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1 Disclaimer: ACA Simplified is not affiliated with, nor endorsed by, the ICAEW. ACA Simplified does not participate in the ICAEW Partners in Learning scheme. ACA Simplified provides materials for the ACA chartered accountancy examinations. ACA Simplified does not provide the services of a chartered accountant. Nothing in these materials should be interpreted as the provision of chartered accountancy services. 1

2 Overview of Q&As and other study materials ACA Simplified provides materials for all ACA papers 1. As each paper has its own unique elements, our materials have been tailored to reflect the different approach required. See p4 onwards for detailed explanation of our approach to each paper. Current Offering Titles in development are indicated in italics. Professional Stage Audit & Assurance Q&A ( 35) Business Strategy Q&A ( 35) Financial Accounting Q&A ( 35) Financial Management Q&A ( 35) Financial Reporting Q&A ( 35) Taxation Q&A ( 35) Financial Reporting Study Notes ( 35) Technical Integration Stage Audit Q&A ( 35) Business Analysis Q&A Corporate Reporting Q&A Taxation Q&A Audit Risks and Procedures ( 35) 1 A complete suite of TI materials is in development, to be released before the July 2013 sitting. Case Study materials will be released over the March to June 2013 period in time for the July 2013 sitting. 2

3 Case Study Cracking Case How to Pass the ICAEW Case Study November 2012 Revision and Preparation Mock Exams 2 July 2013 Preparation Mock Exams July 2013 Pass Guaranteed Tuition (Classroom Tuition) 2 Available as a set of 2 or 5 past papers with mark schemes and analysis. These mock exams use the November 2012 Case to illustrate the principles you need to use in your July 2013 attempt. 3

4 Q&As Q&As work by providing a very large number of short questions which focus on one or two topics/techniques at a time. This allows your brain to work on one thing at once, making it easier to learn points properly. The short nature of the questions means that you can complete them many times before the exam, helping to consolidate your knowledge. It is impossible to become bogged down in short questions so you will gain confidence as you repeat the questions and surprise yourself with how much you have learned, just by testing yourself repeatedly and without really trying. Full past paper questions require you to set aside minutes. Often the figures you need to practise certain parts of the question will depend on you taking the time to work out earlier figures so it is not possible to dive into only those topics which you find hard. On the other hand, our short Q&As split up questions into self-contained component parts, with no follow-on elements, meaning you can focus only on those bits which are tricky for you personally. Our Q&A questions can be attempted in 5 minutes or less (in most cases, the questions can be done in 2 minutes or less). We recognise that busy trainees do not have huge amounts of study time indeed, this is probably the single biggest challenge of the ACA so we have designed questions which can help you make meaningful progress without having to find 2-3 hours for study. If you only have 15 minutes to spare (or only want to spend 15 minutes on revision!) you can still study a number of self-contained questions fully. You will feel like you have covered a lot of ground in those 15 minutes, in contrast to half completing one full question in the same time. Q&As are available for all Professional Stage papers, priced at 35 each, for between 330 and 643 questions dependent on paper. This amounts to between 5p and 10p per question. Q&As for the TI papers are currently in production and will be available from the end of March 2013, in plenty of time for the July 2013 exams. All Q&As start with analysis of mark allocations over the 2009 to 2012 period, showing the examiners favoured topics. This gives you an indication of which areas are more likely to come up and so which must be given more emphasis. Some of the results of this analysis are surprising, giving you an edge over students who have unsupported expectations of what comes up. 4

5 Professional Stage Q&As Each Professional Stage paper has its own quirks and therefore we have designed our Q&As in subtly different ways to cater for this, as follows: Audit & Assurance (356 questions) heavy emphasis on ethics and deciding whether to qualify or moderate a report as these have historically been important areas. The final Topic Area focuses exclusively on audit test procedures as a lot of marks are always available for these procedures. Audit test procedures are also a very important part of Audit at the TI stage so our Q&A provides ideal preparation and revision material to return to later. Business Strategy (486 questions) the Q&A provides questions to revise all key models and theories. We provide a number of mnemonics to help you remember lists of points to make on, for example, change, growth strategies, market development etc. Business Strategy is almost entirely a written paper so it is vital to be able to expand your points often failing students will get the basic idea and have a good enough understanding for real world purposes but in exam world you need to make more points to get the marks. We therefore provide a number of list-based questions to help you expand your answers, combined with mnemonics to help you recall these. Although primarily a written paper, Business Strategy does contain some calculations so the Q&A reviews and drills some common forms of calculation, based on analysis of past papers. Financial Accounting (448 questions) Financial Accounting is a relatively predictable paper and will generally involve a trial balance question, a cash flow question, a groups question and then a fourth unpredictable question (often on correcting errors or preparing disclosures notes and calculations). Our Q&A drills trial balance, cash flow and group questions in detail via numerous calculation questions. We then analyse the fourth type of question, which is less predictable but generally involves writing some disclosure notes (including figures) for something like leases or PPE. Key topics revised are leases (including easy ways to remember the different types of calculation), groups, financial instruments, intangibles and the Reporting Framework. Financial Management (330 questions) Financial Management is definitely the most predictable Professional Stage paper. You know that 5

6 you will always get an NPV question and a hedging question so the Q&A contains a lot of questions on these. We go through all the different types of hedge and point out common confusions in the calculations. We have a chapter dedicated to FTSE and interest rate hedging and then a separate chapter dedicated to forex hedging. This helps you keep these different approaches separated. A less well recognised fact about Financial Management is that the purely narrative questions (e.g. discuss pros and cons of sensitivity analysis, discuss theories of capital, dividend theories, non-hedging forms of protecting against currency risk and so on) account for 30% of the marks on a typical paper. Put simply, the answers to these are exactly the same every time so you can rote learn them. The first chapter of the Q&A therefore in fact drills you in the most common purely narrative questions and the second chapter looks are less tested purely narrative questions. The split between narrative and numerical questions is not always obvious from the Study Manual and basic narrative issues can get lost or mixed in with the numerical. We have found that by separating out the narrative questions into their own section, students give the due attention to this part of the course and can boost their marks easily. Financial Reporting (643 questions) this paper has traditionally had a very low pass rate, in the low 70%s in some years, versus 80%+ for the other papers. The Financial Reporting syllabus is vast. Our Q&A therefore focuses on the key areas but splitting these into essential and advanced questions. This allows you to focus on the key areas (essential) but also have a look at points which may score a few more marks (advanced). The Q&A gives significant attention to leases, financial instruments and groups, three of the favoured topics for the examiner. We also provide dedicated narrative topic areas on IFRS v GAAP and the reporting framework. In this sense, Financial Reporting shares something with Financial Management in that there are always some very easy narrative marks for rote-learned, standard narrative answers. In addition to the Q&A, we also provide a separate set of Financial Reporting Study Notes which reduce the 600+ page Study Manual to around 140 pages of notes, focusing on the key points and giving plenty of exam tips to squeeze out marks from points you are probably already making. We also explain the Principle of Triple Effect, a way of getting 3 times the marks for the same general point. 6

7 If you want to drill calculations, the Financial Reporting Q&A is for you. However, note that passing the Financial Reporting paper is more a matter of your written responses and conceptual understanding and this is why we provide the companion Financial Reporting Study Notes, which concentrate much more on narrative aspects. Taxation (574 questions) this Q&A thoroughly revises income tax, corporation tax, VAT, IHT and ethics. As a very computational paper, we drill the main numerical aspects. We also look at some of the more fiddly rules which the examiner likes to test, giving examples which show the different ways these principles can be tested. The ethics section of this Q&A is very useful for all Professional Stage papers and the Technical Integration stage so is a very useful revision resource. Audit (TI Stage) currently in production, this Q&A looks at Audit TI areas, including audit testing and procedures (probably the key area for the Business Reporting stage). It is almost possible to pass Business Reporting on your audit knowledge alone so it is important not to neglect this paper. As you are allowed to take materials into the Exam Hall, this Q&A can also serve as a quick reference and generator of ideas in the exam. Audit Risks and Procedures (TI Stage) Audit TI questions basically reduce to two elements: 1. state the risk of misstatement; 2. state the procedures used to reduce this risk and investigate. We have therefore thoroughly reviewed all past paper questions, the Study Manual and the Question Banks to create an alphabetical list of all risk areas, followed by related tests. This allows you simply to look up the topic area (e.g. financial instruments, PPE, investment property, related parties etc) and instantly see possible risks and tests to use. This is an invaluable resource, saving you time in learning lists of tests and procedures. Our innovation is to provide these in alphabetical format, and encompassing all risk areas that the examiner seems to like. Since Audit accounts for around 35-45% of a typical Business Reporting paper, and since TI Audit is essentially risks and procedures, it is not an exaggeration to say that our Audit Risks and Procedures text will set you well on your way to a pass in the tricky, technical Business Reporting paper. 7

8 Case Study The next sitting of Case is July We are currently preparing a suite of materials which will be useful both to first timers and resit candidates. Case is marked unlike any other ACA paper in the sense that if you make a point which is not on the mark scheme, there is no way for the examiner to give you any credit. It therefore follows that your starting point should be in understanding the mark scheme and knowing what will always be rewarded without this knowledge, you are basically relying on luck to pass. Cracking Case How to Pass the ICAEW Case Study This 80 page book starts by examining the 2 Case Studies set under the new mark scheme which has applied since July 2012 (LuvLox, Fluent Speech) to detect the relevant patterns. The book then explains to the reader where the basic marks can be found and drills the techniques to access the harder marks. Cracking Case is interspersed with comments and advice from two students who easily passed at the second attempt, after following our approach and advice. These provide a practical and student s eye view of the process. The book ends with an explanation of techniques to practise in the run up to the exam. Some people will tell you that you cannot prepare for Case but this is phenomenally poor advice never has the phrase failing to prepare means preparing to fail been more true! November 2012 Revision and Preparation Mock Exams The Big Two providers may suggest that you practise past papers, just like with the other ACA exams. This advice is fine, but unfortunately reading and analysing each set of Advance Information is very timeconsuming. Also, if you read a new Advance Information pack each time, you can never be sure whether it is pure technique or knowledge of the particular Advance Information which is letting you down. Clearly the only way to test this is to stick to one set of Advance Information which you do know well and be exposed to exams which test the various ways that the same Advance Information can be used by the examiner. This will ensure that you are focusing on your technique (skills which will be useful on the day) and learning the patterns, not particular past paper Advance Information (irrelevant on the day). 8

9 We therefore provide a set of up to 5 exercises 3 on the Fluent Speech Case Study. By focusing in on just one set of past Advance Information you can practise the techniques and see the patterns in marking emerge. If you sat Fluent Speech in November 2012 and did not pass, revising this Case may be painful but will definitely allow you to see where you went wrong. All our mock exams have full ICAEW-standard question papers and marking schemes. We also include an examiner s viewpoint section, which sets out the way in which our examiners drafted the questions, and what Case skills/patterns they were seeking to test with each element of the question. This will provide a further guide as to what you are being implicitly directed to say if you want to pass Case. July 2013 Preparation Mock Exams We believe that the best form of practice is to practise questions. We will therefore provide a set of 5 mock exams 4 within 10 days of release of the July 2013 Advance Information. This will provide the best way of getting to know the Advance Information and will hopefully allow you to practise scenarios which emerge on exam day. Unlike the Big Two, we believe in providing students with materials well in advance of the exam, not just in the week before. This is particularly important for students also sitting the Technical Integration papers. We found it very frustrating to be given mock exams on the Friday before the exam week, forcing us to try to learn the lessons from the Case mocks on the weekend before other, more technical exams. July 2013 Pass Guaranteed Tuition These classes, to be held in Birmingham, come with our promise to refund your tuition fee in full if you do not pass the Case Study exam. We are confident in our approach and want to incentivise our tutors to excel, helping you beyond the level you may have experienced in the past. Held over 3 days, we will review the main principles of our approach, starting with thorough analysis of mark scheme patterns. Over the course of the 3 days, you will be exposed to a further 5 original mock exams (different to those offered in our July 2013 Preparation Exams pack explained above), giving you excellent exposure to possible 3 Students will be able to purchase a pack of 2 or, alternatively, 5 mock exams. 4 As with the November 2012 revision papers, students will have the option to buy a pack of 2 or a pack of 5 mock exams. 9

10 scenarios. We should be able to cover all possibilities. We will not force you to sit all 5 exams in class time since this would be a waste of time we will instead present you with the paper, give you the planning time (1 hour, hopefully less as you become used to the patterns) and then discuss together to ensure you would have been on the right lines. We believe that this is an efficient use of time. Class sizes will be strictly limited to 8 participants to ensure sufficient tutor attention to the needs of individual students. The first day of the course will be held soon after release of the Advance Information, giving us an opportunity to meet up and discuss the potential way the exam could go. We then have another class a few weeks later, after you have had time to learn the Advance Information in more detail. The final class takes place on the weekend before the Case exam, to ensure that you have not fallen into any bad habit, answer any last minute questions and reinforce the main principles of our approach. Any tuition company can say that they want to do their best to help through our Pass Guaranteed promise we are putting our money where our mouth is and proving our confidence in the approach we have developed. We do want you to pass because we want to be paid! 10