Using ACCA study materials for ICAI?

John Cincinnati

I've read the odd thread about the differences between ICAI, ACCA and CIMA etc. which usually ends up agreeing that very little separates them - except for what industry they're suitable for.

I was in a bookshop today and was looking at the ACCA study materials - and they look brilliant. I knew about CIMA text books but the courses are quite different. However, the CAP1 and CAP2 courses seem to map very closely to the F1-F9 exams for ACCA.

For example, when ICAI talk about the three competency levels (Understanding, Application and Integration), ACCA have Knowledge, Application and Synthesis. And the syllabi just look so similar. Even though ACCA is UK based really, they do have international versions for Auditing and Financial Reporting so it's okay for Irish students. It's just a shame about the tax - even though the Irish and UK tax system is more or less identical in theory except for the tax rates etc.

What I'm interested in though is the study materials because ICAI, in my opinion, don't offer the same quality in text books/ exam preparation for Irish students and can't match Kaplan or BPP who make the materials for ACCA and CIMA. Maybe it's a question of scale and number of members, but the ICAI don't provide students with neat revision packs or exam practice kits etc. The lecture notes are also more or less pretty horrible and vary from lecturer to lecturer because they don't want to share notes.

The learning materials I think have become more important for ICAI students since they started the change from Prof 2 to CAP1 and Prof 3 to CAP2 because students can't really rely on past exam papers to prepare for the exams as the syllabus changed a fair bit and perhaps became tougher (well that's the impression everyone seems to have but it's impossible to definitely say).

Has anyone here used ACCA materials to study for ICAI or would recommend them? If I have repeats for CAP2, the last thing I want is to try and sort all those horrible 200-250 page questions packs which were so disorganised and non-user friendly. It's the biggest thing I dislike about ICAI and the lectures is that we don't get adequate learning materials which you can efficiently work through and get to the right standard to pass the exam. You have to spend so much time trying to organise your own notes and hope you've done the right amount of questions practice. For example, even though I've worked my socks off for every exam, I've never went into an exam feeling properly prepared or confident. You just have aim for a +50% pass because you never know how the exam might be.

I'd be much happier studying with ACCA but I'm too far gone into the ICAI qualification really. But I'd love to use the ACCA exam kits if it would help.

Any opinions or recommendations?

Little Miss Cutie

I know it may not be the answer you are looking for but the chartered grind school provide you with exactly the sort of notes you are talking about.

The classes are expensive but the notes and quality of lecturing is significantly better than anything provided by ICAI

John Cincinnati

Yeah I though about that - it's 200 bucks a course isn't it? Things is that I get the topics, I did the reading but I wasn't battle hardened for the exam. I just didn't do enough question practice because it was hard to know what questions you should have done in the textbook, lecture notes, tool kits and mammoth question packs. Like, I'll know on Friday if I've got repeats but I'd love to settle on a neat-sized pack of questions that I could do and confidently know I'll be well prepared for the exam. That's why those ACCA exam kits looked so good because the questions were so similar - but they weren't case study based.