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Natasa’s AIA Student Journey & Exam Tips
Natasa’s student journey
Read about Natasa’s AIA student journey with Achieve.
Within International Accountant, we often discuss the wide ranging benefits on offer to students when they enrol onto the AIA interactive distance learning programme, Achieve. However, we fully appreciate that it is very easy to just talk about all the wonderful benefits, so within this edition we have sat down with one of our current students, Natasa Parouti, who is already taking full advantage of the programme to get her thoughts.
Natasa is currently based in Cyprus, working as an Accounts Officer for Seatankers Management Co. Ltd, which operates within the shipping and investments sector. During the interview, Natasa provides her candid opinion on AIA, Achieve and the ongoing challenges associated with studying for a professional qualification whilst balancing a busy and successful professional and personal life.
We know you are very busy, so thank you for taking this time out of your schedule. First and foremost, what initially attracted you to study with the AIA?
To set the scene, I made the decision to join AIA in 2012. At this point in time, I was already a qualified accountant in Cyprus with 15 years of work experience. I was looking to join a globally recognised accountancy body which would allow me the opportunity to further my education with a master’s level qualification in accountancy. The AIA clearly ticked this box and in addition they offered me like for like exemptions, so I did not have to go through the process of resitting papers which I had already attained within my previous accountancy qualification.
Why did you choose to use the Achieve Programme and how has it helped?
Studying for such a high level qualification without support and guidance can be very difficult, especially when you are trying to balance study with your ongoing career. It therefore made logical sense to enrol onto the Achieve programme and benefit from the wide range of resources it has to offer. Choosing to enrol on Achieve has been an inspired decision. The structured study programme, alongside frequent past paper exercises, has made me more motivated than ever and pushed me to be more efficient in my studies.
What advice would you give to other students thinking about joining AIA and studying on Achieve?
Stop procrastinating and start your AIA journey as soon as possible. I am based in Cyprus, and my personal experience so far is that there is no better accountancy body to choose. If you follow the programme provided by Achieve, you will enhance your chances of exam success.
What is the most challenging task or project within your current role?
There are many challenging tasks on any given day, but I would say for me the most challenging would be preparing management accounts and VAT submissions. There are many factors to consider within the task and it is essential to always have attention to detail, so no mistakes are made.
How has the AIA professional accountancy qualification/membership helped you with this?
Without the knowledge and experience I have gained during my recent studies with AIA, I don’t feel that I would have had the confidence to tackle these challenging tasks. I now also have the added incentive of promotion opportunities once I complete my professional accountancy qualification with AIA. This incentive has certainly increased my motivation levels.
More generally, how does the AIA professional accountancy qualification/ membership assist you in your daily role and responsibilities?
As I touched on in the previous question, the most important factor for me has been self confidence. I knew I had the ability to undertake such a level of qualification, but successfully studying the professional exams has definitely increased my confidence levels. This in turn has yielded a greater respect from work colleagues and managers alike.
How long have you been studying with the AIA?
I joined AIA as a student in 2012, but for professional and personal reasons I have only been able to invest the adequate amount of time to my studies in the past three or four years. My plan from this point onwards has been to take and pass one paper each year. I am pleased to say this plan is working well. I am now onto my final paper, which I hope to pass next year.
And finally, how has the AIA professional accountancy qualification helped you to get to your current position in your career?
I wouldn’t say it has helped me to get my current position, but I am 100% confident that it will assist me as I look for promotion opportunities once I have successfully passed the final paper. The reason I feel so confident about this is because I now have a far better understanding of reporting and can provide valued opinion on a range of accounting topics.
If you are currently a student struggling with exams, perhaps Natasa’s story will inspire you to try a new approach. Enrol onto the Achieve programme today and start your preparations for the upcoming May 2020 exams in earnest. Remember that the sooner you enrol, the sooner you can start reaping the benefits of the AIA Achieve programme.
For further information, contact the AIA Study Support Team by emailing: achieve@aiaworldwide.com. ●
Exam skills
Practising skills such as exam technique, time management and planning can help you to do even better in the exam room.
Exam success is as much to do with good exam technique as it is to do with good technical knowledge. This article focuses on the time management and planning aspects of approaching narrative questions. This article is written with the Financial Accounting 3 (Paper 13) in mind, but many of the issues discussed are generic and will therefore apply to all papers at all levels.
Narrative answers
Candidates at all levels should always read any exam advice provided by AIA based upon Examiner’s Reports – and the sooner candidates do this in their revision process the better. The Exams Advice is published in the “Document Library” of the website and can be accessed by all candidates. Most exam papers contain questions requiring a mixture of narrative and calculations in the answers. The narrative requirement appears to present the most difficulty to candidates, so the advice outlines a suggested exam strategy that candidates can employ when faced with a question requiring this form of answer.
Papers vary in terms of the proportion of the marks given for an essay, or for a discussion or for the provision of advice. Therefore, you should make sure you know the approximate percentage of the marks that each paper gives for questions requiring narrative answers. For example, approximately 30% of Paper 13’s marks will be for a narrative answer. If you ignore this requirement and concentrate your exam time on those questions requiring only calculations, you are effectively trying to gain 50% (the pass mark) by attempting only 70% of the paper. This has the effect of increasing the required pass mark to 71.4%. If you do this, you are making your passing of the exam much more difficult.
Time management
When writing narrative answers, you must exercise some control, be self-disciplined and resist the temptation to begin writing immediately. Over enthusiasm to “get something down on paper” often results in rambling, irrelevant and incoherent answers which gain few, if any, marks. Certainly not enough to pass.
The starting point, as with any answer to any question on any paper, is to calculate how much time to spend on the answer. This is very simple. The available time is 180 minutes and there are 100 marks available. Each mark should therefore take no more than 1.8 minutes (180/100) to achieve. So, if you are faced with a question worth five marks, you should spend no more than nine minutes (5 x 1.8) trying to answer it. In addition, where a requirement is broken down into a number of sub-requirements, calculate the amount of time you need spend on each separate requirement.
Don’t forget that the 1.8 minutes per mark includes planning time. It is therefore a good idea to write down the finishing time per requirement on your question paper to ensure that you do not overrun. Once you have allocated your time, make sure that you are ruthless with your time allocation.
Do not be tempted to over-run on your time allocation at the expense of another question. It is well known that the first few marks of any question are the easiest to gain, whereas the last few marks are the most difficult. So, say you have 15 minutes left in an exam and have one question yet to attempt. It is far wiser to spend that time trying to answer a new question – and possibly picking up some of the “easy” marks – than it is to spend the time trying to finish another question and gaining few if any of the “hard” marks.
Timed question practice is the key to success. As you are moving closer to the real exam, build up the amount of timed question practice in your revision schedule to develop this key examination skill.
Planning
Once you have calculated the time to spend on a question (as above), the first one or two minutes should be spent planning your answer. There should be four steps to this as follows:
1. Read the scenario slowly and carefully. Try to think “What is the question really about?” Write the heading “Essay Plan” on a sheet of paper. This shows the examiner that this is part of your workings and that you have tried to be professional and rigorous in your approach to your answer. Also, if you run out of time and don’t complete step four below, it shows the examiner the areas you would have discussed had you not run out of time. This can only be of benefit to your mark. Underneath the heading “Essay plan”, write down every issue you can think of relating to the topic and the scenario. Each issue should be described in only one or two words or phrases and no more. Some people write these issues down in a circle whilst others produce a simple list. You can do this in any form you find most useful.
2. Read the question and scenario again and:
a. delete from your plan any issues you think are irrelevant to your answer;
b. link together any issues which may be similar; and
c. add any new issues, if you can think of any, to your plan.
3. Look at your plan and number the issues in the order you will write about them in your answer.
4. Begin writing your answer by discussing each point in turn. Read the command word in the question. If the question asks for a report, make your answer look like a report. If the question asks for advice to be given to, say, directors then produce a heading which states “Advice to directors of…” The aim of producing such a structured approach is to demonstrate to the examiner that you have the requisite skills to act as a professional accountant.
The above strategy has two distinct advantages. When writing, you can concentrate solely on the issue you are writing about. Your mind won’t be wandering and trying to think about what you’re going to write next (which often results in rambling, irrelevant and incoherent answers). In addition, your answer will be concise, will stick to the point and, as a result, is more likely to get you good marks.
During your revision periods you should repeatedly practise the first three steps shown above. Use narrative questions from past exam papers and check that your plans are on the right track by comparing them with the examiner’s model answers. However, at this point an important issue arises. Some candidates may believe that they have to produce an answer which is exactly the same as the examiner’s model answer. This is NOT the case. To pass the exam, you do not have to produce the same points as the examiner, although the points do, of course, have to be relevant to the topic and to the scenario in the question.
As you are self-reviewing your answer, work on the basis that there will be one mark available for each relevant well-developed point that you have made as a guide to how well you have performed.
Conclusion
Do not ignore the narrative sections of exam questions, since it is very difficult to pass by focusing on the numbers alone. As you become more comfortable with the technical aspects of your studies, start to develop your exam technique skills, through time question practice and answer planning. That way you will be better equipped to put these skills into practice in the real exam. ●
