Accounting Technicians Students

Dee1238 · 03-04-2014 12:00pm #1

Hi, i'm in my second year of Accounting Technicians course, doing my exams in May.

Just wondering does anyone want to start a discussion on tips etc that might help us through the exam....

Did anyone do the workshops that were on in Pearse Street? Are they worth getting?

Six and a half weeks and they'll be all over:)

j@utis · 03-04-2014 9:04pm

I have no tips yet but Financial accounting this year is a pain in the ar$e!

mad_shopaholic · 04-04-2014 11:27am

Follow exactly what topics are cover in the workshops as these nearly always tend to come up. For example the manufacturing account came up last year and had been covered in the workshops

angeldelight · 05-04-2014 11:18pm

My tip if anyone next year finds this thread is go to college every week and don't leave everything until the last minute! Business Management & Law just has soooo much content

rcoffey · 03-05-2014 10:32am

i have no tips unfortunately, im doing year 2 exams in may also stressed!!!!!

ebbsy · 08-05-2014 4:06pm

I got through it no probs a long time ago, and we were just given past exam papers to do the whole time. Never really used the books.

Fungums · 08-05-2014 4:38pm

Hey I'm in first year. Will hopefully be okay for tax, accounting and management but don't even know where to start with the law and ethics

One thing I will say about the management if you want to try and break it down is:
There is usually two questions on marketing, two on management, one on IT and one one finance (the compulsory question could be on anything!!!!!)

As you have a choice on answering 3 out of 6 questions my plan is to know the four marketing chapters and the two finance chapters inside and out which should give me 3 ''good'' questions. Also pestle seems to be asked every year

If anyone has any idea on how to approach law and ethics I'd be very grateful

wilddarts · 08-05-2014 11:05pm

Fungums wrote: »

Hey I'm in first year. Will hopefully be okay for tax, accounting and management but don't even know where to start with the law and ethics

One thing I will say about the management if you want to try and break it down is:
There is usually two questions on marketing, two on management, one on IT and one one finance (the compulsory question could be on anything!!!!!)

As you have a choice on answering 3 out of 6 questions my plan is to know the four marketing chapters and the two finance chapters inside and out which should give me 3 ''good'' questions. Also pestle seems to be asked every year

If anyone has any idea on how to approach law and ethics I'd be very grateful

In first yr aswell, missed pretty much all of feb and march due to a family crisis so the only advice I can give is studying the past exam papers for L&E. A lot of the case law examples arent in the book but some are. I'm memorising the answers they give to the different areas. The answers are pretty transferrable to what ever they can ask next week. Jaysus..... NEXT WEEK!

Sephiroth_dude · 11-05-2014 11:18am

First exam in 2 days and I'm really struggling with study

wilddarts · 11-05-2014 12:09pm

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

First exam in 2 days and I'm really struggling with study

Are you doing first or second year? I take it it's first as I have my first exam on Tuesday? If its any consolation I can't find enough hours in the day for the amount of study I need to be comfortable. Is it finding the time or a particular area you're struggling with?

ChartAccount · 11-05-2014 3:13pm

Hi did anyone get any tips for second year ATI exams.

What are peoples thoughts on the FA paper tomorrow?

Sephiroth_dude · 11-05-2014 4:11pm

wilddarts wrote: »

Are you doing first or second year? I take it it's first as I have my first exam on Tuesday? If its any consolation I can't find enough hours in the day for the amount of study I need to be comfortable. Is it finding the time or a particular area you're struggling with?

Ya year 1,finding it hard to sit down and motivate myself to study,struggling with tax and FA and And the amount of stuff to memorise for BM and law is just too much.

angeldelight · 11-05-2014 4:58pm

Business Management is crazy! There's so many names and theories and they're all just blending into one in my head

j@utis · 11-05-2014 6:05pm

ChartAccount wrote: »

Hi did anyone get any tips for second year ATI exams.
What are peoples thoughts on the FA paper tomorrow?

I'm hoping that the theory comes up in in Q1 only otherwise I'm f****d. Also it would be nice if half of the Q1 is to define something easy like an asset or liability that I can score at least some marks in Q1. I'm quite ok with the financial statements, so don't mind any of those coming up, can do some journal entries, calculate few ratios and maybe do something with partnerships... I loved FA last year but I absolutely despise it this year.

wilddarts · 12-05-2014 9:15am

angeldelight wrote: »

Business Management is crazy! There's so many names and theories and they're all just blending into one in my head

Have you seen the suggested solutions for BM past papers?, you'd need three days for the exam if you went into that much detail.

I've been spending a lot of time on FA and Tax so I'm just hoping I can scrape a pass in BM and Law. I can understand it all as I'm studying it but just won't stay in my head.

angeldelight · 12-05-2014 5:22pm

wilddarts wrote: »

Have you seen the suggested solutions for BM past papers?, you'd need three days for the exam if you went into that much detail.

I've been spending a lot of time on FA and Tax so I'm just hoping I can scrape a pass in BM and Law. I can understand it all as I'm studying it but just won't stay in my head.

I'm the same, I feel ok about tomorrow's but BM waffle theories just won't stick in my head - the day after I learn anything it's gone again!

Emma1980 · 12-05-2014 11:06pm

How did anyone doin FA2 find the paper?

norabatty74 · 13-05-2014 10:51am

Emma1980 wrote: »

How did anyone doin FA2 find the paper?

It was a very red herring paper Things came up in a lay out i never saw before the partnership short questions would not work out for me the cash flow was very vague to what i was used too ,

Emma1980 · 13-05-2014 1:10pm

I got the cashflow to work but whether that was just coincidence or not is anyones guess! question 4 on inventory I didnt do...never saw a layout like it so didnt risk doing it! and the partnership in the mcq was a fair bit of work for the marks it was worth...!! Was happy wit question 1 as I was dreading that beforehand but it defo could have been worse!! Overall I think it was ok...fingers crossed anyway!

angeldelight · 13-05-2014 1:29pm

Financial Accounting was a funny paper - very new way of asking questions, and so much theory!! I still did ok because it's my best subject but definitely threw me

wilddarts · 13-05-2014 2:04pm

angeldelight wrote: »

Financial Accounting was a funny paper - very new way of asking questions, and so much theory!! I still did ok because it's my best subject but definitely threw me

Yeah, same here. Different to any of the past papers Ive been practicing. Was ok once I got into it, thought I was in the wrong exam when I looked at it first. Think I did ok anyway. BM on thursday will be a disaster.

~Trixiebelle~ · 13-05-2014 4:14pm

wilddarts wrote: »

Yeah, same here. Different to any of the past papers Ive been practicing. Was ok once I got into it, thought I was in the wrong exam when I looked at it first. Think I did ok anyway. BM on thursday will be a disaster.

Totally hated today's paper! It totally threw me to be honest and I got caught on time with all the theory! Soooo much theory!! I felt like I hardly used my calculator! I'm raging for doing question 4, I think I got that badly wrong. Here's hoping that's the curve ball paper for the year, and no more surprises! ðŸ˜‚

Sephiroth_dude · 13-05-2014 4:17pm

~Trixiebelle~ wrote: »

Totally hated today's paper! I'm raging

Me too, was not prepared for the theory and was hoping a books of prime entry type question would come up but it didn't.

~Trixiebelle~ · 13-05-2014 4:24pm

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Me too, was not prepared for the theory and was hoping a books of prime entry type question would come up but it didn't.

I know or even a club account!! For financial accounting it seemed very unbalanced in my opinion, great for those that don't know the difference between a credit and debit though!! Pity I spent so much time perfecting that and less in theory!

Sephiroth_dude · 13-05-2014 4:26pm

~Trixiebelle~ wrote: »

I know or even a club account!! For financial accounting it seemed very unbalanced in my opinion, great for those that don't know the difference between a credit and debit though!! Pity I spent so much time perfecting that and less in theory!

There actually was a clubs account Q, mind you it was a small one and only worth 5 marks. Think I messed it up big time :-/.

wilddarts · 13-05-2014 4:29pm

~Trixiebelle~ wrote: »

Totally hated today's paper! It totally threw me to be honest and I got caught on time with all the theory! Soooo much theory!! I felt like I hardly used my calculator! I'm raging for doing question 4, I think I got that badly wrong. Here's hoping that's the curve ball paper for the year, and no more surprises! ðŸ˜‚

I feel the exact same about question 4, did 4 and 6 in section B. The format of the questions were nothing like I saw in the past papers, the more I think about it the less confident I feel....

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Me too, was not prepared for the theory and was hoping a books of prime entry type question would come up but it didn't.

Yeah, was hoping for that kind of question aswell, no depreciation question either, or disposal of assets. 'Strange' is the only word to describe that paper.

Sephiroth_dude · 13-05-2014 4:32pm

wilddarts wrote: »

I feel the exact same about question 4, did 4 and 6 in section B. The format of the questions were nothing like I saw in the past papers, the more I think about it the less confident I feel....

Yeah, was hoping for that kind of question aswell, no depreciation question either, or disposal of assets. 'Strange' is the only word to describe that paper.

There was no depreciation adjustment in question 1 either Just the theory bit in Q 2 Or 3 I think.

~Trixiebelle~ · 13-05-2014 4:35pm

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

There actually was a clubs account Q, mind you it was a small one and only worth 5 marks. Think I messed it up big time :-/.

Yeh the life subscriptions journal entry! I've only ever done that in a t account so it was literally a stab in the dark! I'm feeling pretty hard done by at the minute coz I got over 90% in my mocks but I'm facing a very possible fail in the real deal!

I had such high hopes for today too...Ah well 1 down, 3 to go!! ðŸ˜Š

~Trixiebelle~ · 13-05-2014 4:38pm

Hey actually guys, was that mini bank rec meant to balance? Coz it didn't for me! Gosh, I best cancel my summer holidays in August at this rate!

wilddarts · 13-05-2014 4:45pm

~Trixiebelle~ wrote: »

Hey actually guys, was that mini bank rec meant to balance? Coz it didn't for me! Gosh, I best cancel my summer holidays in August at this rate!

Haha, I haven't got a foookin clue if it was to balance or not, never saw it asked like that before so it's very hard to judge if you went about the question in the right way. If i could get my hands on their ''inexperienced bookkeeper'' I would wring his neck.

Emma1980 · 13-05-2014 5:07pm

Just glanced at the FA1 paper as it's uploaded now (i'm on year 2) and good god, there was an awful lot in it!! Never seen so much theory ever!! Very unlike last years paper that i done!

wilddarts · 13-05-2014 5:18pm

Emma1980 wrote: »

Just glanced at the FA1 paper as it's uploaded now (i'm on year 2) and good god, there was an awful lot in it!! Never seen so much theory ever!! Very unlike last years paper that i done!

I thought that alright, so much for practicing past exam papers.....

angeldelight · 13-05-2014 5:19pm

My feeling is they were trying to weed out the people who don't really understand what all the elements are, that just know how to do the calculations. Ugh I dunno it was very odd. The bank rec thing was really annoying the way they did it - how were we meant to know what was right? I did that part then with 5 minutes to go I decided I wasn't happy with it at all so changed and did all the types of errors

~Trixiebelle~ · 13-05-2014 5:24pm

Emma1980 wrote: »

Just glanced at the FA1 paper as it's uploaded now (i'm on year 2) and good god, there was an awful lot in it!! Never seen so much theory ever!! Very unlike last years paper that i done!

Just hearing you say that makes me feel better! I felt like a thick today after doing it. I really found it hard to understand the approach of the questions competely threw me, still can't assess how I done after viewing it again, hopefully I done enough to pass.

wilddarts · 13-05-2014 5:25pm

angeldelight wrote: »

My feeling is they were trying to weed out the people who don't really understand what all the elements are, that just know how to do the calculations. Ugh I dunno it was very odd. The bank rec thing was really annoying the way they did it - how were we meant to know what was right? I did that part then with 5 minutes to go I decided I wasn't happy with it at all so changed and did all the types of errors

That's a good point actually, pity they couldn't wait till 2015 to do their weeding...:)

~Trixiebelle~ · 13-05-2014 5:50pm

wilddarts wrote: »

That's a good point actually, pity they couldn't wait till 2015 to do their weeding...:)

If only.... the problem with so much theory in FA is that its how the information is interpreted. In a real life setting you could seek clarity but in an exam setting when they use a different method of layout or wording than what has been done before in past papers, sample papers or even the book gives our year a disadvantage. It just seems a bit sucky that your ability to decipher this new approach is what your really being tested on.... like seriously that bank rec!!?

Obviously the whole FA ethos of 'Consistency' and 'Comparability' doesn't apply to ATI exams!:D

wilddarts · 13-05-2014 5:59pm

~Trixiebelle~ wrote: »

If only.... the problem with so much theory in FA is that its how the information is interpreted. In a real life setting you could seek clarity but in an exam setting when they use a different method of layout or wording than what has been done before in past papers, sample papers or even the book gives our year a disadvantage. It just seems a bit sucky that your ability to decipher this new approach is what your really being tested on.... like seriously that bank rec!!?Obviously the whole FA ethos of 'Consistency' and 'Comparability' doesn't apply to ATI exams!

Haahah, I'm fairly sure there's not many Financial Accounting jokes, but that's a good one. Deserves a meme.

angeldelight · 13-05-2014 6:00pm

~Trixiebelle~ wrote: »

If only.... the problem with so much theory in FA is that its how the information is interpreted. In a real life setting you could seek clarity but in an exam setting when they use a different method of layout or wording than what has been done before in past papers, sample papers or even the book gives our year a disadvantage. It just seems a bit sucky that your ability to decipher this new approach is what your really being tested on.... like seriously that bank rec!!? Obviously the whole FA ethos of 'Consistency' and 'Comparability' doesn't apply to ATI exams!:D

Absolutely - I spent way too much time trying to figure out what they were looking for, exams are allegedly supposed to give you a chance to show what you know not try and trick you!

~Trixiebelle~ · 13-05-2014 6:05pm

wilddarts wrote: »

Haahah, I'm fairly sure there's not many Financial Accounting jokes, but that's a good one. Deserves a meme.

lol! I spent all last night learning the qualitative characteristics of FA.... I'm glad I found some use for them anyhoo!:p

wilddarts · 14-05-2014 8:06am

So have either of my fellow First Yearer's any suggestions on getting in some last minute BM revision for tomorrow? After yesterday it feels like I might aswell throw the past exam papers out the window, what a waste of time, paper and ink. I think I'll just get in a few recorded lectures on Knowledge Point, might give me some fresh info or ideas for tomorrow?????

Actually, scrap that idea, Touchpoint is down for maintenance, back to the book so........ZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZ

angeldelight · 14-05-2014 8:58am

Can't help I'm afraid, I am seriously unprepared - only leading leadership theories for first time now!

j@utis · 14-05-2014 9:51am

Emma1980 wrote: »

How did anyone doin FA2 find the paper?

I made big balls out of AFA paper last Monday. I'm literally counting on questions 2,3 & 5 to get me the pass mark. I picked question 4 over 6, it looked easier at the first glance but after 15mins doing it I got stuck and regretted my choice but it was too late to switch to Q6. Did badly in theory question too. I think if I get 1/3 of the marks out of 40 for those two Qs, I might pass :mad:

I feel more confident about tax tomorrow but you never know what this new examiner will throw at us. I wouldn't be surprised if I left exam hall feeling shattered! again!

Howjoe1 · 14-05-2014 11:50am

j@utis wrote: »

I made big balls out of AFA paper last Monday. I'm literally counting on questions 2,3 & 5 to get me the pass mark. I picked question 4 over 6, it looked easier at the first glance but after 15mins doing it I got stuck and regretted my choice but it was too late to switch to Q6. Did badly in theory question too. I think if I get 1/3 of the marks out of 40 for those two Qs, I might pass :mad:

I feel more confident about tax tomorrow but you never know what this new examiner will throw at us. I wouldn't be surprised if I left exam hall feeling shattered! again!

AFA was mixed. Theory strayed away from the bulk of the chapters we needed to learn. Hopefully picked up some marks on the smaller parts of some questions and for presentation:D to get tru'

Is there a new examiner for Adv Tax? I hadn't heard that.

I know there is a new one for MAng Acct from last year and I'm dreading how unpredictable that might be and figuring out what we are actually being asked to do:mad:

Emma1980 · 14-05-2014 12:02pm

For anyone doing BM tomorrow the only advise i can offer is to do the online tutorials - i purchased them last year the weekend before the exam - i was very unsure on that paper because theory is not my strong point but with the help of the tutorials and a lot of general cop on i got 81% in the exam. The same for Law too with the tutorials got me 71% - that was the subject i dreaded the most!

With AFA i was surprised with Q1 that it wasn't what was on past papers i.e. the Framework in full, definitely think they made that a lot easier than it could have been.....

~Trixiebelle~ · 14-05-2014 12:35pm

My strategy is IT, Marketing, Finance as they are always definite questions and I really think porters is coming up so I've covered that thoroughly. Our tutor thinks the plc is due to be covered in marketing so it's worth knowing inside out. Best of luck!!

xLollyx · 14-05-2014 4:35pm

Glad I found this thread!! I was racking my brains wondering was I the only one thinking yesterdays exam was very confusing. I'm nearly 100% sure I answered the bank rec question wrong, and for most of the theory I freaked out as I wasn't expecting even half that amount of theory!!!

Heres to hoping tomorrows BM exam doesn't throw many curve balls!!!

wilddarts · 14-05-2014 5:54pm

I'll be relying on many diagrams and vast amounts of waffle to get me through tomorrows BM.

j@utis · 14-05-2014 6:02pm

It has to be informed waffle though... I managed to waffle up to 74% last year. not too bad

I'm gearing up tax tomorrow, hoping that VAT won't be a compulsory Q, too much theory in it. I'll try to get away doing questions on personal & company tax and CGT. Multiple choice seems to be very tricky this year. Many examiner comments on this Q are like "people could have passed in they went for another Q in the paper", so it's a no no then...

~Trixiebelle~ · 15-05-2014 1:47pm

Well, all in all, I thought today's paper couldn't have went better! Product life cycle came up as predicted so I instantly felt better, I owe my tutor a drink!!

hope everyone else faired well! We're halfway there now!

angeldelight · 15-05-2014 2:24pm

~Trixiebelle~ wrote: »

Well, all in all, I thought today's paper couldn't have went better! Product life cycle came up as predicted so I instantly felt better, I owe my tutor a drink!! hope everyone else faired well! We're halfway there now!

I thought of you as soon as I saw it! I was very pleasantly surprised with today, didn't give it enough time study wise and felt like nothing was going in but it wasn't bad at all!

wilddarts · 15-05-2014 2:30pm

~Trixiebelle~ wrote: »

Well, all in all, I thought today's paper couldn't have went better! Product life cycle came up as predicted so I instantly felt better, I owe my tutor a drink!! hope everyone else faired well! We're halfway there now!

I took your advice from yesterday and went back over PLC, Porters 5 Forces and 'the usual suspects', so I think I owe you a drink aswell. A lot happier than I was on Tuesday.

Accounting Technicians Students

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