ACCA F9 Exam Tips June 2017:

Kaplan

Part A:MCQs will be from any syllabus area.

Part B:Some frequently tested areas in the past were

NPV with Inflation and Taxation

Cash operating cycle

Receivable,Payable&Inventory Management

Financial Gearing

Cost of Equity&Debt

WACC

CAPM&MM

Foreign Exchange Risk Management

Interest Rate Risk Management

Sources of Finance

Don’t just keep focusing on numbers.Although the numbers are important but approximately half of the marks are for the written elements.Prepare every topic thoroughly to increase chances of passing the exam.

Bpp

Section A:

15 multiple choice questions worth 2 marks each.The MCQs will largely be knowledge based and will balance out the questions in Section B and C of the exam to make sure that all aspects of the syllabus are examined.It is likely that some of the MCQs will test your understanding of financial management and objectives（ratio analysis,the concept of shareholder wealth）as well as the economic environment and financial institutions topics（financial intermediation,fiscal and monetary policies）。The efficient market hypothesis is likely to be tested here too.

But bear in mind that the whole point of setting MCQs is to test good coverage of the syllabus in the exam.

Section B:

Three 10 mark mini case-studies.Each case-study will be broken down into 5 separate 2 mark multiple choice questions（so 15 questions in total）。

Areas expected to be tested in this section are working capital management（e.g.the operating cycle,the impact of a change in credit period or accepting a factor’s offer），business or security valuations（e.g.methods of valuation），and financial risk management（most likely mainly in the form of currency risk but it is possible that an aspect of interest rate risk is examined here）

Section C:

Two 20 mark questions which will be broken down into sub requirements and be scenario based.These two questions will focus mainly on syllabus sections C,D and E.

Section C is working capital management,section D is investment appraisal and is likely to feature NPV with inflation and tax.Section E is business finance;either an evaluation of financing options（interest coverage and gearing ratios are likely to be important here）or a cost of capital calculation are most likely.Whichever of these three topics does not feature in section C is likely to appear in section B of the exam.

ACCA P4 Exam Tips June 2017:

Kaplan

P4 is a technical paper with some complex calculations sometimes but DO NOT think of the exam as numbers-only.There are plenty of discursive parts which are usually easier than the calculations and easy marks can be picked up by applying commercial awareness and common sense.

Analyse the individual requirements of the question.If you can do the wordy bits first then do so as you will not get bogged down in them like you will with the calculation elements.

Do not expect to finish a question.You must stick to time,especially on the calculations which are very easy to over-run on.The exam is extremely time pressured and the secret to passing is to have a go at every part of every question,not to try and get 100%on every question–to do that you would need about 7 hours!

If you are not sure what to do with a particular figure in a question,ignore it and move on–state assumptions,you haven’t got time to worry about it!

If you get a Black-Scholes question,always list out the input variables as your first stage and assign the relevant values to them–there will be about 2-3 marks usually for doing this.

Practice as many questions as possible but do as many as possible to time.You must get used to doing the questions in the time available and not spending too long on them.

Practice as many questions as possible across the syllabus,and don’t only concentrate on what you consider to be the core areas.

Choose carefully on section B of the paper–it is very limited choice but nonetheless it will be critical.

Do not put down unnecessary workings;because as it will cost you heavily in lost time.

If there is a calculation that you are unable to complete–for e.g.a WACC which prevents you from going on to do the NPV,then just make a reasonable assumption and estimate a WACC which you have been unable to calculate,this will then allow you to progress the calculation and get on to the often more generously rewarded discursive parts of the question.

Look out for examinable articles–two in particular for June 2011:

24 August–The new examiner Shishir Malde gives his approach for the P4 paper

23 September–Another article by the new examiner Shishir Malde on Risk Management January/February article

Two key topics are always NPV appraisal and capital structure,particularly CAPM and Betas.You will not pass if that is all you know but you will struggle to pass if you do not know them!

Bpp

Important areas to cover include:

Q1

We would expect section A questions to be mainly based on core syllabus areas such as:

project appraisal（domestic or overseas）and business valuations;both of these areas are likely to include cost of capital calculations.Risk management may also feature as an aspect of this question in a number of different ways e.g.VaR,real options,hedging,risk mapping.

Q2-4

risk management（currency or interest rate）

business re-organisation

real options

General advice:

The 50 mark compulsory question will,inevitably,draw from a number of different syllabus areas.The examiner has said that he does not plan exams by referring to past exams（i.e.checking that the whole syllabus is being tested over the course of a number of examsittings）。

These factors mean that question spotting extremely difficult for this paper.However we would expect section A questions to test core syllabus areas as listed above.

In section B one of the questions may be entirely discussion based（but this is not guaranteed from June 2013），and often involves ethical and general financing issues（e.g.dividend policy）。

Behavioural finance is new to the syllabus from September 2016;the examiner has recently written an article on this area–so it is an important area for you to understand.

Remember that this paper is not a maths exam–in all exam questions the examiner is interested in your ability to communicate well and to give good management advice that relates to the scenario in the question.

Keep checking the ACCA website for articles written by the P4 examiner in the lead up to the exam,these are often tested.An article on currency swaps has recently been published.

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