kaplan books

mon1982

Has anyone ever studied from the kaplan distance learning books? I find them good but they do contain a lot of unnecessary info and activities which are so much more difficult to what you get in the actual exam.

SandyHood

mon1982

It is up to you.

1. But bear in mind that there are a lot more questions testing each topic than the ones you encountered in your exam. So the books may well be preparing you for any way that the topic could be tested.
2. Occasionally there are topics within the AAT standards that do not naturally link to one another. For a taught course, this is fine. The lecturer adds the link in. The students then have a comprehensive understanding, and can build from there. Without the extra link the student would be revising lots of independent areas without seeing links.
3. Sometimes a student attending a class might ask a question; what happens if the scenario had several different issues. We'd not expect to see an exam question with all the issues, but as an activity it gives the student the chance to address all the issues together. This would beyond the scope of the exam, but useful both for learning and for revising.

If this isn't quite what you want to use as you study alone. Have you considered materials from Eagle?
http://www.eagle-education.co.uk/study_options/

I don't work for Eagle, so I recommend them quite independently.
They are a specialist distance learning provider and a large part of the operation is for AAT students.
I suggest you contact them before making a final decision. I would expect that they will have a deal that suits your budget and suits your needs in terms of activity difficulty.

NicF

I study distance learning with Kaplan. I like the fact that the books have exercises as you are going though the chapter rather than all the exercises at the end of the chapter. I do find that quite often the questions and mock papers are much harder than the real exam, but I think this is a good thing as it helps you to prepare for any eventuality and makes the exam seem less stressful.

Having said all that I also like the Osborne books and I like to read these as well as study from the Kaplan ones. I find that the Osborne books explain some things better than the Kaplan ones and have more in depth case studies. I think which books you prefer probably depends a lot on your own learning style.