[boringaccountant]

Passed and affiliate finally!! Thank God & thanks OT!

Was my 4th attempt, do not lose hope & dont give up

My last attempt had a v good paper but only got 47, this time was ok-ish paper but cleared it, trick is to answer the scenario, not text book definitions!

[boringaccountant]

some bored jobless individual was probably trying to figure out how best to pass the time until results and came up with these theories, little did he/she know – they have a cult following now 😛

[boringaccountant]

Did you guys know? –

On 1 April, 1976, the BBC announced that Pluto would soon pass behind Jupiter and reduce Earth’s gravity, which would cause listeners to feel like they were floating if they jumped into the air at exactly 9:47am. It was meant as an April Fool’s prank, but hundreds of people called in claiming they’d felt the ‘Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect’

Same goes with these link theories on these forums.. -_-

[boringaccountant]

..too much to read, analyze and interpret in too little time..

some questions were also very vague – but that’s the case with this paper anyway..

I’d still vote ‘Hard’..

[boringaccountant]

i thought Q4 was the easier of the others. lengthy but was more to the point..

when compared to questions like “what is balance in a balanced scorecard”? -_-

[boringaccountant]

ok-ish paper.. Too lengthy, but that is expected with this paper.

Q1 part 2 – give a practical example was kind of confusing since we were told specifically no mention of performance measures..just scribbled down some points.. hopefully good enough for a pass..

[boringaccountant]

@cheychey21 said:
Ok. I sit this exam in march and june so this is my third attemp. Topics included performance pyramid, TQM, cost of quality, assessing the positives of a performance measurement dashboard, ROCE, EBITDA, benchmarking, target costing and target cost gap, and integrated reporting (7 mark question). Think the last question was about reward or appraisal system, I didn’t read it in detail because I did not choose that one.

On another note: I think it’s just important to tell you that ACCA revision lectures held through webinars are saved and can be downloaded from vimeo. I think these are very helpful.

Thanks a lot!!

[boringaccountant]

@cheychey21 said:
This exam was much better than the June one so I am hoping for a pass. I am already tired and frustrated with this exam, just want to pass and move on. Just hope I wrote enough and applied enough to the question to get that pass. Aye.

^ pls..what topics were covered this sitting?
I gave my last p5 paper in June, will be re-sitting in Dec… would really help to knw what topics were covered, so I knw what more to expect in Dec..

[boringaccountant]

Can u please let me knw what questions / topics were examined this time ?

[boringaccountant]

Easiest F9, hardest F8

Surprisingly both from F-level modules.

[boringaccountant]

done. (Y)

[boringaccountant]

Guy’s, there is a reason why P4 is the hardest, toughest paper in ACCA, along with P5,

The “Mediocre” P4 paper you get every once in a while is not easy, its just the normal ‘hard’ that P4 usually is, what is expected…

so this time it wasn’t as disastrous as some of the past papers have been & therefore the P4 paper that comes next in Sept will be a lot harder than this..

You can just look at some of those questions like Nahara Co. for example! If it werent for Mr. Awesome John Moffat, i would never have understood nor even attempted that kind of a question after looking at it…& that is P4 !!

[boringaccountant]

not easy, but not very hard compared to the past papers…

as is the case with all P-level papers, impossible to complete in the given time frame!

[boringaccountant]

@arvena said:
Hi. Can I have the P3 models list?

https://opentuition.com/topic/summary-of-models-and-other-stuff/

here you go…. 🙂 good luck!

[boringaccountant]

Guys Passed! This awesome feeling!

3 to go!! Thank u opentuition, thank u all!

Special thanks to that guy who posted those P3 models list.. 😀 😀

[boringaccountant]

@xil2600 said:
Used different perspective on Q1 than previous posters – was thinking about BCG, SAF and Ashridge, but it seemed to easy to just outline benefits & advantages. So did a bit different way:

Q1(a) – SWOT for QTS & QTSBA combined – outlined strengths, weekneses and opportunities and threats in relation to acquiring A2K. Then used TOWS to outline how acquiring and merging A2K with QTSBA would: a) bring trainers, which are scarce resource, b) cost synergies – admin, sales&mark, back office, c) e-learning team, which QTSBA lacks, d) new perspective on courses (humorous and challenging, compared to QTS’s structured offering) – could broaden the niche/expand category, e) bringing mgt team and empowering trainers/e-learning – quick fixes, f) improving profitability through synergies outlined above – A2K had lower profitability than the group, therefore had to be quickly improved otherwise would dilute current results etc. – Wrote quite a bit on Q1(a) – went over about 10 mins, so had to speed up the rest to make up the time.

yes, i think that was the right approach for q1, TOWS, yes yes its a very relevant model to be used, Damn it!!! why on earth did i not think of this ?! i thought about it but i just didnt use it !!!!! arghhhhh !!!! i used very briefly in 1 or 2 areas including SAF, but TOWS makes a lot of sense here! ^*)&(&*^%*^&(& !!!!!!!!!!!!

[boringaccountant]

anyways i could be all wrong & messed up, just had like 10 or so minutes to do this part,

Hopefully we pass and make the 50% 😀

[boringaccountant]

ohh btw it wasnt the institutional sh himself, i just remembered, it was some one on their behalf in the meeting, like a proxy, this could may be a point in someway used !?!?

[boringaccountant]

@chris165 said:
Err the shareholder’s comments were meant to relate to the CSR shown by the charitable donation and had nothing to to with the divestment of the property business. At least I hope?

yup, we know that the guy has a pristine capitalist motive here, and thats his ethical stance, question asked for “why” this stance, why is he not supporting the allocation of funds to a charity? now in the sh’s statements he did not specifically mention that he was against this donation, he said this is not the right way to make use of the SH’s funds, i mean in all possible scenarios he could have a personal grudge with that charity, we dont knw and this is not an ethics paper :P,

the funds for the CSR strategy from Sarah will only be possible after a divestment of the property, therefore i did mention that the Institutional SH might be concerned about the reputational risk involved here, knowing the fact that in this country banks have been regularly accused of causing recessions through lending, and in the property business, most of these are financed through bank loans and stuff, there is a reputational risk here to the Brothers Bank of attracting further criticism especially when they are looking to improve their social image as mentioned in the case.

that property business they acquired had a profit-making year b4 acquisition and had 2 continuous loss making years post-acquisition (whatever the calculation was here, i forgot the numbers)

now divesting such a business will only contribute to further recession, and this can severely damage the reputation of the bank with handling of the business very carelessly and trying to hide this by promoting charities…

[boringaccountant]

I mean it was afterall the best strategy to divest that Property business, it was loss making, it was a dog through BCG matrix, it was taking up unnecessary costs with having to retain those useless managing staff to run it …. there wasnt much to say to counter the “divest” strategy… it was just plain liability for the portfolio of bank brothers…so i couldnt really mention any real points there in favor of the shareholders remarks.. ??!?!? :S

[boringaccountant]

@dannyw1984 said:
I was in about 4 minds for question one.

I had originally read the case study and started marking down benefits and advantages for the QTS group (or whatever they were called). It was then I realised you had to offer the benefits and advantages of QTS buying A2K 🙁

So I thought of a SAF approach, but didn’t as yet ONLY wanted the benefits and advantages, only the good things, and with a full SAF you can bring out negatives. They didn’t have the staff to run their own company, let alone enough staff to take on the new one and set it all up etc, although they would pick up staff.

I was going to use a BCG with the market share and growth, but BCG shows A2K as a dog – low market growth and low relative market share.

So I just picked out 4 or 5 relevant advantages – appeasing the shareholders by growing, maximising wealth, bringing in a team to run their e-learning packages etc.

Overall, was a very long question. I didn’t even start writing an answer till after 10.30am.

And one of the requirements for question one was asking for an explanation of culture, the culture web and mintzberg, for both the companies before and after acquisition all for about 12 marks. Was a LOT to do 🙁

I did question 4 next as 2 and 3 freaked me out.

I then realised question 2 was just a cost and benefit analysis.

2 part b was trickier though.

My first attempt at P3, felt comfortable enough, but very time pressured.

Same^ was getting so many ideas but question keep ringing a bell in my head “Only Benefits & advantages” so couldn’t freely use any model…

btw for Q4b, institutional shareholder’s comments on strategy used by Sarah, what major points u mentioned ? i couldnt get much, may be because i just quickly went thru it, but i just got like few 3-4 points there…

[boringaccountant]

yes q1 kind of gave me a shock at first !! because no PESTEL, no PORTERS, no CSF, KPI’s, TOWS, BCG…. just straight change management, Organisational culture & configurations – kind of least expected topic atleast for q.1…

but having a read through the case study and noting key points while having read the questions in 15 minutes reading time, was able to start getting the right points here and there…. got going basically… and then just went on and on for the next 1.5hrs…

so unfair at work, u look at 12:15pm and after 2 hours u look again, its 12:20m but in ACCA exams u look at 12:15pm and after 10 minutes, its already 1:15pm !!!!!!!!

[boringaccountant]

did not really use any particular model for q1, just brief references to few, apart from those mentioned for contextual features for change management and stuff in part (b)…

any 1 else with the same approach ? or did u guys use specific models for part (a) ?

actually almost the whole paper was less on models, q 1, 3, 4 – not many models like all we covered with pastpapers and p3 syllabus…

[boringaccountant]

There was just too much info in q1 to breakdown in sections for all 3 parts of the Briefing paper..

too many points, and ideas coming up,

almost 1.5 hrs on q1 itself…

left with 90 minutes for the next 2 case studies… didnt have time to read it in full, just went thru real quick, noted key points, and just scribbled down the answers… still did not finish the whole paper !!!!!

hopefully done enough for a 50% !!

[boringaccountant]

btw is BCG appropriate to use in both questions 1 & 4 ??

because again advantages to QTS & QTSBA – the market still growing and the market share also increasing post-acquistion

and in q.4 > portfolio of business, market decline, volatile, fluctuating, no indication of market share compared to industry though… so ??!?

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