Advice or help with Financial Performance (Level 4)

gabriellenlewis

Hi everyone,

So I deem myself to be better at the calculation and mathematical parts of the questions. However, I have failed this exam twice which I crazy as that's never happened to me before.

The first time, I knew I would fail because I left it so late to prepare. But the second time, I felt quite confident. I still don't know where I went wrong even after receiving the "feedback" which is hardly beneficial. So I've no idea where to start improving or revising again!

I was getting 90% on the Green Light tests and understanding all of the answers to the practice question papers.

Does anyone have any advice or tips as to how to pass the actual exam?!
I'm concerned that I may have lost marks for not outing correct decimal places or putting the right figures in the wrong places due to the way the questions were laid out (which is SUPER annoying).

Any help would be appreciated, thanks x

sabina

Hi - can you request feedback after the exam from each question, which should state if you have met 70% competence or not?

If not, it may be due to little errors such as decimals places. I would use the kaplan question workbook which really helped me cause they are more or less the same as what you will expect in the exam and if you can do them, you will ace the exam. Also, make sure you're learning all the equations for variances as this is a big chunk of the exam - scan the equations and read them on the go! Sounds crazy but it worked for me!

It could be due to the writing questions - are you confident with these? Make sure to write in paragraphs and refer back to the scenario.

Don't rush into re-sitting the exam again - take your time going over each topic.

Good luck!

Bertie

You didn't pass this time don't worry - you need to improve the way you revise.

If you use Kaplan material, buy the BPP question book, if you use BPP buy the Kaplan question book.

The key to achieving success is to make sure you understand the theory - anything else is by virtue, basic arithmetic.

You must understand the theory.

Adele69

I sat this a few days ago, and did kind of what Bertie suggested. Mostly using Osbourne (distance learning with Eagle) but I also bought a recent BPP book to get more question practice and assessment examples.

BPP has 6 practice assessments (including the two AAT assessments online with breakdowns of the answers). Even up until the week before I was still getting a lot of variances muddled and in a third of cases wrong, as well as not being able to explain them without looking at notes. Basically I rushed to learn them shorthand but didn't really understand the function of each, and had to properly learn them again in the week before the exam, just a couple of my own mnemonics to cover the FOH volume related. In my first practice assessment about 10 days ago I only got onto Q9 (the one I just commented on) and ran out of time to answer it, under exam conditions.

Put in about 30 hours of solid revision (mostly with the BPP book) in the following week and it paid off. Both my calculations during the exam, understanding of the variances and time management were much improved, making enough time to properly answer Q6 and 10, the two written questions with 22 marks each (unlike in my first L4 exam FS where I was subject prepared but didn't manage the time as well and ran out halfway into Q10).