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CAP2 Exams

Mark1916

Hi,

Thought id set up a thread so people can air their views, problems, tips etc for the up comming exams!

Ill start off and say I think Cash Flows are a high possibility for the Financial Exam!

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Vaioer

r.dunne7 wrote: »

Hi Everyone

I know the exams are very very tought, but thats what you have to expect with Professional exams, they are a lot harder than college exams and really really test you.

And the award for stating the obvious goes to.......

No-one expects it to be easy.

However read any examiners report and you see phrases such as "letting students show what they know". I'd say very very few people were able to show what they knew in that exam.

trixabello

r.dunne7 wrote: »

Hi Everyone

I know the exams are very very tought, but thats what you have to expect with Professional exams, they are a lot harder than college exams and really really test you.

Just look at all the professional bodies ACCA, ACA, CPA, CFA they all have very low pass rates, for ACCA the people that pass the last exams are around 35 % in some papers, that means 70% of people are failing. But becasue they are so ahrd the ACA qualification carries a lot of weight!! The pass mark jsut shows how gruleeing and challenging that they are and in this repect if you can handle these exams u can handle anything.!!! heads up everybody!

So for the ACA it is the same , im sure if they made the exams easy like college exams the pass rate would be about 95 % .

Then people would be moaing about the amrket being flooded by ACA and the qualifcation in IReland would be looked down upon from abroad.

I know it sucks right know but all in all its a zero sum game!

Ye in know what you're saying, but doesnt make it any easier when you're sitting in an exam with an hour left knowing you've no chance of passing it. Especially annoying when you've been living like a hermit for the past few months studying to make sure you dont end up in that situation... but suppose maybe ACA need a few extra quid so they're increasing chances of people repeating. Just so sick of studing and exams at this stage. sorry about the rant... :mad:

Altaglusgan Lad

ManwitaPlan wrote: »

Just a strange paper...I did quite well in the mocks but new that meant F all because they can literally ask anything in this exam and by god they did that.

I think that was a ridiculous paper. the variance was almost impossible. Especially compared to the past papers we had to work from. :mad::mad:

I am beginning to wonder if the institute itself is having Cash flow/Liquidity problems, or what exactly their motive is.

Just think of it………………

The more people that they fail, the more EXTRA revenue they will get from people paying to re-sit. No lecturers to be paid, or lecturer theatres to hire, basically all profit. :eek:

Spot_the_Dog

r.dunne7 wrote: »

I know the exams are very very tought, but thats what you have to expect with Professional exams, they are a lot harder than college exams and really really test you.

To be completely honest, it wasn't actually the difficulty level that i am frustrated about - because as you say the exams have to be tough or the qualification becomes worthless - it is more the change in the standard of the paper in comparison with both exams last year. A few people above have mentioned that they were comfortable with the standard of questions from last year (and the sample papers) and feeling quite confident with their knowledge going into the exam and were completely thrown by the length, volume, wording and difficulty of some of the questions today.

I suppose to put a comparison on it, we are all expecting a very difficult, complex paper tomorrow for Financial Reporting based on 2009 CAP2 and ICAI sample papers. But the key difference is, we are expecting it and know that we will have to pull out all the stops to get the pass! There was no prior warning to prepare us for the difficulty of todays exam and very few questions of a similar standard to practice in order to gain the requisite competence needed to obtain the pass.

I think it is bad that everyone i have been talking to since 1 o'clock (about 20 or so people, including people who scored very heavily in both the CAP1's and the mocks this spring) is all fully convinced that they have failed. It shows that being taken unawares by the difficulty of the in-depth knowledge, on-the-spot analysis and lightening quick writing was not a one-off that just happened a few people due to lack of preparation.

Rickyroma

Spot_the_Dog wrote: »

There was no prior warning to prepare us for the difficulty of todays exam and very few questions of a similar standard to practice in order to gain the requisite competence needed to obtain the pass.

This is a key point.

There was no past question of a similar standard to either the Varience or Interest rate question. Combined with what I would view as inadequate notes in this subject, the surprising lack of any question pack and the absence of compensation, you have a very, very challanging situation for students.

The Institute cannot simply hide behind "Its the same for everyone". If they are going to produce exams of that standard they have a responsibility to prepare students, and supporting materials, adequately.

Altaglusgan Lad

Rickyroma wrote: »

The Institute cannot simply hide behind "Its the same for everyone". If they are going to produce exams of that standard they have a responsibility to prepare students, and supporting materials, adequately.

I agree, and they should provide solutions which are correct, and doesn't take the student ages to work out where the author if the solution has gone wrong/lifted the wrong figures etc.

Our time is precious enough, without wasting it going round in circles needlessly.

SL10

:mad: Is all i can say for that exam! Fingers crossed I got enough down to get whats required after the continuous assessment. Absolutely terrified of what they are gonna throw at us tomorrow now if the exams are moving up a level from last year and really dont have the energy this eve to study

ananlin

this ridiculous paper just make the insitutue couldn't cover themselves, also make their so called Compentancy statement a joke, i prepared everything baed on ''Compentancy statement '',i stupidity sought the question will based on that, under there valuation section , it says that ''Alppy Asset based, p/e method,ect,with no mention the strenge method in the paper, also included in the ''statement'', there was a large part of dividend decision,takeover,merge,acq,FX currency,ect,i m so surprise none of them came up.
i think the people who creat this paper does not ware what we are told to cover,he just simply to put everything he want from his head....at the end of the day he will be the only one know the exact answers. I did all ACCA/CPA/ACA papers to prepare this subject,CPA is quite easy, ACCA is hard but at least it exams people what they v been told to study, i know people doing SFMA last year complaint a lot, i bet theyll cry if they were sitting today's paper.

Dick Turnip

yea my main problem was the obscurity of the valuation and interest rate questions, there was no past examples of that type of interest rate in any of the sample papers or past papers. it wasn't in the notes either. it meant not being able to answer 2/3 parts of the 11 marks and the subsequent 4 marks to give an opinion as to which one to use.

on the valuation i couldn't figure out what they were asking for in the 2nd two methods. i think i may have worked out the last one but it wasn't from any prior knowledge of the method.

got bogged down in the variances aswell but not sure if this was just due to me being shaky on that subject or not.

on the case study i think i did ok bar the valuations, not sure if its enough to make up for the section b. if i do pass it will be a 50% due to being bumped up by the assessment! wishful thinking no doubt...

Flange/Flanders

Listen I know that professional exams are meant to be hard and that we cant expect easy passes but the Institute are ripping the piss at the moment with some of their low pass rates. I know a lot of trainee actuaries and the pass rate in the actuary exams are comparable to the current pass rate in some of the aca exams now. Now I wouldnt mind the high probability of me failing if it meant I was gonna to get the financial reward on qualification that actuaries get. Worse still, during training, actuaries dont have the extra pressure of potentially losing your job should you fail your exam, in fact I know some trainee actuaries who are on their 4th attempt at the same 2 exams. Whereas with my company, if I have to repeat, I will be very nervous of further failure because I would definitely lose my contract them!

r.dunne7

Im sorry to be so blunt , but every year we get the same thing , the exams were so hard, the wording was so difficult, i have never seen that before, ... etc.

The reason i beleive its done like that is becasue if they didnt word things in that way, or didnt throw in any curve balls.. etc , what you would have it a pass rate of 90%+

It will be like college exams, that what exactly college exams test, if you study the material and get your head around it all you have to do is regurgatate it on the day and everyone passes.

I by no means condone the ICAI for setting such hard exams papers but in my opinon they have no other choice, as the pass mark is 50%.

If things came up a little tricky but the majority of the marks could be easily obtained most people would pass.

What if the ICAI upped the pass rate to 60% and made it an easier exam.

Taken into account the continous assement for the ICAI most people scored a 12 out of 15 , this is a perfect case of testing material that is relatively straight forward in a stright forward manner.. look what happens. Pass rate would be the equvalent of 7.5 marks, and i think nearly 95% of people got that!

At the end of the day the concepts and ides in SFMA are pretty easy to be honest, most people can get there head around variance, and company valuations and basic FX and intrest rates questions, they are not difficult. The only way to make realtively staight forward material into something challenging is to do what the ICAI have done.

In my opinion the ICAI shoudl really put up at least 6 sample papers covering many topics and put them up at the level they come up in exams.... however to ensure that no one can simply learn off answers and templates they must put some curve balls in that no one ahs ever seen before!

Sofa King Great

r.dunne7 wrote: »

Im sorry to be so blunt , but every year we get the same thing , the exams were so hard, the wording was so difficult, .... curve balls in that no one ahs ever seen before!

Did you do the exam today? There is obviously the need to make it relatively tough but the stuff on it was ridiculous. Especially seeing as there was very little to go on.

I agree with you about needing more sample papers. Although they also need to sort out the solutions they give out. It is a disgrace that they contain mistakes and the answers arent necessarily exam standard. If we did it in an exam they'd fail us!

prinz

r.dunne7 wrote: »

Im sorry to be so blunt , but every year we get the same thing , the exams were so hard, the wording was so difficult, i have never seen that before, ... etc.

All easily said by someone not sitting the exams tbh. The fact is the standards required by CAP students is a lot more than the old course. It's not about everyone saying the same thing every year, it is objectively far more difficult to get the exams compared to 2 years ago, no proper samples to look at, worked solutions which are brutally inadequate and often completely wrong, no compensation across subjects, CAP2 now includes material that was previously on the old FAE course IIRC, etc etc. The continuous assessment sections are ok, well and good, but that also comes with issues attached.

Not to mention that students are sitting exams in the fear of losing their jobs, while the CAI sit back and tell employers that that it's not harder for students to pass while obviously it is to anyone looking at it.

How many qualified accountants could do x,y and z under time pressures and with the added knowledge that if they fail they lose their qualification and their job??

pepp

I think if your not sitting the exams you've no reason to comment. Sometimes people feel better to get things off their chests, so don't try and make them feel worse by sayin "what did you expect" its patronising.

cuppatae1

r.dunne7 wrote: »

In my opinion the ICAI shoudl really put up at least 6 sample papers covering many topics and put them up at the level they come up in exams.... however to ensure that no one can simply learn off answers and templates they must put some curve balls in that no one ahs ever seen before!

They could put up 20 sample papers but they are no use to anyone if they all contain mistakes. You spend valuable time trying to figure out if something is actually right or if its a mistake and the more mistakes you find in sample solutions the less confidence you have in the rest of them. This makes you doubt not only yourself but also every set of notes/questions you get from the institute. Is it so hard to get the bloody things right when you are the institute setting the exams.

On another note, would it be so hard to have one textbook for CAP2 SFMA rather than having 2 where half the contents of each one aren't examinable at CAP2? Ridiculous that the books are produced for the institute but cant do one for the subject! For instance the tax book tells you where an item is not examinable.

The institute would have no problem taking your membership fee if you are lucky enough to qualify but have absolutely no interest in helping students pass. It really gives the imression that the institute is run by a crowd of incompetent people. These are probably people working in cushy numbers with no pressure on them any time.

r.dunne7

I agree with you to a certain extent.

If the ICAI got the finger out of their hole and put up adaquate solutions with no mistakes, really toguht sample papers with good solutions, and added a lot to the competency statments students would feel proberly prepared, it would be a win win situation for both the students and the ICAI.

The lack of these fundementals hovever combines the problems of both very toguht exams with poor adminstartion makes things even worse.... I think with all the moeny the ICAI is getting they need to get their finger out of their hole and adminster both all the exams more professionally.

However the prospect of losing your job as a result of failing both the summer and autumn stem mostly from a bad economy that has collapsed over the last two years. So i know if may be tought, the ICAi cannot be blamed for firms letting people go. I think most firms would like to cut their staff and failing the exams is an upfront excuse to fire u on the spot!!

As regarde the actuary exams, the number of actuaries qualifying every year are small commpared with accountants, and in this case actuaries can go into good jobs and get well paid. Everyhitng is about supply and demand, At the peak of 2007 when we were in short supply a premium for a ACA was about 50k. Now you would be lucky to get 35K!

Very few people have the maths ability to do those exams and pass, while any body on the street can do the chartered exams and pass if they made them as easy everyone could pass.

R0N BURGUNDY

not much of a test for anyone when they word the questions in such a twisted way that you dont know what it is that they actually want u to do.

here - il give u a test

go ahead

no - u failed. i wanted u to guess what u should have done. triple inverted summersault backtwist cowboy hang glider.

fail. sacked.

the thing is = these could have probably been the best years in alot of peoples lives. instead we are sitting in studying the hell clean out of it and then failing. for the resits, i think il study the day before and thats it. not going to put myself through that pain again because it was a complete waste of time.

r.dunne7

R0N BURGUNDY wrote: »

not much of a test for anyone when they word the questions in such a twisted way that you dont know what it is that they actually want u to do.

here - il give u a test

go ahead

no - u failed. i wanted u to guess what u should have done. triple inverted summersault backtwist cowboy hang glider.

fail. sacked.

the thing is = these could have probably been the best years in alot of peoples lives. instead we are sitting in studying the hell clean out of it and then failing. for the resits, i think il study the day before and thats it. not going to put myself through that pain again because it was a complete waste of time.

Hi can u put up both the audit paper and sfma paper on this forum i would liek to have a read of it!

prinz

r.dunne7 wrote: »

Hi can u put up both the audit paper and sfma paper on this forum i would liek to have a read of it!

Looking at the exam papers is a waste of time unless you have gone through the actual course, as enough people have said.

Sofa King Great

r.dunne7 wrote: »

Hi can u put up both the audit paper and sfma paper on this forum i would liek to have a read of it!

So you've been commenting on a paper you haven't even seen? Are you even an accountant?

R0N BURGUNDY

aye sure hold on while i go scanning and uploading both exam papers while iv got financial reporting tomorrow

R0N BURGUNDY

erm, it takes about a second to post on here. scanning etc is going to take about half an hour mate. and i think i can choose what i want to do with my time. making comments about something you havent read shows that you're clearly a moron. hate to break it to you.

prinz

r.dunne7 wrote: »

However the prospect of losing your job as a result of failing both the summer and autumn stem mostly from a bad economy that has collapsed over the last two years. So i know if may be tought, the ICAi cannot be blamed for firms letting people go..

Actually they can share some of the blame, as they continue to deny that they are raising the bar.

r.dunne7 wrote: »

Everyhitng is about supply and demand, At the peak of 2007 when we were in short supply a premium for a ACA was about 50k. Now you would be lucky to get 35K!

At what stage between 2008 and now was there a massive increase in the numbers of accoutants qualifying? Surely you'd know that salary correction is just as much of a result of the economy collapse as anything else.

Sofa King Great

So what is everyone doing tonight for tomorrow?

Going to go over Consolidation now, probably a bit of EPS and then maybe last years paper. Really don't know how this one will go. Could be a catastrophe!

R0N BURGUNDY

was just trying to decide that myself. if today is anything to go by, forget about anything you might have thought about and go read some hebrew. it will improve your translation skills of crap you've never seen before.

Sofa King Great

http://www.ehow.com/how_2090216_use-crystal-ball.html

prinz

r.dunne7 wrote: »

Erm then why do u keep commenting on this forum if ur so busy with finanical accounting, !!

Now I know you are having a laugh. Pretty sad tbh.

crabcreature

Too true, didnt know what they wanted me to do. Not going to bother with Financial Reporting just going straight onto tax...

R0N BURGUNDY

wee question here for financial reporting:

p54 in the toolkit reverses a share issue expense from operating expenses:

Cr 5000 (w6)

then in w6 it says:
share issue expenses - option to write off against share premium.

i thought costs incurred in acquisition under the new rules are supposed to be expensed in the period they occur in accordance with IFRS. P433 in the text book says as much.

is the toolkit wrong here or is share issue expenses allowed to be written off against share premium>?

i thought the reason the shares were issued was to acquire the 2nd company.

cheers in advance

Flange/Flanders

r.dunne7 wrote: »

Very few people have the maths ability to do those exams and pass, while any body on the street can do the chartered exams and pass if they made them as easy everyone could pass.

Ill put it to you like this mr Dunne, I got an A1 in honours maths, a first class honours maths degree and passed finance and management accounting well last year and yet struggled with that exam today. The simple fact of the matter is that I was under too much time pressure for the case study which clouded my judgement for the section 2 questions, those parts that I recognised before. Granted I hadnt practised the Variance questions half enough but I was reasonally confident regarding hedging, then they throw up a question from completely left field.