Day 2 – Exam structure and general information

While your books are still on their way, I believe it’s a good thing to familiarize with exam structure and at least take a look at syllabus.

The exam lasts 3 hours + 15 min additional reading time (3 h 15 min total time). 

During reading time u can literally do whatever you want with the question paper (you are not allowed to touch the answer booklet). Options : make some nice drawings on it, in case if your inspiration comes during exam, chew it, in case you are hungry or there is another nice option : READ IT and make your notes, outlines and quick calculations.   

Many tutors recommend to concentrate on requirements for each question during this time. This is to ensure that you don’t miss key words and understand very clearly what examiner wants. Another thing that might be useful to do is to do mark time limit for each section . Remember u have 100 marks and 3 h (180 min). That means 1.8 min per mark.

After first 15 minutes by the order of invigilator your torture starts. With trembling hands u will start writing your first reply and will try to present it in the best possible way, almost like you are making report to a President. You will spend 1 h on it  and will realize that u are absolutely out of time and u didn’t even get the point of that first question : )) As a result – exam stress, panic, mistakes , decrease in quality of handwriting and the feeling that you don’t know anything at all. Well, just kidding. I am sure it won’t happen to you. But what I outline above is highly possible for unprepared students.  Anyway, back to subject.

The exam is composed of two sections. Section A includes a mainly computational question and Section B contains a mix of computational and discursive questions. See below:

	No of marks
Section A: One group accounting question	40
Section B: Three compulsory questions (20 marks each)	60
	----
	100
	==

All the above mentioned information and more details can be found here. Those who sit exam not the first time, pay attention that exam structure has changed.

Section A – one question for 40 marks! Wow, imagine u will settle it and write just minor theoretical bits from any of other 3 questions and that’s it, you got your desired 50% marks.  Yea (sigh), I wish it was so. In reality first question is the hardest.   You will need to prepare consolidated Statement of Financial Position and/or Statement of Comprehensive Income AND additionally may include requirement to make a statement of changes in equity. To do this you will need to make various adjustments to given transactions. 

If it still doesn’t sound hard, well simply take a look at pilot paper  question 1 : )  Those with weak nerves – don’t look at it now  ; ) 

More about content of questions can be found in Examiner’sapproach article.  It’s short , just 2 pages and absolutely worth reading. 

Another document that I suggest to print out and refer to all the time during your preparation is SYLLABUS.  Surprisingly, many students ignore syllabus. They simply pay for tuition or purchase hard copy materials and trust whatever they are being told or taught.  Without knowing the syllabus you won’t have the full picture of what is going to be examined.

However, now syllabus is often included to contents of books. But before u purchase them, you can still take a look at syllabus on your own. 

If u explore ACCA website further you might find an article called Examinable documents.  If u take a look at it , you will discover that almost IASs and IFRSs are going to be examined (except IFRS 4 -Insurance contracts), plus conceptual framework. We are lucky, now various interpretations (IFRICs and SECs are not examined anymore, yay!). 

If you are studying ACCA, you must be asking yourself, what is that DipIFR all about. There are papers based on IFRS inside ACCA. What makes DipIFR different. Is DipIFR simply like F7 paper?  Well, not really, DipIFR’s level of difficulty lies between F7 and P2. From my brief analyze, many theoretical bits , specially those about Framework and the structure of IASB, convergence between IFRS and US GAAP are taken from P2. The rest DipIFR is closer to F7. However , still a bit harder.  

Questions involving the preparation of the consolidated statement of cash flows will not be set!  Mmmmm, sounds good!

Well , I guess that’s enough for this very start. 

Sometimes the image of this  big work in front of u might be demotivating. But think of it from different angle : just in 6 months you’ll master it! Yes, u will, because u will pay your exam fee earlier then you will realize that u just can’t prepare well : ) So, there will be no way back.  

Exam fee is £167.

I doubt there is anyone who will let those money just vanish in the air without even attempting the exam. No matter how prepared he finds himself.

Don’t forget the deadlines!

15 April - for the June exams
15 October - for the December exam

 

Before this deadline you need to present the FULL package of documents to ACCA.  You can read more about them in the application form, pages 6-7

 The quickest way to apply for DipIFR is to do it online.

Note the following :

-  if some of your documents are not originally composed in English (e.g. relevant degrees, documents certifying working experience), translation should be enclosed.  That means,  additional efforts and TIME;

- 15 of April/October is a unite deadline for AL ACCA students. Currently there are about 400.000 and this number increases in almost geometrical progression.  Due to this, in the last few days before deadline site becomes too busy and sometimes simply irresponsive or down. Well about being down I might be exaggerating, but be sure that it will be slow (at best). And u know what? It is not the guilt of ACCA, and no need to blame them afterwards.

So if you start thinking of registration on October, then I guess you lack some adrenaline in your blood.

Conclusion : Register beforehand and sleep peacefully!