AAT Level 4 Synoptic Exam

I suppose AAT's argument to not really review the exam would be that many students are actually passing therefore showing it is possible to pass it (and no doubt get very good grades in some instances). 25% does seem very low though, I wonder what the overall pass mark is so far throughout the country? And I wonder what AAT were expecting it to be at this stage? The problem is that we are the first year on AQ2016 and therefore there is no past data to compare our pass marks to.

I won't be recommending the AAT either. In fact, I will be advising people to go directly to ACCA. They automatically adjust the pass rate based on average %. That's fair. The AAT are destroying their reputation with the new syllabus and quite frankly 3.5 years for 3 exam excemptions and all this drama, it's just not worth it. The aim of the AAT as I know it, is to introduce you to the basics and give you confidence. It has done the complete opposite. I was lucky that I got 83% for this exam but the MDCL exam destroyed my Confidence! Like wholeheartedly! Thank God 10% increase got me to a pass because I was ready to give up on it all and start ACCA! The result for MDCL affected my confidence and ultimately my results for both budgeting and financial statements. I just lost faith. They really need to sort this all out!!

@Kennnnedyy someone should write to the BBC, Ofqual and anyone else who is willing to hear!

sent my email to BBC - response back saying they will endeavor to look into it

More than frustrating i think its a joke - am just trying to study once again for synoptic resit in September but have no clear vision as to what is needed

How many times are we allowed to resit the synoptic ?

I fail to see how class room issues have caused this situation with poor results - I was taught all of the topics prior to the synoptic and passed all papers - the AAT have changed the way they have structured this exam and in my opinion changed the marking scheme otherwise students who have passed all other exams which included written questions would have passed the synoptic - why will AAT own up to the fact they have supplied limited resources and pitched the exam in a manner nobody has been accustomed to

Dear Lucie



Thank you for your letter dated 31 July 2017, addressed to Mark Farrar. Unfortunately, Mark is on leave at present and so I have been asked to respond on his behalf. I apologise for the delay in responding.



I am very sorry to hear about your experience with the MDCL assessment and I can only apologise for the distress and anxiety that this has caused.



As you have indicated, two separate issues arose earlier this year in relation to MDCL. The first was in relation to concerns about the content of the assessment and the alignment of one topic in particular to the specification. The outcome of the investigation relating to this issue confirmed that the concerns were unfounded, although we have taken steps to provide clarification within the qualification specification. The second issue related to concerns about the difficulty of the MDCL assessment, and our own concerns about its performance, especially when compared to the equivalent assessment from the previous version of the qualification. As a result of our investigations on this second issue, we took the decision to uplift the percentage marks for all students, to bring the pass rate more into line with our expectations.



Whilst this uplift had a positive impact on all students’ results, an unfortunate knock on effect was that some students (including you), whose result changed from Not Yet Competent to Competent, had resat the assessment during the intervening period. We therefore offered a good will payment of £50 to all those affected, although I appreciate that this does not necessarily compensate you for the distress and inconvenience of having to prepare for and resit the assessment unnecessarily. I can only offer my sincere apologies for this.



AAT believes there should be a diverse range of materials and approaches that tutors can use to help their students acquire the relevant skills, knowledge and understanding, and to prepare adequately for their assessments, and so we are keen not to promote one approach over another. Therefore, whilst AAT does provide publishers with qualification specifications and other information to help them develop their publications, we do not officially support or endorse these publications. We also believe that publishers should take responsibility for what they print. I am sorry that this does not accord with your own views on the matter.



I am sorry that you found the questions in the Advanced Synoptic (PDSY) assessment ambiguous. This is a new type of assessment and we are monitoring its performance very closely, to help us identify where improvements to language and content can be made. However, please be assured that where anomalies are identified that could have affected student performance, we do give consideration to these during the marking and standardisation process and we make adjustments, as appropriate, to ensure that students are not disadvantaged.



I note that you have now received your PDSY result and that you achieved a Pass for this; please accept my sincere congratulations. I appreciate that this cannot change your negative experience with MDCL but I hope that you at least feel that you are on target to achieving your Level 4 Certificate, and I wish you all the very best of luck for your success in the remaining units.



Kind regards

Mark Novels

Such a confusing reply !!!

> @minicooper said:
> I know and then they went and emailed me and rewarded with with my MAAT status, they disabled my access to the study support on the myAAT and then asked me send the certificate back because they did it all in error

Have you passed all the exams? So confusing

> @minicooper said:
> > @marialucas said:
> > > @minicooper said:
> > > I know and then they went and emailed me and rewarded with with my MAAT status, they disabled my access to the study support on the myAAT and then asked me send the certificate back because they did it all in error
> >
> > Have you passed all the exams? So confusing
>
> Nope that's why I was confused, they did it by accident hahaha
OMG what a mess!

I would like to stress my concern at the combination of study support, tutor support and marking criteria for the Level 4 PDSY synoptic assessment. I sat this exam in July 2017 and I felt I had a good understanding of the subject. I can only assume that the answers I have provided during the AAT assessment were not considered in a ‘real world’ scenario as I myself work in a manufacturing environment and I was relating to these scenarios in a practical manner.
Guidance on delivery for AQ2016
“This approach to teaching has benefits for students in helping them understand why they are learning certain knowledge, understanding and practical topic areas, and to see how these pieces fit together in the ‘real’ world.”
I feel the need to express that if AAT wanted us to provide model answers in a “parrot fashion” to the assessment questions, their study support should have been better prepared in this manner. On the contrary a lot of focus was placed on students having the understanding behind decision making in the work place yet the study support I had access to as an AAT member was poor.
The level 4 support available at the time of my assessment was:
• Sample CBT1 & Answers
• Sample CBT2 & Answers
• Pre-release material sample assessments
• Pre-release material live assessments
There was no e-learning, supporting material or examples of what they expected from their students, on the study support. Besides, the answers to the CBT1 and 2 had no explanations or supporting information whatsoever, it’s almost like you did not want to prepare the students, or were you setting us all up to fail?
I have purchased every reference book available on the synoptic unit and studied it thoroughly, I took advantage of every minute my college could offer me to have the best crack of the whip to find my feedback resembled that of a person who had never seen this unit before.
I gained good marks in the supporting units to which the synoptic related to, Financial Statements 94%; Decision Making 88% and Budgeting 73%. I have not failed a single mock or assessment since starting Level 2 in 2015.
That said, I am not scorned by having failed this assessment, I am just extremely disappointed at having put hours - days, evenings and weekends and a lot of money into gaining the best possible result and I challenge the preparation and the marking strategy on this occasion.
During the live assessment, the pre-release material bore no relevance to the information in the pop-up windows and I found the questions were quite basic. I tried to relate the tasks to real life and tried to explain the best ways to deal with issues, implementing controls and I tried to reason with regard to potential products being discontinued.
I feel I have provided quality answers to fairly vague questions, and it is for this reason that I felt confident of a pass and possibly even a good mark.
I don’t believe the 3 hour window given to complete the assessment was ample enough time and more consideration should have been given to the tasks at hand in this respect.

@AlisonSwanson : I have sent it through as an appeal to the synoptic. This is the one with the 10 day window from date of result. I would think this would count as an official complaint, I will wait to hear their findings and may raise it as a separate complaint if needs be. Currently I don't really know where to go from here or what more I can do to prepare for December's sitting of PDSY but am considering getting study support from correspondence course providers

That's so unfair! Lots of us have PDSY in September with really poor study material!

thank you Joanne Farley for the Been address - see above
here is my little effort ( NB I am level 3 and not planning to "invest" hem hem in level 4 )

haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk



Association of Accountancy Technicians courses and exams

I wish to add my voice to that of Joanne Farley in pointing out the difficulties we candidates have experienced over the introduction of the new curriculum in the accountancy exams run by AAT, one of the providers of accountancy courses and qualifications outside the universities.



AAT have introduced a final exam called the synoptic for all their courses. This is a “new” final month assessment of the whole course and is new to younger candidates. The course material we were taught were not consistent with the new format.

The result is that the results of the final exam are so poor that the majority have failed the course and so cannot continue to level 4 – there are similar issues with the next year’s level 4 final exam

A mark pattern of 80, 80 , 80, 60 indicates there is an issue with the fourth exam and not an issue with the candidate. It suggests that AAT in 2017 have been testing their brand new, carelessly planned test and not testing the candidates (at the considerable expense of the candidates, most of whom have day jobs, mortgages and families)

The courses cost around £2000 and there is an expectation that the exams will assess the course content. The students do not expect to buy a “pass” but do expect that the assessment will reflect course content.

The upshot is that the examiners are echoing that the new exam cannot have any comparison as it is new and they are piloting it and examining the very new information that they have never had before. This means they are testing the exam instead of testing the candidates at £2000 a pop.

In fact examinations can be quality controlled which should not be a surprise anyone. There should be content validity – an exam in accountancy should test accountancy skills. Very low marks seem to have been scored in the section on Excel – and you may wonder if a proprietary product should be tested in a national exam. Bill Gates would answer a strong yes to that one

There should be minimal inter-observer variation: that is, one examiner’s opinion should roughly match another’s. There should be minimal inter-personal variation (someone passing one exam should pass another). The set of students who pass should roughly resemble the year past and the year following as the three populations can be expected not to vary to a wide extent from year to year.

The issue with the AAT Level 3 and 4 in 2017 is that the pass rates are markedly lower than the previous year, and candidates have during their course scored high for four early sections and then failed one, the last in the series but the first in the new format. A pattern of early failure and passing the final is very rare in AAT. It means that they have paid for the whole course and then failed. – rather than fail early and not be allowed to progress thus saving course fees. There is a wide occurrence of four over 80 passes and then a final bad failure of 62. [Pass mark 70%].

The conclusion I invite you to make is that AAT have changed their exam – their criteria for passing without checking if the candidates have been prepared for such a change. Not surprisingly the fail rate has shot up. AAT have done themselves great reputational damage and the candidates have most money.



Oliver Dearlove