ITX - I need advice please in a potential tricky scenario.

Cudey

Hi all.

I feel I'm asking a lot recently and not giving anything back - I apologise, and wish to become more active on these forums, and help others out where I can.

I had my first of two lectures today for ITX with my exam due on 18th December. To my horror, I found that the syllabus is changing in 2013, and that the lectures i'm doing are for exams in 2013 - thus meaning I'm not being taught the relevent criteria for my exam, and some sections shall be missed out.

I work full time, and with our year end being 31st December, I'm having to do some crazy hours and don't often get home till 10-11ish at night to be back in for 8 the next morning. I have to now somehow fit time in this schedule to self study the 2012 criteria. Unfortunately, I can't re-arrange the exam either.

So, I just wondered whether anyone has some tips on now to revise for this, or anything generally which may somehow help me pass?

My college has well and truly messed up here, as we were never told about the change in syllabus and were subsequently advised to sit the exam before Christmas. To say i'm fuming is an understatement.

Thanks in advance!

tillyjbc

Hi

Sounds like you don't need your college to mess up on top of everything else!! I've just taken this exam and it was really similar to the practise ones on this site. A few general VAT questions in the first part and a VAT return in second part. I did lots of Greenlight too. Good Luck, I'm sure you'll be fine if you've done the practise CBTs on here.

billdoor

Horrible situation Cudey, I can imagine how frustrated you are.

I've no idea what the changes are, I can only offer two pieces of advice.

1 - do the practice exams on the AAT site and check your answers - you may well find that most of it has stayed the same and you'll also be able to see any incorrect answers and can then investigate if it is your mistake or a change in the information.

2 - this is probably more helpful - the ITX exam includes reference material that you can access during the exam, it appears as a drop down menu in the top right corner. I'm pretty sure you can see this if you do a practice exam. There's so much information in there that you could pass the exam with a decent grasp of the basics. Have a look at the practice exams and see what you think.

Hope it works out.

Cudey

tillyjbc wrote: »

Hi

Sounds like you don't need your college to mess up on top of everything else!! I've just taken this exam and it was really similar to the practise ones on this site. A few general VAT questions in the first part and a VAT return in second part. I did lots of Greenlight too. Good Luck, I'm sure you'll be fine if you've done the practise CBTs on here.

billdoor wrote: »

Horrible situation Cudey, I can imagine how frustrated you are.

I've no idea what the changes are, I can only offer two pieces of advice.

1 - do the practice exams on the AAT site and check your answers - you may well find that most of it has stayed the same and you'll also be able to see any incorrect answers and can then investigate if it is your mistake or a change in the information.

2 - this is probably more helpful - the ITX exam includes reference material that you can access during the exam, it appears as a drop down menu in the top right corner. I'm pretty sure you can see this if you do a practice exam. There's so much information in there that you could pass the exam with a decent grasp of the basics. Have a look at the practice exams and see what you think.

Hope it works out.

Thank you both for the advice. I haven't been referring to much to reference material when doing the practice tests as I'm not use to having that in the exams, but will definitely check it out.

From what I see the 2013 VAT Return looks different, and a fair few off the limits have changed. For example, the taxable turnover I believe in 2012 is £72,000 however in 2013 this rises to £77,000 (which is just outright confusing when you know both!)

Tax points really seem to confuse the hell out of me. I don't seem to know when to use the basic tax point (e.g when the goods/service was delivered) or when to use the actual, and if it's the actual what date it is. I know there's the 14 day rule, but I can't grasp when to use it?

tillyjbc

Hi Cudey

billdoor is right, there is a drop-down menu of reference material and that has just reminded me, there was a question referring to threshold and a company de-registering. At the end I had some time so I thought I'd just double-check some answers with the ref material, which listed the 2012 figures. Dilemma! Use the correct figures or the old ones??! I opted for the old figures as I thought they wanted us to use the ref material. My tutor confirmed that was correct (though surely it would be better to be assessed on just knowing the current figures, not using out-of-date ref material!).

There's quite a lot about tax points in the ITX Learning Zone that I found helpful. Good Luck!

Cudey

Thanks Tillyjbc and Billdoor.

I sat the exam yesterday - and somehow - managed to pass it :thumbup:

Thanks all for the help!

tillyjbc

Congratulations Cudey!! What's next? Hope you're taking a break over Christmas first!

Cudey

tillyjbc wrote: »

Congratulations Cudey!! What's next? Hope you're taking a break over Christmas first!

Definitely taking a break over Christmas! Need to recharge the batteries.

I think I have CRS next. How did you find CRS? Hopefully it's not too painful.

Which module are you currently on?

tillyjbc

Hi Cudey

I'm doing Cash Management next but I just can't seem to get started after the Christmas break! I found CRS OK, a lot of formulae to learn but all quite logical. Wow, 4 yr break, well done for getting back to it!!

Cudey

tillyjbc wrote: »

Hi Cudey

I'm doing Cash Management next but I just can't seem to get started after the Christmas break! I found CRS OK, a lot of formulae to learn but all quite logical. Wow, 4 yr break, well done for getting back to it!!

Hi Tillyjbc,

I'm currently on Cash Management as well - got my timetable muddled up. Doesn't seem to be too bad. A lot of calculator work, but all seems to be quite logical as well. Was hard to get back into after 4 years, but the company I joined 18 months ago are very pro qualifications - so that always helps.

Hope you had a great Christmas break.