CAP2 Exams

Hackysack · 23-05-2010 08:46PM

Hmm. I don't think it's the same one. The actual question names aren't particularly familiar. I might have a different one that was given out last year. It's around 160 pages worth of questions that cover all of the IAS' and around 200 odd pages of solutions. (of course it'd be pretty useless for IAS1 and the small changes that were brought in for IAS 27)

Some of them are very easy but each question seems to cover a different 'trick' so to speak, so it's very good for learning each standard/complexity in a step by step process.

I don't have it on my home comptuer at the moment, but I think I have a copy of it on my laptop in work.

Hackysack · 23-05-2010 08:47PM

prinz wrote: »

Have three to do, all except SFMA. The only one really bothering me again is FR, and that's dragging the confidence down when it comes to Audit and Tax.

Yeah FR is an absolute mare. If I was in your position, I'd probably devote say 3 days a week to Audit/Tax and 4 full ones to Fin Rep. I find that if you do well in the other two it gives you a good bit of confidence. But last year for the repeats I got a bit sidetracked and overly-focuses on SFMA & Tax, while neglecting Fin. Rep.

Do you have that giant Question pack that I described in the post above?

prinz · 23-05-2010 08:57PM

Hackysack wrote: »

Do you have that giant Question pack that I described in the post above?

I have a question and answer pack but I don't think it's the same one, it only has about 15 questions and solutions in it, covering all the IAS's.

I don't know what the problem is. I should be alright at audit and tax but even studying them is proving hard enough :pac: just got a niggling doubt left over from last year that I need to get rid of asap.

Coldplayer · 24-05-2010 09:27AM

Any chance someone could post that giant pack? I have worked through that crappy consol pack and IAS pack described above, don't think they are any use.

I've been studying for about 3 weeks now, and did some for the mocks. if someone can study all four courses in 4 weeks i am astonished, i must clearly be a lesser form of human being . . .

Anyone got any study tips for auditing, i don't work in it so have little exposure to it. Ive just been reading the book and Q&As. Is that all there is to do?

Hackysack · 24-05-2010 10:00AM

The Fin Rep. Question/Solution pack files are too big for me to upload here. PM me your email addresses and i'll send the files I have.

Vaioer · 24-05-2010 10:33AM

Quick one.

See for Syllabus point 4.2 for SFMA "Performance Measurement Decisions". What are people using to revise for this? I can't seem to find any notes in the lecture notes or in Clarke or Drury for this.

Coldplayer · 24-05-2010 10:36AM

Loads of stuff in the toolkit on that section, and Ratios are a big part there as-well. Like Q1 in last years summer paper was on unit performance.

SL10 · 24-05-2010 11:36AM

Coldplayer wrote: »

Anyone got any study tips for auditing, i don't work in it so have little exposure to it. Ive just been reading the book and Q&As. Is that all there is to do?

For Audit, I have just been doing questions from exam papers- doing all the prof 3 at the mo and then gonna move on to some FAE ones and the CAP2 ones. I have the advantage of working in audit tho so I kinda have a fair idea of most things. But I would say doing exam questions over and over is prob your best bet.

Coldplayer · 24-05-2010 11:43AM

SL10 wrote: »

For Audit, I have just been doing questions from exam papers- doing all the prof 3 at the mo and then gonna move on to some FAE ones and the CAP2 ones. I have the advantage of working in audit tho so I kinda have a fair idea of most things. But I would say doing exam questions over and over is prob your best bet.

Cheers yeah thats what i think i'll do. Really don't feel like im doing half as much for auditing as i am for everything else.

SL10 · 24-05-2010 03:00PM

Does anyone know where you can find solutions to the challenging questions at the end of the chapters in the FR book? I know they are based on past exam questions so are people just using the papers for solutions or?

Dell2009 · 24-05-2010 06:06PM

@ SL10

Book Solutions in Financial Reporting Cap 2 thread

Coldplayer · 24-05-2010 10:01PM

SL10 wrote: »

For Audit, I have just been doing questions from exam papers- doing all the prof 3 at the mo and then gonna move on to some FAE ones and the CAP2 ones. I have the advantage of working in audit tho so I kinda have a fair idea of most things. But I would say doing exam questions over and over is prob your best bet.

Hey just looking online for the prof 3 papers? couldnt find them anywhere? Are they available for download?

SL10 · 24-05-2010 10:07PM

Yeah they are on the website. You have to log in to get them tho. If you go to Student Resources- Exams- Exam Papers- CAP2 at the bottom of the page is a link to the old prof 3 papers too

ananlin · 25-05-2010 12:27AM

I did FR and Audit last year, Filed FR and Passed it at repeat and got 67, the repeat is even harder, here are few tips:

Start with the last two questions in the exams,that will build confident, if u did study then expect to finish those 2 Q in 1-1.5 hr. they are really not that hard, I did the case study first last summer ,spent 2.5 hrs on it and lead me to nowhere, leaving half the easy one didnt even answered.
Analysis every standard, summrise every standard in the way u can understand, i know there are lots for every standards, but there is certain question type that came up every year.and make them easy to access, trust me u wont have time to look papers and books... have the DR CR stuff on paper.....
Past paper is worth to look, but they may put a whole question in past paper as a part of case study, I.e Summer 09 Q1 EPS question was the excaly same as 2005 summer or maybe 2006, couldn't remember.
From my analysis,the CASE STUDY is made up of 1.Lots standards. 2 One of the Disclosure, ie. 09 Summer is EPS. 09 Autumn is Discountinued Operation,so defintly gonna to be one disclosure small question,and also eithcal(which is easy for u guys and really hard for me as i dont speak english and hard to describ common sense LOL)
I FOUND the CPA pofessional II Advanced Corp Reporting Paper is really really really similar as the case study , CPA use the IFRS as well, and they only have 1 case study quetion in the paper which is consolidate+standards + Rports + Eithis which took 100 marks, I did that in my repeat and I found it is extrimly good. here is the links to those papers http://www.cpaireland.ie/displaycontent.aspx?node=202&groupid=202&headerid=513
To draw up the account PL BS)first,even before to do the notes, they took marks--- More than 4(which is in the marking schedule),didnt do in first sitting and did in repeat, makes lot diff.

hope that helps

Nidot · 25-05-2010 11:46AM

ananlin wrote: »

I did FR and Audit last year, Filed FR and Passed it at repeat and got 67, the repeat is even harder, here are few tips:
Start with the last two questions in the exams,that will build confident, if u did study then expect to finish those 2 Q in 1-1.5 hr. they are really not that hard, I did the case study first last summer ,spent 2.5 hrs on it and lead me to nowhere, leaving half the easy one didnt even answered.

Analysis every standard, summrise every standard in the way u can understand, i know there are lots for every standards, but there is certain question type that came up every year.and make them easy to access, trust me u wont have time to look papers and books... have the DR CR stuff on paper.....

Past paper is worth to look, but they may put a whole question in past paper as a part of case study, I.e Summer 09 Q1 EPS question was the excaly same as 2005 summer or maybe 2006, couldn't remember.

From my analysis,the CASE STUDY is made up of 1.Lots standards. 2 One of the Disclosure, ie. 09 Summer is EPS. 09 Autumn is Discountinued Operation,so defintly gonna to be one disclosure small question,and also eithcal(which is easy for u guys and really hard for me as i dont speak english and hard to describ common sense LOL)

I FOUND the CPA pofessional II Advanced Corp Reporting Paper is really really really similar as the case study , CPA use the IFRS as well, and they only have 1 case study quetion in the paper which is consolidate+standards + Rports + Eithis which took 100 marks, I did that in my repeat and I found it is extrimly good. here is the links to those papers http://www.cpaireland.ie/displaycontent.aspx?node=202&groupid=202&headerid=513

To draw up the account PL BS)first,even before to do the notes, they took marks--- More than 4(which is in the marking schedule),didnt do in first sitting and did in repeat, makes lot diff.

hope that helps

Excellent post ananlin, everybody doing these exams needs to remember that the pass mark is 50%, get to that and you're safe.

Financial Reporting is gona be the hardest exam and with all luck the two sample questions people choose will get them up to 25 or so, that would mean getting 65% in these two questions, which based on last years examiners report is achievable if you put the time into it.

I would repeat what ananlin was saying and do the two option questions first and they should take bout 1.5 hr if you crack into them straight away.

Anyway best of luck to everyone who's doing them. Work hard and you'll be fine.

Mark1916 · 27-05-2010 10:14PM

Cheers for that post all of the above acutally make sense and im going to try that approach with my exam papers.

Going to this grind school on saturday and I have 2 A4 pages of questions to ask. I attempted the summer 09 consolidation question today - WTF??? Its brutal tough but the rest of the paper is doable!

Mark1916 · 28-05-2010 06:00PM

Looks like we could be getting a foregin currency consolidation with the new notes that are up!

ahossain · 29-05-2010 03:57PM

Just to send a quick reply - i was studying the old prof 3 exam questions and they're an excellent source for consol questions

has anyone got any grinds / know anyone who offers grinds ?

thanks

Vaioer · 31-05-2010 10:31AM

Seee for SFMA, what sort of quantitative questions are people looking at

-Investment Appraisal(IRR, NPV, EVA, Residual Value)
-Variances
-Hedging
-Cost of Capital(WACC etc)

Am I missing anything else there?

Coldplayer · 31-05-2010 12:31PM

I'm covering Valuations and Transfer Pricing also.

Quantitative question could easily come up in Transfer Pricing

Mark1916 · 31-05-2010 11:32PM

I know a few people that were at the chartered grind school and the man said that:

WACC through NPV/EVA
Mix and Yield Variences
Budgeting
Relevant Costing/Decision Making
FX Risk

All have a good chance of coming up, if that came up id be happy especially the variences they are relatively easy marks!

SL10 · 01-06-2010 06:04PM

Has anyone done the CAP 2 sample papers for the 4 subjects? Just wondering if they are worthwhile taking a look at?

I know the tax are meant to be good enough tho they are at varying standards to what should be CAP2 (the first paper is too easy and the 3rd too hard is what our lecturer told us).

seven-iron · 01-06-2010 07:04PM

My predictions:

TAX case study: cat/cgt
FR case study: consol, eps, c/f IFRS 8

aka accounts 2010 · 02-06-2010 02:31AM

hey guys...
i only finished college last week and i have been offered a trainee accountant position with a small firm consisting of a handful of offices..its a 3.5 year contract and as i'm exempt from CAP 1, i'll be starting with my CAP 2's..they will pay all exams fees/books/materials etc and a salary of 12k..how does this sound and compare with others in the industry????

larry2009 · 02-06-2010 10:43AM

aka accounts 2010 wrote: »

hey guys...
i only finished college last week and i have been offered a trainee accountant position with a small firm consisting of a handful of offices..its a 3.5 year contract and as i'm exempt from CAP 1, i'll be starting with my CAP 2's..they will pay all exams fees/books/materials etc and a salary of 12k..how does this sound and compare with others in the industry????

Sounds pathetic but probably not too far off the average wage for trainee accountants. If you can live on 1k a month then I'd take it.

Coldplayer · 02-06-2010 03:41PM

Anyone know what way the marking scheme for the case study question goes like. i've been doing loads of questions, getting through all the adjustments ok but i have a feeling i might have a timing problem throwing everything in to the financials.

Basically, do we get marks for doing the adjustments?

SL10 · 02-06-2010 04:04PM

The advice we got was to lay out the income statement and balance sheet and fill in the easy figures, then fill in all other figures as you go along.

I think there are some marks for the adjustments (but I think that they will only be given if you have put in the wrong figure and then they go back to the adjustments if you know what i mean) but the main marks are for the actual layout in the I/S and B/S. I think that was one of the main points the examiners report for the autumn papers

Hackysack · 02-06-2010 04:13PM

Coldplayer wrote: »

Anyone know what way the marking scheme for the case study question goes like. i've been doing loads of questions, getting through all the adjustments ok but i have a feeling i might have a timing problem throwing everything in to the financials.

Basically, do we get marks for doing the adjustments?

If you look at the two examiner reports for Financial Reporting, you'll see the examiner going on about the fact that people end up doing the adjustments and not put them into the accounts.

It seems to be a sore point with him. So the best thing to do is, as soon as you get a figure, put it immediately into your IS/BS.

A method that I found quite useful is to prettymuch redraw up whatever information you're presented on the day. Have Comp A's Figures, Comp B's figures, an Adjustment column and a Total.

Take the figures straight from Comp A, and Adjust Comp B's figures (by 6/12/whenever it was bought etc.) and leave the adjustment column for your workings etc.

Obviously leave a line or two between each entry (as you'll have to include additional workings), but yeah I followed that procedure in my Autumn Repeat and I was able to get around 80%+ of the presentation marks available on the paper. Like there's no point in throwing away easy marks!

But in other more depressing news. I spent most of the day doing Deferred Tax and I could only manage to grasp the basics. I guess i'll just have to move on and pray it doesn't come up in a serious way

Coldplayer · 02-06-2010 05:22PM

Yeah fair enough, might just draw them up first thing no matter what and start whacking the figures in as i get them, just that some of them have so many adjustments.

feck it, anyway regards deferred tax, i can only really see that coming in the consolidations question with regards to URP in inventory/assets or maybe with revaluations, no way will there be a full q on it,

Have an feeling we might get a subsidiary disposal

seven-iron · 02-06-2010 06:40PM

DT could easily be a 12 marker in Section B.

CAP2 Exams

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