Business awareness exam

Carps

Hello.

I just wondered if anyone has done this exam and how they found it? I'm really frustrated as I have read through the Osborne textbooks and did the mock exams and green light tests on the aat website several times and got pretty much 90%+ each time. Sat the real exam today and was just sat staring at the screen for what felt like an eternity trying to figure out what the hell half of it meant. I understand the real thing is obviously a bit different to the aat practice exams and textbooks etc but some questions I couldn't even understand so I've had to guess a few. Not sure if it was just the way they were worded or not but yeh the whole thing felt like a disaster after being so confident.
Also the lady there said it would probably take 15 days or so for the results but after looking on the aat website apparently the business awareness results take over 6 weeks as they are human marked?

Not sure what the point of this post was really just needed to vent a bit. Now I've gotta start studying for preparing financial statements with the thought of potential failure in the back of my mind

sjtoomer

Really? Business Awareness is a human-marked exam, not a computer-based exam? I don't see why it can't be made in to a computer-based exam. The AAT need to get away from human-marked exams. Yes, as I have said before, the AAT seem like to word their exams in a difficult manner that is sometimes confusing and mis-leading, and they are not straight-forward at all; but the AQ2022 exams seem to be even more difficult than the AQ2016 exams, which were quite difficult. I sometimes got the impression that the AAT don't realise how difficult these exams are for students and like to make them purposely difficult; I understand that you're dealing with money, but that does not mean that you need to make exams un-neccessarily difficult (like I believe they are).

Whilst we're having a bit of a rant, I completely fail to understand some of the AAT's changes to their Qualifications; (1) 'Business Awareness' (and the Level 2 equivalent) is a Business Studies module, not Accounting-/Booking-specific, so is a complete waste; (2) Merging 'Advanced Book-Keeping' and 'Final Accounts Preparation' into 'Preparing Final Statements' is ridiculous and makes too big a module that is way too difficult; (3) The same argument in (2) for merging 'Management Account: Budgeting' and 'Management Accounting: Decision And Control' into 'Advanced Management Accounting'; (4) The spread-sheet element in 'Management Accounting Techniques' should just be scrapped, as these skills can be learned whilst on-the-job; (5) Unless I am wrong, they is still an equivalent of the L4 Synoptic exam, which should be scrapped entirely, as it is just a repetition of other existing material. I simply cannot understand these changes, that the AAT have made, to these Qualifications, which in my view will just make them even harder to achieve; but, well, they're their Qualifications to change. I don't think that the AAT are taking student feed-back seriously, as numerous comments have been made to Assessment Centres and Tutors that their exams are un-neccessarily difficult over the years.

wilburnet

Business Awareness is human marked, just like the Level 4 exams because of the writing element. I'm pretty sure you get your result straight away for FAPS and the Tax Processes For Businesses exams. Level 3 AQ2022 exams seem to be more difficult than the AQ2016 exams.
Students need to realise that they can practice questions from AQ2016 units for Level 3, only some materials has moved or changed.

sjtoomer

'Preparing Financial Statements' (FAPS) and 'Tax Processes For Business' (TPFB) are both Computer-Based Examinations (CBEs), so you should get the result automatically within 24 hours, on your My AAT account on-line. Human-marked examinations can take up to 6 weeks to get the result.

philippacoomer

I just took my Business Awareness exam on Wednesday. There were at least 4 questions that weren't covered in the content of the book. I revised that book from beginning to end at least twice. I felt I was prepared - but no. It was ridiculous. I was having to use common sense but with no knowledge base of the topic. Half of the other questions were phrased in such a convoluted backward way that it was so hard to get the real gist of what they were asking. It would have been doubly hard for anyone for whom English is not their first language. If I fail I will be seriously angry as I worked really hard. The AAT need to reconsider the content that they have given to the 'book makers' Osborne, Kaplan etc and review their exam questions. Good luck to anyone taking this exam

HarrisonR

I recently took this Business Awareness exam and failed. All my grades in previous exams have been 89%-100%. Before the exam I was going well with the practice exams and 100% on all the green light tests. Went in to the exam confident.
The exam covered lots of areas we had not been taught in class through Kaplan and at home through the AAT learning portal. One example was a question regarding big data and as we had only learnt the 5 V’s this question related to other V’s that hadn’t even been mentioned. I felt like there were numerous questions like this. Really disappointed and don’t know where to start with revision for a re-sit as a lot of content not covered in material provided.

wilburnet

Do not rely on just AAT learning portal, it only has content for certain parts of the unit. bpp textbook covers Big Data. Also I was advised that you answer in bullet points, just as the examiner answers in the BUAW sample assessment shows

Mila86

Hi everyone,

Just had my exam yesterday and the results will be released middle of August.

Please can you share your results? How was the outcome? Is the last one and I am so nervous.

anony123

Hello,

anony123

Just checking it was working haha...

Had my assessment on the 3rd July. It is my last one as well. Didn't go to bad. But had 40 minutes off my exam time and technical issues as well.

anony123

got 78%

anony123

got 78%