ACCA 2.1 Exam Tips

Exam Tips and Relevant Articles

The key issue about the exam format is that each section will have just one question on each major section of the syllabus.

The three key areas are: -
1. Managing information systems,
2. Designing information systems,
3. Evaluating information systems.

Overall there will therefore be 2 questions on each key area; one compulsory (section A) and one chosen (section B).

The section A questions are often in two parts, with the marks split evenly across the two parts: -
Part 1 - State the theory
Part 2 - Apply the theory to the scenario

It therefore follows that unless students learn the scenario approach of extracting information from the scenario and applying this to their answers they will have difficulty in gaining a pass mark from section A.

Managing information systems

There will be a maximum of 40 marks on offer applicable to this area.

Business Strategy and IS/IT alignment (Q1 and Q70)
Delivering information systems – accounting issues (Q9 and Q91)
Project initiation – Project Manager roles and responsibilities (Q15 and Q69)
Project planning – Gantt charts (Mock Exam 1 Q4 and Q81 )

Designing information systems

There will be a maximum of 40 marks on offer applicable to this area.

The information systems development process – Waterfall and Spiral models (Q24, Q25 and Q26 )
Modelling user requirements – entity life history (Q26 and Q31 & )
Software package selection – ITT (Q75 and Q93 )
External design – User friendly systems and prototyping (Q40 and Q83)

Evaluating information systems

There will be a maximum of 40 marks on offer applicable to this area.

Technical IS requirements – Housekeeping and audit trails (Q96 and Q108 )
Implementation issues and implementation methods (Q62 and Q77 )
Quality assurance in the management and development process – V model (Q47 and Q87)
Relationship of development processes and quality (Q94 and Q80)

Practice questions

Practice questions listed above can be found in the Practice & Revision Kit for exams in 2006. Where possible both section A and B questions have been identified.

Health Warning!

The examiners deliberately try to avoid question spotting; just because a question featured last time doesn’t mean that it won’t feature this time. Use the tips as areas to have a good look at, but remember no one knows what is in the exam, apart from the examiner. Your safest bet is to achieve good syllabus coverage in your revision, as the examiner aims to do in the exam.

Latest most Relevant Articles

IT development methodologies
Ruth Court
Student Accountant August 2005

The V model
Steve Skidmore
Student Accountant January 2006

(Students should review all the relevant articles on the accaglobal website – in the last exam the examiner examined a 2002 article AGAIN!)

ACCA 2.2 Exam Tips

ACCA paper 2.2
Corporate and Business Law
June 2006 Exam Tips

For each area described please note the reference to a question from the BPP Practice and Revision kit (P&R kit)

The examiner is likely to test mainstream areas of the syllabus on Section A. Section A tests the law in a factual way. It is rare for Section A questions to require application. Students should expect at least one question on the English legal system, two on contract law, possibly one question on employment law, one on agency and/or partnerships and two to three on company law.

• Offer and/or Acceptance (P&R kit Q14)
  
• Exclusion clauses (P&R kit Q29)
  
• Breach (P&R kit Q35)
  
• The veil of incorporation – a core syllabus area. (P&R kit Q54)
  
• Auditors (P&R Kit Q84)
  
• Company formation (P&R kit Q58,Q60)
  
• Insolvency (P&R kit Q107)

Section B questions could come from anywhere in the syllabus and it is likely that at least three will include application. Two questions are likely to come from the business area of the syllabus and two from the corporate law section.

• Consideration (P&R kit Q22)
  
• Insider Dealing(P&R kit Q82)
  
• Directors and minority rights (P & R kit Q90,Q76)
  
• Partnerships

ACCA 2.3 Exam Tips

ACCA Paper 2.3
Business Taxation
June 2006 Exam Tips

Suggested practice questions from the BPP Practice and Revision Kit are shown next to the relevant area.

Section A

The first question will always be on Corporation Tax and the second question on Income tax.

Question 1 is always based on a fairly basic CT computation, and you should expect to see a detailed capital allowances computation and very often IBAs as well.

Adjustment to profit calculations regularly appear as a substantial part of question 1. They were examined in depth in the December 2004 and June 2005 sittings, and also to a smaller extent in December 2005.

Capital gains are being examined more commonly within section A; this could possibly be incorporated with capital losses.

Trade losses may also be examined this sitting, possible with a non 12 mth period of account.

There are usually a few marks for admin points within this question.

Practice and revision kit relevant questions:
Q3 Unforeseen Ultrasonics Ltd
Q6 Arable Ltd
Q57 Tick-Tock Ltd

The Income Tax question this time should include trading profits of an individual, or potentially a partnership. The December 2005 exam concentrated solely on an employee so I would not expect to see a large amount of marks on employment issues, although the scenario often incorporates both trading and employment income, for example cease trading then start employment or the other way round.
Adjustment to profits has not appeared for a couple of sittings in the context of individuals, also personal pensions have been noticeably absent for a while.

Practice and revision kit relevant questions: Q34 Xio, Yana and Zoe
Q37 Clayton Delaney

Section B

These questions are likely to comprise of:

• Q3 VAT – The examiner has so far covered a variety of VAT topics in each exam. The explanation of special schemes such as annual accounting and / or cash accounting could well be mixed with some basic VAT calculations. Q22 Newcomer, Ongoing & Au Revoir Ltd
  Q43 Victor Style
• Q4 CGT – I would not expect to see Gift Relief as it has appeared for substantial marks in the last 2 sittings in the optional CGT question. I would expect also to see a company making disposals rather than an individual (possibly involving rollover relief or inter-company transfers).
  Q13 Astute Ltd
  Q14 Earth Ltd
  
• Q5, Q6 & Q7 OTHER – Any other topics will be examined here. These may include: Partnerships (possibly with IT losses)
  Corp tax - Self assessment procedures
  Tax planning – incorporation
  Corporation tax – a simple overseas question
  Q18 Helium Ltd
  Q53 Sarah Style
  

Please note the examiners deliberately try to avoid question spotting. Just because a question featured last time, it doesn’t mean it won’t feature this time. Use the tips as areas to have a look at, but remember that no one knows what is in the exam, apart from the examiner. Your safest bet is to achieve good syllabus coverage in your revision, as the examiner aims to do in the exam.

Relevant Articles

ARTICLE NAME AUTHOR DATE

Finance Act 2005 David Harrowven Oct 05

VAT Pattie Laycock Aug 05

Income Tax Pattie Laycock Aug 05

Corporate Tax Pattie Laycock Aug 05

Capital gains Pattie Laycock Aug 05

Groups of companies and overseas aspects David Harrowven Jun 05

Capital gains David Harrowven May 05

Value Added Tax David Harrowven Mar 05