when it came to doing ours, I was scared to press 'back' and check my work just incase it happened to me.

What I and everyone else is finiding frustrating with these CBA's is there is no feedback whatsoever to say which questions you got right or wrong! Even with the practice one, so if that comes out incompetent, you don't know which part(s) you need to revise more on.

Totally agree that its incredibly annoying that you don't get any feed back but then thats no different to the paper exams of the past. I guess they think if you're not competent you should revise everything! Some hope!