HOW TO PASS ACCA – SBR ON 1ST ATTEMPT?

1. HOW TO PASS ACCA – SBR ON 1ST ATTEMPT? This article is based on my personal 35 years’ experience as a lecturer and feedback from students on how they studied for this paper. Majority of students when they get to this stage of ACCA are betrothed with commitment of work and family life and hence, time is one resource they do not have. Aim is to commence revision at least 12 weeks prior to your exams, you MUST study at least 2 hours during the week and up to 6 hours each day on weekends for the first 4 weeks.

2. By week 5 I recommend that you increase your weekday studying time to 3 hours and weekends to 8 hours each day. By week 8/9 I suggest that you book a week off and study about 7-8 hours every day. The phrase no pain, no gain was popul arised in the 1980s by the American actress, Jane Fonda. Fonda initiated the aerobics workout craze with a series of videos, in which she proclaimed the ethic “No pain, no gain,” and “Feel the burn.” Interestingly, the sentiment has its roots hundreds of years earlier. Let me say every individual is different some need to “warm the chair” others have “photographic memory” hence, taking exams for them is a doddle that being the case everyone’s learning capacities are incidental. POINTS TO CONSIDER DURING THESE HOURS? During the first 4 weeks print out all your notes and go over all the lecturers’ handouts. Main aim during the first 4 weeks is make sure that you pick up on all the important points from the notes and make your own summary notes and flash cards. So that when you look at them in future you will be able to revise that important information. In week 5 start practicing past exam papers there are several books out there BPP, Kaplan, Open Tuition, and others they all have a study manual and a Revision kit. 1.Your strategy should be to practice as many past exam questions as possible personally I think you will learn more from model answers than by just studying the study guide chapter after chapter. Make sure that you have a plan and a set rigid timetable that you will and must stick to. In your timetable write down the questions you will attempt on the available hours for the next 3 weeks hence by the end of week 8 you will be able to practice several questions. Please note that your revision will not always go to plan so allow a week for any contingencies. Make sure that you solve all the questions in order started from question 1.

3. Make sure that you do not focus on standards or topics because one question normally covers different topics and standards so no point doing it that way and remember you have or should have already done this in the first 4 weeks. Wherever you struggle with a question then you can always refer to your notes after solving the questions. Your aim is to make sure that you work through the answer with the endeavour to achieve and improve where you went wrong. 3. Considering the current pandemic most of you will be work from home however, during the days you are at work and travelby train utilise this time by recapping over your revision notes just to keep the knowledge fresh in my mind. Every evening you must do at least 1 practice question and finish off by spending a few minutes scanning through your notes, when you keep looking at lecture notes which takes about 10 mins per chapter on average it really helps during practice because most of the stuff is fresh in your mind. 4. Once you have completed ALL the questions in the revision kit you must make sure that you do ALL the mock exams at the back of the revision kit on weekends however, this must be done under strict exam condition. Lock yourself in a room with no music, no mobile phones, no family distractions, no interruptions from work you get my message. The aim of passing exams is knowledge of the subject however, even more important is “exam style, presentation and technique” most important is TIMING this is one resource you DO NOT have. Initially you will struggle with this however, with practice more practice and even more practice you will master the drill of passing exams. I will be writing a separate article on how to manage your time, and on exam style, presentation, and technique. Finally, remember that exam kits will NOT cover the whole syllabus hence, so please spend some time on them they are not hard as long as you know what’s been proposed in them you should be able to answer the question. Do not ignore them. They are easy marks. I found this website useful.

4. Everyone’s commitments and time available is different. I suggest make a plan that suits you and you stick to you. YOU WILL PASS. Make sure you do all the questions in the revision kit with the aim of testing your knowledge about those topics and learning from them. Manage your time in exam. I suggest that you read the paper for first 7-8 mins and decided which questions/parts you will do first. Before doing every part,you must allocate time available for it e.g., 10 marks X 1.8 mins = 18mins for that part. This exercise takes 2 secs and if you start timing your answers from when you begin practicing this will become your 2nd nature by the time you sit for exam. Aim is to finish your exam 2 minutes before time and just quickly looked through my answers in last 2 mins. Good Luck! Dr Dak Patel FCCA Content Source : ACCA SBR