Costs and Revenues CBA

AAT Level 3

I have just passed the costs and revenues CBA so glad. Word of warning for anyone who is going to sit this soon prepare for the questions to be nothing like revision materials.

kirstym01

well done! I passed this one at the end of June and yes I have to agree I was surprised with the content! I felt very prepared for this one but the first question completely threw me off track, the layout was so different! This is one I would NOT have wanted to sit again!!

AAT Level 3

Well done too it is definetely an achievement to get through this one. The only questions that I had seen the layout for were labour and overheads.

Every single question in section 2 was a new lay out and weird way of setting it out. Hopefully there are no more as hard as this in Level 3.

steveJ

What would be your advice when preparing for this then ?

AAT Level 3

It is hard to reccommend what to focus on as by doing the online AAT exam I effectively applied the same principles to the questions today but rather than going in and finishing the paper in an hour it took me two hours as the questions involved some thought.

I would suggest focusing on section 2 questions as section 1 was quite straight forward it took me 30 minutes and section 2 took an hour and a half before I finally decided to give up and leave.

geek84

Hi Folks

I have got the cba for my costs & revenues exam later on this week.

Are there any particular topics/questions that I need to concentrate on more than others?

I presume it is a 2 hour exam?

Thanks in advance for your response.

kirstym01

It really is hard to prepare well enough for this one, I knew it wasn't going to be easy it was the one I was most worried about.
I would say some of the questions are based on the practice on the aat website but they are layed out differently, you will really need to give them thought. I think it is actually a 2 1/2 hr exam, think I took around 2hrs aswell.
I spent a lot of time revising break even points and manufacturing accounts..... none of this came up! I did however have a couple of questions on contribution, net present value & payback periods and working out profits on a certain number of units using the high/low method..... I think thats what they were anyway, I got myself really worked up in this exam! Goodluck to you people that have this one coming up!

aat level 3 - what ones have you got left?? I've finished them all now thank god!

AAT Level 3

2:30 hours and you will probably need it.

Contribution, Limiting Factors were the two hardest questions in the exam I would say. I read on here the other week that it was to do with a bus company and I seemed to get the same paper.

AAT Level 3

kirstym01 wrote: »

It really is hard to prepare well enough for this one, I knew it wasn't going to be easy it was the one I was most worried about.
I would say some of the questions are based on the practice on the aat website but they are layed out differently, you will really need to give them thought. I think it is actually a 2 1/2 hr exam, think I took around 2hrs aswell.
I spent a lot of time revising break even points and manufacturing accounts..... none of this came up! I did however have a couple of questions on contribution, net present value & payback periods and working out profits on a certain number of units using the high/low method..... I think thats what they were anyway, I got myself really worked up in this exam! Goodluck to you people that have this one coming up!

aat level 3 - what ones have you got left?? I've finished them all now thank god!

I may have got the same paper as you breakeven and manufacturing accounts were not even in my exam and we went over them so much in class. I think there must be a lack of clarity at the training centres on what is going to come up in the exams. The online AAT tests normally are very similar but this one couldn't be more different.

I start spreadsheets tomorrow. Then I have Indirect Tax and Cash Management in two weeks time. Would you say those 3 are ok?

When do you start Level 4?

kirstym01

AAT Level 3 wrote: »

I may have got the same paper as you breakeven and manufacturing accounts were not even in my exam and we went over them so much in class. I think there must be a lack of clarity at the training centres on what is going to come up in the exams. The online AAT tests normally are very similar but this one couldn't be more different.

I start spreadsheets tomorrow. Then I have Indirect Tax and Cash Management in two weeks time. Would you say those 3 are ok?

When do you start Level 4?

Sounds like we may have had a very similar paper, and yes I agree this one was very different to the practice!

I think you'll be ok with the last 3, Indirect tax is a breeze, most of the answers you can get from the reference material in the exam, as long as you know how to do a VAT return you should be ok, and this one was very similar to the one on aat site.

Cash management was another tricky one, again I think it was the layout of this one that confused me a bit, as long as you are familiar with the practice I think you'll be ok, and read the questions properly!!

Spreadsheets was ok too, this one was exactly the same as the practice just different figures and scenario, make sure you are able to do pivot tables and 'if' statements. For some reason my computer was having random funny five minutes in the exam, it crashed then wouldn't let me do a pivot table! I still passed without doing the pivot table so I'm sure you'll do good! Oh and make sure you keep saving your work!

At the moment I'm not continuing with level 4 next year, I'm going to hopefully pick it up in a year or two, I am going to register with ICB and start self employed bookkeeping, its just going to work easier that way with the children until they are a bit older!

What about you? When are you starting level 4?

geek84

Hi Folks

I am currently studying the Costs & Revenues module using the Osborne books. There are a few chapters which are proving hard for me to grasp.

Is anyone ware of any additional resources on any websites which explains this module in more detail?

Thanks in advance for your response.

Rinske

Have you looked at the AAT online resources?

For the rest, try and look up the blog from SandyHood, he is a star in explaining these things and created a blog for the AAT a while back which dealt with the paper version of these, but would still be relevant. He created a link to his blogposts on the forums, but the blogs are on the main site somewhere.

I haven't got a link though, so you might need to do a search on the AAT site or forums.

geek84

Hi folks

Just to let you know, I too passed the assessment yesterday.

I agree with most of you, it is a tough one to pass. I did all the previous mock exam papers and felt quite confident when I did the on line practice exam in an hour! However, I was quite surprised at the difficulty of the actual exam.

It took me over 2 hours to complete the exam and to go through it to check that I have answered everything!

AAT Level 3

Well done on passing it is definetely a hard exam so I am not surprised it has the lowest pass rate of all Level 3 exams. I think the fact there is so much content and the fact it takes so long to get your head around it on top of the questions in the exam being completely different is the problem.

ykwong1978

Hi,
I am about to sit this tomorrow, and was wondering how long is the exam?

Jo Clark

Hello

I think the time allowed for the CRS CBA is 2 1/2 hours.

Good luck for tomorrow.

JC

geek84

Hi

Yes, the time alowed is 2.5 hrs - I did it 2 weeks ago.

ykwong1978

Hi Jo and Geek84,

Thanks for that, for some reason I thought it was a 3 hour exam.