KEY MISTAKES MADE BY THE STUDENTS

As an ACCA trainer at London School of Business & Certified Accountants, I have undertaken tests for subjects F7 and P2 (now Strategic Business Reporting). I observed a lot of writing problems common among students.

A few of them I have listed below so that you know where you are going wrong despite of knowing the answer.

 Reading the question: Most of the students are so impatient that as soon as they see a question, they start preparing the answer, which is a terrible mistake. You should read the question carefully to get the complete jest of the question. This is the reason you are given 15 minutes reading time in ACCA examinations.

 Choosing the questions to attempt: In the 15 minutes reading time allotted, the very first thing you should do is to decide which questions to be attempted. This will help you to be better prepared while writing answers.

 Knowing what the question wants: This is where most students fail despite of knowing the answer. The only reason is not reading the requirements of the question.

For e.g. A question on financial instruments has provided you with all the data required to calculate the transaction values. However, the requirement is to simply advise on the benefits of using hedge accounting. So, you know the answer, but you did the calculations and revalued the hedging item and instrument, which is correct, but this is not what they wanted. So, when you get out of the examination hall, you are super confident that you will ace it. But when the result is out, you can’t figure out as to why you didn’t clear it. This can be a possible reason for your failure.

Being over confident while answering: You read the question and you know the exact calculations to be done. But in your overconfidence, you forgot to consider that depreciation was to be charged for, say, 3 months. The entire or part of answer will be wrong (in case of F7 or P2, respectively). Being confident is good but being over confident can be extremely dangerous.