ACCA P1 Exam Tips March 2016

ACCA P1 Exam Tips March 2016 session given below are just intelligent guesses from exam point of view provided by famous tuition providers. These exam tips must not be relied on totally. To increase chances of success in Exams you must prepare full breadth of syllabus and topics

ACCA P1 Exam Tips March 2016:

ACCA P1 Exam Tips March 2016 Session are given below by famous tuition providers

Kaplan

Each P1 paper offers 4-6 marks for displaying professional skills, which can easily be the difference between a pass and a fail. The marks are available for both format and the tone and style of your answer, where you may have to prepare a speech or write a letter on behalf of the Board addressing specific concerns. Take a look at the Article of 24 August 2009 for more guidance and some great hints on style.

P1 is a very wordy paper, and the examiner wants to ensure that you have a good grasp of the theories behind the questions, but also that you can successfully apply the theories to given scenarios. Therefore, it is very easy to get lost within a question if your layout and approach to a question is poor.

A good approach is to apply 3 rules in your answer:

Introduction – this should be very short, but can help you get over any ‘writers block’. It might include a read back of the question, or a definition of the subject matter (for example, if the question asks for the roles of NED’s, start by very quickly defining what an NED is)

Theory – this section will show the examiner that you actually understand the issue being questioned, again, as with the introduction, this should really be kept short, it can be a section quote from the code, or a reference to an author (Cadbury or Greenbury et al).

Application – This will be the main bulk of your answer and should relate directly to the scenario. This is often the most difficult section of the answer, but should be made easier by the use of the introduction and theory sections.

In addition remember the golden rules of written questions:

• Plenty of white space
• Headings as required
• Short punchy meaningful paragraphs

Following are some of the famous topics that were tested in past

• Corporate governance critique and improvements.
• Effective internal control systems, reporting within differing jurisdictions.
• Influence of and intervention by institutional investors.
• Diversification of Board
• Function and importance of internal audit.
• Risk definition, analysis of risk and the role of the Board of Directors.
• Risk correlation and strategies for management of such risks.
• Ethical standpoints and their application to business decisions.
• Corporate codes of ethics critique and improvements.
• Tucker’s ethical decision making model.
• Social and environmental footprint.
• Sustainability accounting.
• Integrated Reporting
• Conflict of interest and independence
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

BPP

Section A
One compulsory question worth 50 marks which uses a lengthy scenario, often based on real-life events, to test all three main syllabus areas. Typically, this consists of four written requirements, some of which may be broken down into smaller sub-requirements where discrete syllabus content will be tested both as knowledge and application.

Within the total of 50 marks, there will be 4 professional marks available for producing some form of written communication (such as a briefing note, press release or letter to shareholders) which tests a candidate’s ability to write logical, structured and appropriate content suitable for a particular purpose, often with the aim of presenting a certain point of view.

Section B
A choice of two from three written questions that are each worth 25 marks and typically test up to two syllabus areas by applying the syllabus to a smaller real-world scenario. Again, candidates will be expected to apply their knowledge to the scenario in order to score well

General advice
At the beginning of the exam you are given 15 minutes “reading and planning” time. During this time you can read and annotate your question paper and so this is a perfect chance to make notes next to the information in each scenario of things to include in your answer. Where questions are based on a scenario it is essential that you use the information in the scenario to make your answers relevant.

During this time you should also think about how you will produce your answer – pay attention to the verbs used in question requirements as these indicate the number of marks available. For example, the verb “explain” requires a sentence and will score one mark if properly explained whereas the verb “list” simply requires you to present information with no further explanation: this will typically only score ½ mark per point listed.

The June 2015 exam tested content from the examiner’s technical article on strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) so you should ensure you are familiar with any new articles just in case – they can be found here:
ACCA P1 Technical Articles

You can expect to see the use of stakeholder, ethical and other CSR theories applied to scenarios, as well as the use of risk and governance syllabus content – you should be aiming to revisit as many past-paper questions as possible as we are starting to see exam requirements that reflect those we have seen before.

LSBF

Ethics is most important section of P1. In the ethics section there are number of different ethical theories which you need to learnt off. These are deontological & ontological as well as absolutist and relativist approaches.

In the exam you may be asked to argue from absolutist or relativist point of view so you may be asked to discuss how an individual in the scenario actions will be influenced by their position as absolutist or relativist.

Remember in a question like this the examiner is asking you to explore different courses of action. Examiner does not want you to explain what you believe personally or what you would do in that situation. You can maximize marks by thinking about different course of action from absolutist or relativist point of view and why they would choose these course of action.

Agency is an important aspect of P1 syllabus. Remember you need to learn in detail about this relationship rather than just definitions. You should also know about the agency problems and how they link to agency cost. Agency cost includes monitoring cost so you need to learn why these cost increase in relation to agency problems.

Corporate Governance (CG) is an important part of P1 syllabus. It is important to learn at the professional level papers why each of the provisions of CG is important. It is not enough to just learn of these provisions one by one. So each CG requirement should ensure that company is efficiently managed in some way. 

Internal controls is very familiar topic to all students studying P1 paper. In P1 exam question usually focuses on analysing internal controls issues in the company in scenario. As such in this area you need to focus heavily on the application of internal control theory and not just learning the theory itself so you need to be able to recognise the evidence of poor internal control system.

Stakeholder theories, another important area of syllabus, must be linked to other topics in the syllabus while studying. You may be asked to identify the stakeholders in the scenario or categorize them in some way or you may be asked how stakeholders are affected by other issues raised throughout the syllabus. 

Key Examinable Areas:

– Rules vs Principles.
– Importance of stakeholders.
– Internal control disclosure.
– Risk diversification.
– AAA model.

Beckers Professional

Coming Soon

First Intuition

Coming Soon

Open Tuition

Coming Soon

MM University

Coming Soon

GTG

Coming Soon