Decision & Control Exam

bethany

Hi all,

Today I sat the Decision & Control exam. It was the new version with 8 tasks rather than 10, but it was SO HARD!

I did both of the practice assessments on the AAT website, which I passed with fairly high marks, so obviously this (along with completing the Osborne workbook practice exams) gave me confidence that I was ready for the exam. Except there were questions in the exam which I hadn't seen in any of my study materials. They were in a very different layout to questions I had practiced. I felt that a lot of my exam was just guesswork of what to do! I had studied really hard for this exam and so feel discouraged that I may not pass it. I did manage to fill in everything, bar one question which would only gain one mark, so that is good. Normally, I like to double check my work, but I didn't really have a chance for that, as I was so focused on working out the questions I was baffled with! All the others in the exam were working up to the last minute.

Although I understand that these exams should be challenging, I don't think it's fair that the study materials and AAT practice assessments aren't at all close in level of difficulty to the actual assessment.

I have a question.. do you get marks carried down in both the computer, and manually marked questions? For instance, if you have a task where you have multiple boxes to fill (a statement of profit/loss for instance), and you get the first figure wrong, does this mean the rest of your answer will be incorrect if the rest of the answer has to be calculated using the first figure? Also if you had to write about the results you calculated and your calculations were wrong, would your written answer be marked as incorrect?

Thank you in advance

sharpy92

Hi,

I feel the same with the materials for the Synoptic. The online tasks don't seem to follow through to the actual exam and it is frustrating!

Regarding marking down our tutor has always told us that you can only be marked down once. So for example in A if you give an answer as 500 instead of 300 you would lose the mark. However, if you then need to use your 500 in task B they do not mark you down again and will give you marks as-long as the rest of the calculation or your recommendations/reasons etc are correct.

I hope this makes sense!

JBEDSMITH

The Exam was a complete Joke. The practise exams given online are so far away from the real exam its a joke.
The exam covers things not mentioned in any topics in the books or mock exams.

From my understanding AAT screwed up this exam last year due to asking CIMA level questions to AAT level 4 and now it appears they have screwed this one up too. I spent months practising for this exam sacrificing time away from my family to sit and study.

If I do fail I will be sending my bill to the AAT for changing things at the last minute AGAIN.

mergen

@JBEDSMITH where did you get the info that they were asking CIMA level questions?

ps I am not saying you are making this up.

thefuture

@JBEDSMITH I am interested to know how you explain why some candidates have passed this exam or even got into the high 80's or 90's with the same resources as everyone else?

GregF

Hello All

Was reading this post earlier on today before I sat my exam this evening and agree with all points made

This exam was very different to the Practice Assessments that are on the AAT website, some areas did not even come up yet there were some questions that made absolutely no sense and weren't covered in any of the practice books

I agree with you Bethany that this exam seemed really difficult, and seemed to have so many questions that required you to write your answers. I was assuming that as the paper was 'watered down' from 10 tasks to 8, that there would be more focus on calculations and costing but I found so many questions needed you to explain various things.

The practice exams seemed a lot easier than this actual exam, and I'm gutted as I felt that I was really prepared and had covered everything that they could potentially ask. Questions were coming up where they'd threw a load of additional info into questions that completely confused me. I had to pretty much flag every question at some point as there would be times where half of a task would make complete sense, then the other half would just be about something completely random.

Safe to say i'll be over the moon if I get 70% - this was a tough, tough exam compared to Budgeting and Financial Statements

Hope to hear others' feedback regarding this exam

bethany

GregF said:

Hello All

Was reading this post earlier on today before I sat my exam this evening and agree with all points made

This exam was very different to the Practice Assessments that are on the AAT website, some areas did not even come up yet there were some questions that made absolutely no sense and weren't covered in any of the practice books

I agree with you Bethany that this exam seemed really difficult, and seemed to have so many questions that required you to write your answers. I was assuming that as the paper was 'watered down' from 10 tasks to 8, that there would be more focus on calculations and costing but I found so many questions needed you to explain various things.

The practice exams seemed a lot easier than this actual exam, and I'm gutted as I felt that I was really prepared and had covered everything that they could potentially ask. Questions were coming up where they'd threw a load of additional info into questions that completely confused me. I had to pretty much flag every question at some point as there would be times where half of a task would make complete sense, then the other half would just be about something completely random.

Safe to say i'll be over the moon if I get 70% - this was a tough, tough exam compared to Budgeting and Financial Statements

Hope to hear others' feedback regarding this exam

I completely agree. After preparing and studying really hard for this, it doesn't seem right to come out of the exam hoping that I'll scrape a pass.

JBEDSMITH

Also I’ll be chuffed if I got over 70%, otherwise I’ll be sending AAT the £65 bill for a resit as they have screwed up again.

As for my sources I had several tutors say the 2017 January Exam was a dud and they had to bump everyone’s marks up by 10 marks due to their error.

I’m not in favour of the AAT exams anyway they are a joke as these exams don’t test your working
Knowledge it’s just a plain memory test.

But we will see in 4 weeks.

tinkerbell0406

I am waiting for my result on the 12th April. I thought that it was very difficult and hope I have scrapped a pass.
I went into the exam expecting it to be a lot easier....wrong. If anything the only up side was the extra time.
Good luck to you all.

Simon_Phillips

sitting the exam on the 17th April. Thought I'd check on here to see any thoughts on the new exam, but Can't say reading this fills me with much confidence.

I put off doing the exam because of all the fuss and a new exam coming out. If it is vastly different from the sample assessments I hope people complain about it as well

tinkerbell0406

Result s back....failed again....I thought I sorted this one.

VS1

Sat this exam and felt like comparing to the first 2 attempts, I could understand this more clearly. Although agreed that it was indeed difficult and the practice exams are relatively more easy. The reduction is marks helped as I had more time, unlike the other 2 attempts I always ran out of time but with this one, I still had spare mins at the end. Noticed a few questions that I couldn't attempt in my second try was on this (freaked me out) but after I had more time to experiment and figure out what the question was asking, I think I managed to do it, not sure if it's right though, I should find out next week.