Going round in circles
Glynis
Registered Posts: 488 Dedicated contributor 🦉
Is anyone else struggling to study? I am doing a question on ACCA F8 and looked at the answer and it's completely wrong. I've been studying since 7am and just feel like I've achieved nothing. It wouldn't be so bad if the examiner gave any sort of indication of how to answer the style of questions or even broke things down into more manageable pieces.
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Glynis when is your revision course? Sometimes such intense revision sessions are counter productive. You may need to take a break.
BPP are about to start our revision phase very soon so you might wish to enrol on a question based day if you have the time which will help you deal with exam technique as it looks like this is where you could be going wrong.
The problem with new examiners are that they have not released pilot papers for us to gauge their line of examining. There is an article in this months student accountant by Steve Collings who is the paper F8 assessor which looks at answering F8 style questions which I think you should look at. The link is here http://www.accaglobal.com/students/student_accountant/archive/2011/118/3433133
Also if you are struggling with exam questions maybe go back to basics and revise the area you are struggling. If you want more details on our question based days contact your local BPP centre.
Julia (BPP)0 -
All ACCA students should be regularly reviewing the student area of ACCA website, this contains examiner articles and reports. I was told that the first, and most important thing to learn when starting to study for a new exam is the name of the examiner. This way you can look out for articles they have written to help with your studies.
Do you even know the name of the F8 examiner? If you do, then you should have read her approach to the F8 exam. She has written all of the exams since June 2010, so her approach has been available for the past 12 months.0 -
Glynis, i am currently studying for a further tax exam which is on 4th May, so not long. The other day I had a study session just as you were describing. Nothing seemed to be making sense, even things i really should know.
This worked for me so might be worth trying it,
1. Stop studying and go do something totally different for 20 mins.
2. Come back and start studying on an area you know you can do to get your confidence back up.
3. Once you are feeling better about it, then go back to the topics you were having trouble with.
Good luck. And remember it is counter productive to study intensively without any breaks. Think of it as water filling up a bucket; once it is full it will just overflow and it wastes the water. If you take a break to empty the bucket, you can then start filling it again.0 -
Thankyou Julia. I read that article this morning actually but even that doesn't make sense! I can't understand it's logic. It's actually made me feel worse because everything in that article I am not doing
I'll email BPP about the question day.
Richard I have read the examiners approach article but again it's very vague. I wish these examiners could be more specific.
Monsoon I think I'll do what you suggest and take time out.0 -
Glynis you have received good advice there from richard and Monsoon! I am not sure what is ambiguous about the examiner's [Pami Bahl] approach article or her assessor's article. Both explain how to tackle the paper and specific question topics. If you are struggling to understand the concepts in these articles it is definitely time to go back to the basics and revise the key areas.
I think you will definitely benefit from the revision course and question day. But don't become too defeatist.
Good luck
Julia0 -
Well I think I'll give up for today as it's a waste of time I feel completely drained. 0
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Glynis I am not being disrespectful but do you ever stop moaning? Do you think youre the only one that has ever had to study a hard paper. I am moving on to ACCA in December and plan to do F8 as I have got a new job in practice and I can't see anything confusing about the examiner approach article or Steve Collings article.
Just get a grip Glynis.0 -
I am entitled to my opinion Barry and once you start ACCA you will see how difficult it is. I wouldn't call your post disrespectful I would say it was downright rude.0
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Thankyou Julia. I read that article this morning actually but even that doesn't make sense! I can't understand it's logic. It's actually made me feel worse because everything in that article I am not doing I'll email BPP about the question day.
Richard I have read the examiners approach article but again it's very vague. I wish these examiners could be more specific.
Monsoon I think I'll do what you suggest and take time out.
I've just read Steve's article and found it to have been written in an easy to understand way. I would have found this useful when sitting F8.
How could Pami Bahl be any more specific without telling you the exact questions that will appear in the exam? These are professional exams, the onus is on you to take responsibility for your learning, and not blame everyone else when things don't go your way.0 -
I must admit the way ACCA deals with examiners and examiners articles is very good. One of the first things we were told at our courses were who the examiners for the papers were and told to look up their articles and their reports.
After each sitting the examiners reports are essential reading - if you do past papers, check your answers and then check the examiners report.
When I was studying, one of the 'beast' papers was the old advanced audit paper 3.1. The examiner wrote detailed articles about how to answer the questions.
I must admit I did find the audit paper the most difficult (to score good marks on, they are my lowest marks in each level) and there is no set formula to answer the questions. The main problem is that you think you have written what the examiner wants but your marks don't ever seem to reflect that!!!
However I would reiterate what others have said, if you can't make head or tail of Steve's article which is written in a very easy to understand manner, then you need to go back to basics and make sure you have covered them in enough depth.
Also take note of anything Julia tells you as you're getting free advice there!!
You mentioned the tips given to students, can I just point out that I took all my papers bar one with BPP and not once did they ever mention any tips, as they don't believe in tipping anything in case students rely on that and that alone. Should you want to use them to check you have covered everything then PQ magazine publishes them every sitting and is free to subscribe to.0 -
Thankyou Bluewednesday. This is my 3rd attempt at this horrible paper but hopefully tomorrows revision day will help me. I am so fed up of F8 now though it's just like a pressure on my life.
I will have another read of the examiner article and Steve article and see if they make sense after a bit of a break. 0 -
I will have another read of the examiner article and Steve article and see if they make sense after a bit of a break.
That sounds like a plan Glynis. I would also try to break up your studying into smaller sessions as I suspect you have done too much today which might mean you have overstretched your brain.
You will feel better once you have done the revision course. Are you doing this at BPP? If so let me know which centre you are at, all our tutors are fantastic. But beware weekend revision will only look at the crucial areas of the syllabus!
Glynis keep practicing those questions, read your examiners/assessor articles as they are key to success and keep studying short with lots of breaks.
Also remember there is over a month to the exam yet so plenty of time. Revision phases have not yet started at BPP so don't worry about time but you do need to keep doing those questions.0 -
I didn't think much of the course to be honest. The teacher raced through a couple of topics so fast I couldn't keep up. At the end she simply said to practice loads of questions . There were no tips as to what may come up, no guidance and no time to ask questions. No wonder ACCA pass rates are so low when tuition is non existent.
I'm going to try and go to a Kaplan or BPP course but they are so expensive:( I don't ever recall AAT being such a struggle.0 -
At the end she simply said to practice loads of questions . There were no tips as to what may come up, no guidance and no time to ask questions. No wonder ACCA pass rates are so low when tuition is non existent.
At the end of the day practice, practice, practice is the key to passing ACCA exams. The more you can practice the better.
They can't give tips as to what may come up in the exam, because at the end of the day they know as much as you or I do about what will appear. Plus question spotting is a dangerous risk that rarely pays off.
As for tuition being non existent, there are plenty of tuition providers - BPP, Kaplan, numerous colleges, plus internet based providers ie OpenTuition.
Also, what did you expect from a one day revision course?? They are not there to teach, but to help with the final stages of your learning/developing exam technique.0 -
Hello Glynis
Whilst I sympathise with your situation you must understand that a revision course can only be that - a revision course. At BPP we teach 4 or 5 days on a subject like F8 with maybe 3 or 4 days revision during the week. If you attend a weekend revision course your tutor cannot cover all issues because we have time constraints and this is similar to other providers such as local FE colleges.
Students have a responsibility for studying as well. I can't offer you solutions to your problems but one thing I can suggest is that if you are distance learning you must develop your study programme to be well structured. You must ensure you go through the entire syllabus and ensure you are comfortable with all examinable areas. Tutors cannot make you comfortable and you will encounter subjects which you do not like, but unfortunately this is a fact of life when studying for professional examinations.
If you are struggling with this subject I would advise you to go to BPP/Kaplan for a revision course but beware we do not teach the fundamental aspects of the syllabus at revision as we expect students to have done all the core studying. I would advise you to print off the F8 syllabus and highlight the issues you have covered and those which you are happy with and then focus on the weaker areas of the syllabus. We also advise you to read all technical articles on ACCA website [particularly the latest one on subsequent events by Steve Collins] and definitely take time to understand the examiners approach article. Also make sure you have attempted the past exams from at least June 10 which are the exams written by the current examiner. These will feature quite heavily in a BPP revision course.
I wish you luck Glynis.
Julia0 -
Students have a responsibility for studying as well. I can't offer you solutions to your problems but one thing I can suggest is that if you are distance learning you must develop your study programme to be well structured. You must ensure you go through the entire syllabus and ensure you are comfortable with all examinable areas. Tutors cannot make you comfortable and you will encounter subjects which you do not like, but unfortunately this is a fact of life when studying for professional examinations.
Totally agree with this. I'm a distance learning ACCA student, and have used BPP for all of my exams to date.
The online classroom is fantastic - totally structured and focussed. I would recommend it to anyone who doesn't have the time to attend taught classes.0
