ACCA ATX exam Richard

from PQ magazine, August 2022

Ethical dilemma Is there a

x. Read the technical articles – a technical article has been written for pretty much every area of ATX. These are helpful to help you understand the areas individually.

‘Play the Game’ I have lost count of how many times I have heard students say: “That was a hard exam”.

Is there such a thing as a ‘hard exam’? The answer is NO if you have solid exam technique.

Let us look at Question 2 in the June 19 Exam as an example. It was a 25-mark question so 12.5 marks were needed to pass.

Question content Part 1 – 17 marks: Challenging group relief question. Part 2 – three marks: Implications of forming a VAT group Part 3 – five marks: Ethics – explain tax evasion. a. What would the student with poor exam technique do? • Attempt part 1 first. • Try to do the difficult numbers. • Over-run on time. • Start to panic. • Run out of time for Part 2 and Part 3 • Fail the question and as a result does badly in the rest of the exam. b. What does the student who knows how to

‘play the game’ do? • Attempt Part 2 and Part 3 first – get

the easy eight marks. • Then spends the rest of the time (relaxing!), finding 4.5 easy marks out of 17 marks available in Part 1.

There were (by the way) some ‘easy’ marks in Part 1, like doing a basic capital allowances computation (for four marks). But students don’t see ‘easy’ marks within a question that has ‘hard’ aspects if they are under pressure because of poor exam technique.

How do you pass ATX? Generally, successful students have done a course focusing on question practice and exam technique. This is because you must learn how to ‘play the game’! Even if you know all of the rules, it doesn’t mean that you can apply them to a scenario.

Advising and adding value (by stating basics and setting the scene for a client), rather than getting stuck on the numbers, are key skills to passing ATX.

Make sure you understand the Test Reach Software • Make each point in a separate paragraph in written sections – it makes it easier to mark a point. It should also prevent the same point being made more than once. • Use a well-structured layout with appropriate workings in numerical areas – it should be easy to see how a figure from a working fit into the main computation. • Understand the spreadsheet functionality – CBE spreadsheets have the functionality to calculate numbers for you. However, make it clear to your marker what you have done. Just because you are working in a spreadsheet, does not negate the need to properly present your answers. • Copy and paste functionality – it is amazingly effective to take the requirements and use these as the headings in your word processor response. • Headings and blank lines/columns – make appropriate use of headings between workings. • Practise in the software – it is important that you are familiar with the spreadsheet functions and word processor functionality before the exam.

Three separate exams within ATX Students often do not realise that they are sitting three separate exams. 1. You need to understand the technical aspects and the patterns of the past exams. 2. You need to understand the exam technique and how to ‘play the game’. 3. You need to understand the ACCA CBE Test

Reach software.

If you are weak with any of these areas, you will find ATX more challenging that it needs to be. • Richard Poole FCCA is an ATX specialist tutor at FME Learn Online