BPP | ACCA - P2 Corporate Reporting Exam Tips for December 2010

P1
• The topic of stakeholders was examined in June but remains a key area.
• Over the last few months the role of the board of directors has remained at the forefront of the news.
• You may be asked to identify and categorise some key risks in a scenario.
• You should make sure that you can discuss and apply ethical theories.
• Don’t neglect the less glamorous areas of the syllabus, corporate governance or risk and control disclosure could always be tested.

BPP | ACCA - P2 Corporate Reporting Exam Tips for December 2010

P2
Section A
• The compulsory case study is likely to require you to prepare a group statement of financial position (balance sheet) and/or statement of comprehensive income (profit and loss account) with continuing and discontinued activities or foreign subsidiary. Alternatively, it could be a consolidated statement of cash flows which would include other accounting complications such as financial instruments, pensions, share-based payment and impairments.
• There will also be discursive requirements on a linked accounting adjustment and social/ethical/moral aspects of corporate reporting.
Section B
• An industry question (often Q3), testing a range of standards (NB: no specific knowledge of the particular industry is required).
• A discussion question (Q4) looking at current developments in corporate reporting, such as: small and medium-sized entities, revenue recognition, success/issues on implementation of IFRSs, management commentary, comprehensive income/presentation of financial statements, improvements in performance measurement. It may also include a related computational part based on figures from a case study.
• Single topic (e.g. share-based payment, deferred tax, pensions) or 'multi-part' question (Q2) testing a range of standards separately, such as: related parties, accounting policies, discontinued operations, recognition and/or impairment of tangible and intangible assets, government grants, foreign currency transactions, provisions, events after the reporting period (balance sheet date), leases, consistency of standards with the conceptual framework, the effect of accounting treatments on earnings per share or ratios.

BPP | ACCA - P3 Business Analysis Exam Tips for December 2010

P3
Important areas to cover:
• Strategic analysis: Key models of analysis include mission and objectives, stakeholder analysis, PESTEL, Porters five forces and diamond models, the value chain, 9Ms and portfolio analysis. This may culminate in a SWOT and appraisal of the organisations overall position.
• Strategic choice: The syllabus makes a distinction between the approach and role taken by the corporate parent and a Strategic Business Unit (SBU). You should therefore ensure that you are aware of the differences and be able to identify the appropriate approach from the scenario in the question.
• Key models here include Porter’s Generic strategies, Bowman’s Strategy Clock, Ansoff's matrix and Lynch’s expansion matrix.
• Finally the strategic criteria for assessing options of suitability, acceptability and feasibility may be employed to justify recommendations.
• Strategic action: Implementation issues cover much of the rest of the syllabus and could include issues of culture (e.g. Cultural web, Handy’s cultures, Miles and Snow), quality (TQM, six sigma, CMMI, V-model), process improvement and software selection (Harman, Skidmore and Eva), e-business or people management (e.g. planning, recruitment, performance management, development) or change management (Force Field analysis).

BPP | ACCA - P4 Advanced Financial Management Exam Tips for December 2010

P4
• Role and responsibility towards stakeholders: Ethical issues continue to appear regularly as an optional discussion question, normally with practical financial issues from elsewhere in the syllabus. The discussion question is normally one of the easier optional questions.
• Advanced investment appraisal: The compulsory question often features an NPV question with an analysis of risk and / or financing. Cost of capital calculations are regularly tested, make sure that you are comfortable adjusting betas for differences in gearing. Real options and adjusted present value are also popular themes, and are normally tested in section B of the exam.
• Acquisitions and mergers: This exam normally contains a question involving valuations which the examiner sees as a crucial part of the syllabus; valuations questions are also likely to cover strategic and financing issues.
• Corporate reconstruction: This is a topical area; a question could also ask you to evaluate a capital reconstruction e.g. a business that is considering offering its creditors shares in order to enable it to survive.
• Advanced risk management: We would expect to see a numerical risk management question featuring either interest rate or exchange rate hedging. Foreign currency derivatives are due to be tested numerically; the new examiner has indicated that questions may well ask you to compare the results of a hedge using a number of different hedging techniques.

BPP | ACCA - P5 Advanced Performance Management Exam Tips for December 2010

P5
• Strategic management accounting: This is a key theme of this paper. Numerical questions could include analysing risk using expected values and probabilities; benchmarking and discussion of critical success factors are likely to be key discussion areas.
• Budgeting: Financial data has appeared repeatedly in past exams. You may be asked to draw up an income statement or budget or to compare actual performance against a benchmark. This could include the use of activity-based approaches, learning curves or non-financial indicators; although the new examiner has indicated that his questions will require more skill in interpreting data and discussing strategies to improve performance rather than performing calculations.
•‘Beyond budgeting’ is an important area that can be tested either as a discussion or a numerical question.
• Strategic performance measures in the private sector: Divisional performance measurement is another key area; ROI, RI , EVA, NPV or even ABC could feature here and transfer pricing could feature as an aspect of these questions.
• Alternative views of performance measurement: Questions are commonly set that require a good understanding of the balanced scorecard, the building blocks model and the performance pyramid. Questions will often require you to analyse data that has been collected using one of these models.
• Performance hierarchy: Linking strategic decisions to mission statements or suggesting strategic options using models such as Ansoff’s matrix or the BCG matrix lend themselves to questions containing a mixture of financial and discursive elements that could easily include a simple NPV or profit analysis.



BPP | ACCA - P6 Advanced Taxation Exam Tips for December 2010

P6
• Income tax – EIS/VCT schemes, personal service companies, losses, overseas aspects
• Corporation tax – close companies, liquidations, transfer of trade
• Inheritance tax – lifetime gifts, fall in value of lifetime gifts, quick succession relief
• Capital gains tax – takeovers, damaged/destroyed assets, small part disposal of land, leases and wasting assets
• VAT – groups, imports/exports
• Ethics

BPP | ACCA - P7 Audit and Assurance Exam Tips for December 2010

P7
• A risk-based and/or planning scenario in the compulsory section
• Questions based on articles published in Student Accountant in the past six months
• A number of requirements asking for audit procedures and required evidence in respect of specific financial reporting issues
• A practice-based scenario looking at professional, ethical and quality control issues
• A reporting scenario of some sort - probably testing either emphasis of matter or other matter paragraphs

祝大家好运！

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希望大家都能顺利通过

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