PQ ACCA September exam tips Continued from page 35 internal or external perspective when answering questions. You will also be required to respond to a variety of people within the organisation. All of the questions in the exam are compulsory. The SBL exam will consist of 80 technical marks and 20 Professional Skills marks. Question requirements in the exam will assess and link several subject areas from across the syllabus, and these will test your ability to construct appropriate responses and to carry out numerical analysis. General advice: While 4 hours (240 minutes) can sound like a lot of time in which to attempt the exam, it is crucial not to become complacent in how you use this time. ACCA recommend spending around 40 minutes reading, planning and interpreting the requirements and the information/exhibits provided. Based on this estimation when planning the amount of time you will spend on each requirement you should look to allocate 2.5 minutes per mark on offer. This time allocation is based on the fact that the exam is 240 minutes in duration, once the 40 minutes reading time is deducted this gives 200 minutes to type up your answer. There are 80 technical marks on offer so by dividing the 200 minutes by the 80 technical marks we derive 2.5 minutes per mark. You can earn the 20 Professional Skills marks by virtue of attempting the 80 technical marks on offer. It is important to note that you can spend longer than the recommended 40 minutes reading and planning your answer. If you do choose to spend longer on this task then you will need to bear this in mind when you come to writing your answers. Alternatively, you may prefer to work on the basis of 2 minutes per mark (being 200 minutes divided by 100 marks). Reading question requirements: The SBL exam will contain all of the information that you will require to answer the question requirements set. This information will be presented in a series of exhibits. To help you locate the exhibits most relevant to answering a specific question it is therefore important that you take the time to read the question requirements set carefully as this should help to direct you. Furthermore, reading the question requirements carefully is important as this will indicate the role and the perspective from which you are expected to answer the question. Identifying this early on is important as it will drive how you construct your answer. Planning your answer: Clearly, if you have gone to the trouble of preparing an answer plan it is important that you use it when writing up your answer. To get the most from your answer plan it is therefore important that you include as much detail as you think will be helpful when the time comes to write up your answer. When planning your work it is important to bear in mind the ACCA’s guide of using 40 minutes for reading and planning. As mentioned earlier you need to remember that some question requirements may require you to conduct some numerical analysis. For example, you may be asked to analyse the performance of the organisation featured in the exam. It is important that you plan the numerical analysis that you intend to perform to ensure that you only focus 36
on performing those calculations that are going to support your answer and provide you with something to talk about. Producing lots and lots of unnecessary calculations for the sake of it will only serve to waste your time in the exam. Using computer software: Ensure you practise timed exam questions using the ACCA CBE software. You need to be comfortable reading and highlighting the exhibits on the screen as well as taking notes in the scratch pad. It will be easier if you plan your ideas and set up your answer structure in the software, in the form of headings. The exam software comprises a word processor, a spreadsheet and some presentation software. The word processor will be used for answering the majority of the tasks. Any calculations you perform should be in an appendix in the spreadsheet software. Tasks requesting slides should be completed in the presentation software. Understanding the syllabus and the appropriate use of theoretical models in the exam: To stand the best chance of passing the SBL exam, you will need to have a good understanding of the entire syllabus. However, it is important to remember that unlike other exams that you may have sat in the past, questions in the SBL exam will not ask you to simply regurgitate your knowledge of a particular topic or theoretical model. Requirements will test your ability to apply your understanding of the subjects covered in the SBL syllabus in the context of the question scenario. Furthermore, requirements will not specifically ask you to use a particular model in answering the question. Whether to use a theoretical model when constructing your answer will be a matter of judgement that you will need to weigh up in light of the information presented to you in the exam. Attempting plenty of questions in the lead up to your exam is the most effective way of developing your judgement in this area. Understanding the difference between technical marks and Professional Skill marks: Technical marks relate to the knowledge (which we discussed in the previous section), there are 80 technical marks on offer in the exam. By contrast the 20 Professional Skills marks are awarded for displaying the following skills and
behaviours: • Communication. • Commercial acumen. • Analysis. • Scepticism. • Evaluation. Every Professional Skill will be tested in every SBL exam sitting. The Professional Skill being tested will be specified under each question requirement. As you prepare to attempt the exam it is crucial that you take the time to attempt as many practice questions as you can. To increase your chances of exam success you need to ensure that you take sufficient time to develop your understanding of the Professional Skills. Advanced Performance Management APM Q1 section A: Q1 of the APM exam will focus on a range of issues from syllabus section A (strategic planning and control), section B (performance measurement systems and design) and section C (strategic performance measurement). Section A (50 marks) contains one compulsory question. In recent exams Q1 has often required linking a business’s mission to its performance objectives using the concept of CSFs and KPIs. You may well also have to critique and recommend improvements to performance reports and the balanced scorecard and/or information systems could well be tested in this context. The assessment of performance is also likely to be tested and this could easily include benchmarking as a theme. Financial performance measures (ROCE/RI/EVA etc) are also likely to be commonly examined in this context but don't neglect non-financial issues from syllabus section C such as quality management, value for management and reward systems. Q2-3 section B: ACCA have said that one of the section B questions will come from syllabus section D (performance evaluation). In section B, commonly tested areas include quality management, information reporting (e.g. big data, lean information), HR frameworks (e.g. PQ Magazine September 2022
