AAT Level 4 Synoptic Exam
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> @student said:
> I am going to sit in September for the third time :'
Do you feel more prepared this time around?0 -
can someone please send me Colin Drury book link?
thanks0 -
no I am not more prepared I only think i might get a different questions, which i wish it would be easier.
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I'm just very afraid . Can't afford to fail it again , that's what makes me afraid. Wish didn't have to worry about it0
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Did AAT ever respond to this?Kennnnedyy said:I got pretty much the same response as everyone else so i responded with this (not really expecting much of a reply but it's worth a shot)
Hi,
I have attached a file with an image
of the pass rates for the PDSY exam from a publication published by you at the AAT, can you verify with me that these were the results that you as an organisation were expecting for these questions (particularly questions 2, 4 and 6 as it seems as if they are extremely low to me). I passed all other exams this year including the ones that overlap with the synoptic exam on my 1st attempt however i still only got a very low score for the 3 questions i mentioned before and this seems incorrect to me. If there is a plan to review the aforementioned questions due to the extremely low pass rates compared to the other 3 questions, the rest of the exams and potentially compared to what the AAT were expecting; will students like myself and many others be compensated? Whether it would be a reimbursement of our resit fee or preferably a change in marks (not an uplift like with the MDCL exam but a review and remarking for questions 2, 4 & 6 to potentially be more lenient considering the ambiguity of the questions and the lack of study support supplied by the AAT). The fact that further study support material has been added to the AAT website would indicate that the AAT has already realised that they did not give students enough support which is somewhat comforting for students who have not sat the exam yet but they have done nothing to help the students that sat the exam before the additional material was added.
Many Thanks
I read the examiner's report. But I still find the percentage of students passing questions 2 and 4 ridiculous. On Q2 it says that not enough of relate our answers to the scenario, but I'm pretty sure that more than 10% of us to know how to do that.1 -
Im more horrified at the results of tasks 3 and 6! We always knew 2 and 4 were going to be the harder ones but 3 and 6 were pretty straightforward and I'm not sure I understand how there could have been a 'wrong' answer for them! Makes no sense to me!0
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Hi
Mark replied to my recent email regarding the recent l4 results!!!!
This was the reply again they not getting the point!!!
Hanan,
The consolidated results are clearly disappointing overall. We subject all assessments to ongoing quality assurance checks where the performance of each question is constantly monitored as well as cross-referenced with any feedback from training providers and students. In addition we also carry out checks to ensure consistency across markers, which is further re-enforced by the chief examiners’ own sampling and endorsement. Any adjustments to marks, if appropriate and evidence based, are made before the results are released. Therefore, this has already been reflected in results for these synoptics. We believe that the assessment remains reflective of the level of demand we would expect a student to demonstrate and is in line with the qualification specifications.
With regard to the level of support materials, we do not seek to influence the offerings of the numerous training providers who will deal with such matters directly. As a membership organisation we do seek to help as much as we can and will continue to build material over time to complement local training provider material. This will continue.
Mark
Mark Farrar
Chief Executive
t: +44 (0) 20 7397 3031
f: +44 (0) 20 7397 3009
e: Mark.Farrar@aat.org.uk
w: aat.org.uk
cid:image003.png@01D32BB9.41BD3760Follow me on Twitter @markfarrarAAT0 -
No adjustments have been made in the July results, otherwise we would have received reports of Students who took the March sitting having improved results when the July results were posted. So either the students who took the March sitting are at a further disadvantage or this statement is false.hangawi74 said:
The consolidated results are clearly disappointing overall. We subject all assessments to ongoing quality assurance checks where the performance of each question is constantly monitored as well as cross-referenced with any feedback from training providers and students. In addition we also carry out checks to ensure consistency across markers, which is further re-enforced by the chief examiners’ own sampling and endorsement. Any adjustments to marks, if appropriate and evidence based, are made before the results are released. Therefore, this has already been reflected in results for these synoptics.
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I think AAT are desperately trying to become a more respected qualification.. but in the process have lost all my respect1
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Hi Lindi - when you do the Ofqual bit can you keep us informed ?
Do you have their address ?
I have decided NOT to purchase more training - on the grounds that the first lot didnt work and I have something to compare it to ! I mean Level 4 is not cheap and yes I think they should test the course and the exam and yes whether the two are connected int any way before they wheel it out as the great future for AAT
Level 3 and 4 should now carry health warning - " you do the whole course and then at the end we tell you you arent good enough at a time you cant do amything about it"
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you hit the nail on the head there.. at the end when we cannot do anything about! Great isn't it...Multiplicator said:Hi Lindi - when you do the Ofqual bit can you keep us informed ?
Do you have their address ?
I have decided NOT to purchase more training - on the grounds that the first lot didnt work and I have something to compare it to ! I mean Level 4 is not cheap and yes I think they should test the course and the exam and yes whether the two are connected int any way before they wheel it out as the great future for AAT
Level 3 and 4 should now carry health warning - " you do the whole course and then at the end we tell you you arent good enough at a time you cant do amything about it"
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I haven't had my appeal feedback yet... didn't they say 20 days? I've submitted my appeal on 25th August, and did not realise it was 20 working days, so guess another week's wait for me. I would recommend those who have had their feedback to get onto BBC Haveyoursay and Watchdog because if you alert them to an issue they will investigate it on behalf of their viewers. I believe the more attention this receives the better chance we'll have to warn future students of the shambles which is AAT L4 Synoptic and maybe they'll reconsider the assessment.
I've paid more money to a 3rd party study firm to start the module again, and with some luck someone can teach me what to write to pass the exam but I hold no credibility in AAT saying you need to have a full understanding of the workings in the "real world" because clearly that got me nowhere. I'm sitting again in December.1 -
Have your say: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/39710394
Watchdog: https://twitter.com/bbcwatchdog?lang=en (website not currently working)
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Apologies this is a bit of a read, but below is my email to the AAT & the response, pretty much the same response as everyone else but figured you all may like to read.
Dear Whom it may concern.
After receiving my Level 4 synoptic result in all honesty I was shocked to receive the mark of 65% Not yet competent as I felt I had a good all round understanding of the topics this year having passed all three of my previous exams first time with marks of 78%, 82% & 84%. In addition to this I believed I had put in a solid amount of work and went into the exam feeling ready, however after the result I took it in my stride and had thought maybe it was luck of the day and that it was just my issue.
I then went through the AAT forum on the exam results and the responses in there made me feel sick to be honest, as a lot have people are in this same scenario with higher previous marks than myself and some have even failed the second resit of the synoptic paper with an even lower mark. I have now been left a little disheartened and feel as though I don't quite know what to do now going into the resit as no matter how hard people are trying, a lot of people are failing and i'm sure this is reflected in the pass rate. The lack of trust in the possibility of achieving success can drive a lot of people into anxiety and as a result slip even further away from a successful percentage.
My request to you is not to blanket change everyone's mark as i'm aware this would damage the AAT's credibility, but I ask on behalf of myself and others for you to publish some more material, some more feedback and some more tools for everyone as we are the first year of AQ2016 and I think the lack of transparency is not helpful and simply unfair.
Whilst i'm sure I am not the only one to be emailing along those lines, I would really like to point out that the way this is handled by yourselves, having seen it from our side as students, would massively effect the trust from us in the AAT overall which has been damaged recently.
Thank you for reading, I look forward to hearing from you hopefully before I re sit the next exam.
Lewis
To which the AAT responded:
Dear Lewis,
Thank you for your email. Please accept my apologies for the delay in our response.
I am sorry to hear of your disappointment with your result for the Professional synoptic assessment.
The synoptic assessment is a new type of assessment for AQ2016 that presents a change in format to assessments you will have taken previously and provides students with different challenges to the individual unit assessments. The synoptic assessment for the professional qualification tests students’ understanding of the connections between the different topics covered across the qualification. It draws on content from MDCL, MABU, FSLC and ASYC in a holistic way, rather than simply asking questions that would have been found in the individual units. This may account for why some students have not performed as well as they had expected, furthermore results from the synoptic assessment cannot be compared to those from individual unit assessments.
I understand your concerns regarding the requirements of this assessments. As an awarding organisation, we must ensure that students are demonstrating the appropriate level of competency in each assessment. We will continue to closely monitor the performances within PDSY, and as with all AAT assessments, PDSY results are subject to a quality assurance review and if appropriate, mark adjustments will be made before the results are released. We are confident the level of demand is appropriate for this assessment. Pass rates for AQ2016 unit assessments, including for MDCL and the Professional synoptic, are published every 6 months and are only made available to training providers. Please speak to your training provider directly and they will be able to explain the current pass rates in relation to the life span of the qualification.
We have recently added further support materials to your MyAAT account in form of e-learning for writing skills and synoptic assessment support. We are also currently in the process of reviewing and updating the sample assessments. Furthermore, I would recommend reviewing the unit specification which outlines all learning outcomes and assessment criteria for the unit as well as discussing with your training provider what other resources may be available to you.
We take all feedback we receive regarding our assessments very seriously and I can confirm your comments have been passed on to the relevant assessment teams to be taken into consideration as part of the constant review that all AAT assessments undergo.
We deeply regret any upset or uncertainty which has been caused by your experience with the synoptic assessment and I wish you all the best with your upcoming assessment and your future studies.
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind regards,
Paddy Hamilton
Customer Support Advisor2 -
AAT have updated the sample assessments answers on the website. They're now better explained and tell you how you're meant to get full marks. Should be of some use to everyone taking or resiting the exam (myself included).2
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In my opinion the resits should be free of charge..M92Z said:AAT have updated the sample assessments answers on the website. They're now better explained and tell you how you're meant to get full marks. Should be of some use to everyone taking or resiting the exam (myself included).
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> @MissHermansen said:
> AAT have updated the sample assessments answers on the website. They're now better explained and tell you how you're meant to get full marks. Should be of some use to everyone taking or resiting the exam (myself included).
>
> In my opinion the resits should be free of charge..
100% agree but I doubt they would consider it with the amount of retakes they have.0 -
its all about money money
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Have received my appeal feedback and unlike all of the ones I've seen on the forums, this one breaks it down into my performance on each task. Still no more marks available, my fate lies with 66%. I found the feedback quite positive however some of the things expected of us in the exam were clearly not taught in a way which will allow us to pass.0
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Has everyone seen AAT's latest email? Below:
New support materials for the Professional
Diploma in Accounting
AAT have recently released additional support for the Professional Diploma in Accounting. As part of an ongoing process we aim to continuously make improvements to the services and support we offer students.
In order to help prepare for your assessments, we wanted to make you aware of some recent changes and support materials that you may find useful.
Support for the Professional Diploma Synoptic (PDSY):
• From the start of this week, there will be a new practice assessment (previously known as sample assessment) for PDSY. This will be available on the Study Support Search. The new practice assessment has been developed to ensure it reflects the live assessment from the next synoptic window, Monday 24 September 2017 – Sunday 01 October 2017.
• Alongside the new practice assessment, you will now find the model answers. The new model answers will give you a range of examples and we hope that these will give you a better idea of what we are looking for in terms of responses.
• Additionally, the Chief Examiner for PDSY has created a report that looks at the performance of students over the past 12 months within PDSY. You may find it useful to look at this to know where others have performed well, and not so well.
Support for Management Accounting: Decision and Control (MDCL):
• Finally, the Chief Examiner for MDCL has created a report looking at the performance of students sitting this assessment in the last 12 months.
Again, all of these support resources are found within the Study Support area of MyAAT.
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I think in light of this the resits should be FOC. And personally feel they owe me a LOT more than just FOC resits but that is the least they can do. They are indirectly admitting the study support was inadequate and this has been a very expensive lesson to which we bore the brunt as guinea pigs, and whilst I am grateful that they're actually taking some of our comments on board and making changes, we are all still pretty badly done to and I'm £250 out of pocket for having to further invest in support and materials to try and pass next time.
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Wow thanks, releasing materials a week before the third chance to sit an exam! Almost a useful as finding out you haven't passed four days before a resit... glad all aat students are made of money and have no life!2
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Is it just me or is this starting to feel like a driving test which relies heavily on "luck on the day" ? Hee-hee. It would be quite hysterical if it wasn't so close to home. Perhaps the AAT examiners have afternoon tea with the GCSE ones to swop ideas on how not to pass your students ....1
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Support for the Professional Diploma Synoptic (PDSY):
• From the start of this week, there will be a new practice assessment (previously known as sample assessment) for PDSY. This will be available on the Study Support Search. The new practice assessment has been developed to ensure it reflects the live assessment from the next synoptic window, Monday 24 September 2017 – Sunday 01 October 2017.
I just called AAT as could not find the new practice assessment, their answer was that is not a new one, they just made slightly changes on the existing ones. Really?! Why send an email saying there is a new one, so deceiving.1 -
it is a damn circus all of this!0
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oo can I be the unicycle performer? I have learnt that I can multi task, run an office, be a mother and spend 18 hours per week studying for a qualification AND fail an assessment and I'm only one person! Impressive if I may say so myself.2
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Is it just me or are the practice assessments totally mucked up online. Just looking through and can't work out what's going on....0
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Lindi do u have any good tips for us regarding what you were told in feedback?0
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@93jw11 - I must admit they broke each task down and noted my performance, stating where I was lacking. This has been a far better response than that of any other person on this forum - still I was not awarded any further marks. I found the questions during the assessment very very basic, and whilst I did my utmost to elaborate my answer to gain best possible marks, clearly I did not cover all the bases. To this feedback I would say, I'd treat it as constructive and liaise with my learning support team to try and ascertain the kind of bases AAT need me to cover in round 2. I am still quite aggrieved at the fact that we have been used as AAT's gambling stock to help them assess their assessments.
I guess my hint would be - revisit level 2 trial balance suspense accounts and errors as apparently I got this wrong; I am not sure how I got interpretation of ratio's in task 5 wrong as I thought I'd done pretty well with these, achieving 94% in my finstats exam and 88% in my MDCL.
Feedback received:
Key information
Task 1
This task was answered quite well, achieving reasonable marks. You answered incorrectly the parts regarding: actions, posting to suspense, reappointment of auditors and detection of errors.
Task 2
You answered correctly on the method of budgeting but did not suggest a viable alternative, and whilst you identified some planning assumptions you did not explain correctly how they could be checked.
Task 3
This task was answered quite well, achieving reasonable marks. However, whilst you identified weaknesses correctly the descriptions were generally not strong enough to merit the highest possible marks.
Task 4
This task was answered very well, achieving very high marks. Much of what was written in both part (a) and (b) was relevant and gained marks. In both parts, there was not quite enough depth to merit the highest possible marks.
Task 5
You performed very well in this task, scoring high marks. However, you answered incorrectly the parts regarding: gross profit, liquidity and asset turnover.
Task 6
You need to study what should go under each heading in this task.
Overall, the performance in tasks 4 and 5 is very good, whilst tasks 1 and 3 are reasonable attempts, the other tasks require substantial revision.
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I have 68 points
That is my feedback
Key information
Task 1
You performed very well in this task, scoring very high marks. However, you answered incorrectly the parts regarding: renegotiation and detection of errors.
Task 2
Part (a) is not targeted at the question asked. You gained some marks in part (b) for your calculations but your comments need improvement.
Task 3
This task was answered quite well, achieving high marks. Whilst you identified weaknesses correctly, the descriptions were generally not strong enough to merit the highest possible marks.
Task 4
Much of what was written in part (a) was relevant and gained some marks. The question in part (b) was not answered. In both parts, there was not enough written. Thorough revision of the principles of relevant costing, and how to treat fixed and variable cost is required.
Task 5
You performed very well in this task, scoring very high marks. However, you answered incorrectly the parts regarding: return on shareholder’s funds and operating profit.
Task 6
You performed quite well in this task, scoring reasonable marks. You answered all parts quite well but only identified one analytical method in part (d).
Overall a mixed performance. The performance in tasks 1 and 5 is very good, whilst tasks 3 and 6 are reasonable attempts, other tasks require a serious amount of revision.
We would like to provide you with a summary of the process we followed when your enquiry and appeals request was submitted:
• The Senior Examiner has looked at the tasks in this unit and has confirmed that they’ve been marked correctly.
• The marks weightings in each task are different which means that some tasks are worth more marks than others.
• You unfortunately did not achieve the required 70% for a ‘Competent’ result overall.0
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