FNPF - Revision advice

km

Hi all,

Apologies for the wall of text. There's a TL;DR version at the bottom. :laugh:

I've been classroom studying for two years at Kaplan and have found all the levels thus far relatively easy. I breezed through AAT Level 2 and 3, completed them in six months each, and have now almost finished my AAT Level 4 inside of 10 months. I've not failed any exams to date, and managed to pass ICAS in three attempts. I've never once came out of an exam feeling too confident (except for BA1, completed it in 20 minutes :laugh:), but I've never felt like I'd totally failed either. I've always felt like I could always push another couple of hour’s revision on every exam I've taken but never chosen to, and so far it's proven to not be required anyway. But...

Enter FNPF.

I took two lessons in a classroom based study environment (as I always had by the this point) but unfortunately became very poorly, very quickly (chronic illness flaring up, doesn't give you any indication it's coming your way) and I've been using the Kaplan Live Online, albeit pre recorded classes to bring me up to scratch. I have finished all 6 "core" lessons. I've finished the entire Kaplan text book, too, and didn't really get a good grasp on the techniques it was trying to teach me. I've also completed the first revision online class (there are four altogether; I will have the other three finished this week). I've had a shot at some of the questions in the text book and have ran through all of the material on the AAT official site except the practice exams and the Green Light (I have started the Green Light, but only the first one or two sections, and got circa 40% on both).

I have 13 days including today until my exam (Saturday 22nd June), and I am fortunate enough to have the exam in the afternoon, and have the entire Friday off.

What I am really looking for is advice on how to set up my revision, I figure I'll do 20 minutes on my lunch break every day at work (gives me around 2.5 hours), 2 and a half hours every night in the week nights (22.5 hours), 5 hours each on the weekend, 8 hours on the Friday prior to the exam, and 2 hours in the morning of the exam. Altogether this should allow me to get a scripted 45 hours of revision in.

Is this enough? Or too much (no such thing, I guess)?

I am predominantly a "financial based accountant" as far as my mind goes, and have always struggled with the costing/managerial side of AAT. FNST was laughably easy for me (I only say this with such cocky attitude because I know I am monumentally crap at managerial accounting!!)

It's my last exam and I want to go onto ACCA this September and ensure I pass. I apologise for this massive wall of text but just want a heads up from the people that may have been or are in the same boat as me with this exam, as to what to expect and how to pass first time.

Any advice is very, very welcome.

(P.S I struggle with variances, so a lot of my time will be spent with these... is a generally wise area to cover anyway?)

TL;DR - I am crap and detest management accounting, is 45 hours revision enough to pass the exam?

Thanks all.

Flash22

Revision advice

Hi there, unfortunately I only just saw this and lol! Sooo familiar. I too am a financial accountant and hate management accounts will a passion. I hope you passed, but I put in only about 2 hrs per day revision and failed this. So now faced with having to start again with it.

good luck with your results

ademoore

I recently finished teaching this subject, and there are some key concepts that are taught during this paper so I would say to identify these and then use the mapping document to help guide you! Try to see where you are potentially weaker on and work to build those areas. In order to be more confident at the paper, like the others, a lot will come down to question practice, both online and off. My students found the AAT online papers were fairly similar to their actual exam, and then you will be able to find some old papers on the AAT site if you dig deep enough that cover similar areas, use those to extend your knowledge further!

Good luck, it's a good paper and one I found I could really get my teeth into with the students! It's all well and good being able to prepare the numbers, but a lot more useful if you can then look at them and read what they are trying to tell you. Management accounting for me is about taking that knowledge and trying to do more with it moving forwards!

All the best!

km

Flash22 wrote: »

Hi there, unfortunately I only just saw this and lol! Sooo familiar. I too am a financial accountant and hate management accounts will a passion. I hope you passed, but I put in only about 2 hrs per day revision and failed this. So now faced with having to start again with it.

good luck with your results

Oh no, sorry to hear this. Do you have another exam booked yet? Best of luck with your next one.

I felt it went okay overall, the written elements are vital (as mentioned by ademoore) and whilst I did put time into revising that, I probably spent too much time with the figures (again, this harks back to my finance mind set).

ademoore wrote: »

I recently finished teaching this subject, and there are some key concepts that are taught during this paper so I would say to identify these and then use the mapping document to help guide you! Try to see where you are potentially weaker on and work to build those areas. In order to be more confident at the paper, like the others, a lot will come down to question practice, both online and off. My students found the AAT online papers were fairly similar to their actual exam, and then you will be able to find some old papers on the AAT site if you dig deep enough that cover similar areas, use those to extend your knowledge further!

Good luck, it's a good paper and one I found I could really get my teeth into with the students! It's all well and good being able to prepare the numbers, but a lot more useful if you can then look at them and read what they are trying to tell you. Management accounting for me is about taking that knowledge and trying to do more with it moving forwards!

All the best!

Thanks for the support! I am really unsure whether or not I will pass this, in all honesty I feel it could go either way.

I agree with what you're saying, that the written elements are very, very important, and seem overlooked by some students from what I can gather (myself included).

Having sat the exam and using all of the time to complete it, I will say to anyone, make sure you've practiced everything. I was almost certain that certain questions which I felt comfortable with would show, and didn't. On the flip side, I was confident questions I wasn't particularly great with wouldn't rear their ugly head... and did.

Another point, don't forget the "easier" stuff, like the gearing ratio, which totally threw me off. It's stuff you might think you know, but just make sure that you do.

I'll post back with my results in four or so weeks time.

km

As promised, I am back here now with my result and I am happy to say I have passed, thusly meaning I have completed AAT Level 4.

I would like to reiterate to all those studying FNPF (or indeed FNST, if it isn't your strong suit), or anyone who will be taking these exams in the near future, simply put the time in, as much as you possibly can afford to. I was not confident with myself after the exam, and felt I had let myself down, despite the high volume of time I had put it into the exam. But if you put the time in and get your head wrapped around the idea of what is required from you, the rest will just follow.

Out of all the exams I have taken I felt I did the worst on FNPF however upon receiving the breakdown, it has been decided that I excelled at this exam, and did better than I have ever done in any previous.

There is no substitute for hard work