ATT exams, how important are the legislation books?

GinnyBee wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Question for those of you who are or have sat ATT exams. How vital to the exam are legislation books such as the "Yellow and Orange Legislation" books? Did you actually refer to them in the exams?

I do realise of course that the legislation is important, I simply mean in an exam hall context!

Thanks

Ginny

I think they can be invaluable.

I would definitely advise you to learn how to navigate them! If you don't know how to find things with relative easy they are a complete waste of time!

When I "learnt" the "annual maxima" calculation for the personal tax paper I remember thinking "there is absolutely no way I am going to remember that" so what I did learn was have to find it in the legislation. I then didn't need to memorise all 12/15 steps because they are laid out in black and white! Lucky for me it never came up in my exam.

My thinking was that if I could navigate them and I had a pig of a paper with stuff I just didn't know I'd at least try to be able to score maximum marks with the stuff I did know from the legislation.

One thing I found really useful was the POCA 2002 but as paper 7 has gone you might not be able to take legislation into the e-assessments, that I don't know and you'll need to check.

Are the essential? No! Can they be useful? Absolutely!

Regards

Dean

GinnyBee wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Question for those of you who are or have sat ATT exams. How vital to the exam are legislation books such as the "Yellow and Orange Legislation" books? Did you actually refer to them in the exams?

Thanks

Ginny

Hi Ginny

I'm glad you asked this question- I've been wondering the same thing myself.

I've got my 1st ATT exam on 1st of May (Personal tax) and I think there's absolutely no way I'm going to pass this exam.

I've only just started revising but in the introductory notes from my training provider (Tolley distance learning) there's 8 pages of notes regarding how to use the legislation during study and in the exam.

From scanning those notes it seems as if you can highlight the books (use a bible highter in order to prevent staining the other side of the page), use the books to jog your memory in the exam i.e. by looking up rules, conditions, reliefs, and even copying out sections of the legislation that relates to a question, etc.

Dean S would disagree with me, but I think the legislation is utterly invaluable:

http://forums.aat.org.uk/showthread.php?32501-ATT-amp-Legislation

From an exam perspective, it depends how good your memory is, vs how well you can look stuff up.

Hi

I'm studying for the ATT personal tax exam in May.
Does anyone have any tips on how to use/navigate the legislation manuals?

Thanks