Unit 5 Simulation FRA

System
System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
edited 10:31AM in AAT student discussion
Just ballsed up my Unit 5 Simulation :cry:

I'm totally confused over the control account error correction and I totally blanked on the adjustment to doubtful debts. Can anyone shed any light on these as I'm totally freaked that they'll come up on the june exam :(

Also if anyone has a copy of the notorious Graham Blott study/revision notes they could email me I would be eternally grateful :D

I take it I'm not the only one who finds the Osbourne books not worth the paper they're written on.

Cashy x

Comments

  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Unit 5 Simulation FRA

    I have just had my sim today, it was the small details that stumped me. The adj was 5% i think the answer was around 844.30? (Provision of doubt debt and bad debt ex), i'm hoping anyway. It took so much longer than i thought it would. if you get an explaination for this please let me know i'm totally blank at the moment. good luck :?
    :?
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Unit 5 Simulation FRA

    Hi

    I too completely messed up as did a lot of people!
    The plca control account adjustment is a one sided credit, the slca adjustment there isnt one!
    Bad debt provision is a credit, so you credit bad debt prov and dr bad debt, apparently you have to enter this on one of the blank lines on the extended tb, hope this helps, good luck

    Julie :idea:
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Unit 5 Simulation FRA

    Have to say the Osborne books are very good and much closer to what the chief examiner is looking for I think. I would question the level of the tutoring in class that alot of people seem to be experiencing.

    The unit 5 skills test really was not a difficult paper and the pass rate was 95% in my class, but we have covered disposals, bad debt provision, closing stock adjustments and suspense accounts over and over with loads of practice questions. The Osborne books give loads of test questions covering journals for adjusting errors such as that on the PCLA, it was naughty in that the other side really was a suspense entry which then was not part of the next bit of the paper, but your tutors should have gone through what the main ledger and subsidiary ledgers are and then it would have been easy.

    I am being controversial here but I think alot of people fall down because their tutors are teaching them to pass an exam not how to be an accountant. The chief assessor has clamped down on this and the papers are moving increasingly to questions where you can only answer them if you have an understanding of what you have been taught rather than rote learning of past papers. This showed up in December 05 when another college in the next town to me had an 85% fail rate!!!!
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Unit 5 Simulation FRA

    Hi Catja

    Our level of tutoring this year has been total pants to be honest, and so much so that i am not going to do my 3rd year. I totally messed up the unit 5 simulation because we hadnt been taught how to deal with wip when you have to remove some of it from the wip account. After that i just fell apart and could not even get my balance sheet to balance. We are now going to do past papers for the remaining 2 weeks that we have, which by the sound of things is not going to be a fat lot of good. Change of career i think!
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Unit 5 Simulation FRA

    I think we are all feeling like that really. I sat down to do the Dec 05 FRA paper last night and completely messed it up. We have been taught incomplete records but I can never remember which side the balances go on!

    Regarding the Unit 5 skills test, are you working from the Osborne books? In the workbook are 3 skills test simulations, Delft, Branson and Harvey. Our tutor made us do these 3 repeatedly until we got it right, they had WIP adjustments and everything else in that came up on the skills test.
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Unit 5 Simulation FRA

    Hi Catja

    I think its the osborne books we are working from i know the delft sim is in there and that is the only one we had time to do so thats why we hadnt done how to adjust work in progress, i didnt get my paper back off the tutor on wednesday night because i wasnt going to get myself worked up about it, so i have that pleasure to come yet! This year is really turning out to be difficult and i am not looking forward to the exams, lots os studying needed i think, so bang goes any hope of a social life for the next few weeks. Julie
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Unit 5 Simulation FRA

    Hi Catja

    I agree with you that we are being taught to pass an exam not to be an accoutant. They are many times we in my class have skipped over things as 'they are not likely to be in the exam' and having read what people are saying about the skills test i am slightly worried especially about the wip part. I am now resourcing myself which shouldn't be the way.
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Unit 5 Simulation FRA

    Hi, just reading in on your discussion, and id like to say that i do feel sorry for some of you. Ive been working in accounts since i was 17, and found FRA so very very simple as i had all the practical knowledge. A friend of mine had decided to learn AAT at college, she had no accounts experience, and failed her exams and sims. She spent a day with me after the exams, as i wanted to see what knowledge she was missing, and i was totally amazed how little she knew about general accounts. She had been taught almost parrot fashion on the basics with no real understanding 'why' she was doing things, and yes, she had been told to skip aspects 'as they were not likely to be in the exams' After a day, she left me fully understanding the basics, and has very high hopes for the exams next month. There is a lot of FRA that is common sense (easy for me to say probably cause i do it every day) but all i can say to people is, understand what you are doing, make sure you know why its needed and not just how to do it, dont just accept that this is the way the books tell you to do it, recognise that it is done for a purpose.
    Sorry if that doesnt make sense lol, Best of luck to you all anyway
    Shaz :D
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Unit 5 Simulation FRA

    hI sHAZ
    I too have been working in accounts for a long time and decided to do AAT from september 2004 as i had no understanding of why i was doing things even though i knew how to do them. The foundation level i found ok to do because i was doing a lot of it at work anyway, but this year with intermediate i have struggled in places and especially with the costing side of things because i have never done anything like that. The tutors do seem to be saying oh that doesnt come up in the exam, and my employer has said that they are not teaching us correct at all, so what hope do we have in the real world, you can hardly say to an employer oh yes im aat qualified but they didnt teach me that so i cant do that part of your accounts! It has put me off doing next year to be honest because of the crap teaching this year.
    I am dreading the exams coming up because my FRA sim was a total mess! Julie
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Unit 5 Simulation FRA

    I know what u mean, im just getting back into technician level after a years break, and am now learing things ive never done before in all the years doing accounts. I loved the FRA side of intermediate, the ECR study i found so hard at first as it was all new to me, but all of a sudden it fell into place. Now im getting back to studies and starting on the tech costing work, and again its way over my head. But i am hoping it will all make sense before december. I do home study, so i cant comment on the colleges, only as far as the few people i personally know who have studied at college, dont seem to be taught all there is to know. The advantage of home study is you have to do the lot, page by page in the book (over and over most often too) I work on Osborne books, and so far, i can say they havent let me down.
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Unit 5 Simulation FRA

    I dont think i could manage home study to be honest, too many distractions! I have used my books on intermediate loads this year and have read and re read the parts i was stuck on until it sank in! But it shouldnt have to be like that, i thought thats what we paid college fees for, so that the tutors taught us all we needed to know, not just how to pass the exams, i need to really think if all the stress is worth it before doing next year,as i have struggled in places this year and got really worked up over the FRA simulation, i only did the course so that i could understand what i was doing at work, not for career purposes, and as i dont do costing i feel that a lot of it is a waste of time for me.
    Julie :lol:
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Unit 5 Simulation FRA

    I am lucky as one of my tutors is also a marker and has explained what is looked for. She has no idea what will be in the exam but we are taught how important showing your workings are, even if you get the wrong answer. All the extra marks you get for this is unbelievable. Also we have never been told "this will not come up", we have been told to learn everything and understand what we are doing. Every lesson now, the tutors come in and say what do you feel you want to go through today? Having said that, I have now started working in practice and am finding it very tough. It is nothing like the course as at level 3 it assumes you can do things like bank recs, which I am having real difficulty with. It has lowered my confidence and put me right off!

    They keep saying on the course, "you will be supervisory level", what practice has shown me is that you cannnot be supervisory if you don't understand the basics, ie bank recs, analysis, looking at cash books etc
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Unit 5 Simulation FRA

    Hi Cajta,

    Did you tutor tell you what the pass marks are for the FRA exam? Please could you let me know. Thank you.

    Regards

    Shiwani
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 🤖 Admin 🤖
    Re:Unit 5 Simulation FRA

    Hi the tutors aren't told but I understand from other sources that the pass mark is usually around 65% You have to pass each section of the paper (two sections per paper) with 65% plus to pass.

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