To ask if you are taking ACA exams? And to be very upset/stressed

[HelpPleasePlease]

Long story short, I am taking three professional stage exams next week (my final three ie I have passed nine in total). If I bad fail (I am with a big 4 firm), I will lose my job.

However I was only given five weeks start to finish to learn the material (only four weeks in college, back to back) and pass the exams. Aibu to think this is nowhere near enough? It’s make me very very stressed and inefficient, and I presently feel like I know fuck all. Have not been doing well in the mocks and just feel very stressed and down. I am certainly going to lose my job. I just feel like sleeping all the time and feel sick and useless

i did all my exams like that, just 4 weeks at college (ie 9-5 every single day) then exams. Fairly normal and means no having to balance study and work.

the big providers of exam study services know how best to get people through these things.

The pass rate for BPT is approximately 75% every sitting, along with TC, AA, FAR, BS & FM. If you are studying with one of the main tuition providers, we can teach you how to pass the exams within that timescale. We do it every three months. Stop panicking and get back to question practice. You can do it!

Good luck

Anyone not in the OP's situation may wish to skip over this as it's a bit long & specific!

Do not waste time going through your study notes at this stage. Practice the homework questions set by your tuition provider and review the comments on your mock scripts for each of your three subjects.

Ensure that your BPT notes are well organised to take into the exam room with you and you know your way around the tax tables.

If you are taking FM and there are certain topics which you find tricky and they aren't on the formula sheets, jot some notes down as soon as you are allowed to write. eg. Forwards: Add Discounts Premiums Subtract, MMH: Forex receipt from customer, take out a forex loan, Call option = right to buy, Put option = right to sell etc.

Clearly state what you are doing at each step of your calculations so the marker understands what you are trying to do and doesn't have to plough through acres of random figures.

Any numbers in BS are rarely worth more than 5-6 marks. Stick them in an appendix, not the main body of your answer. Don't waste more than 5-8 minutes on them. Focus on the narrative & talking about the cause & effect instead.

Time management is absolutely crucial. Allocate the time for each question in proportion to the marks available for each part of the requirement, then write twice as many points for 10 marks as you would for 5 marks. Stop and move on at the end of the time allocated for each requirement, so that you pick up the easy marks for each part of the question.

If you find a particular question hard, everyone else in the exam room will as well. Write something, but don't spend to much time on it. Move onto the next bit.

Do not neglect any of your 3 papers over the weekend. They all have similar pass rates and are equally as difficult so do a little bit for each. Remember, you only have to get 55% to pass each one, so you only have to show that you know a little bit more than you don't know!

Good luck. I did BPP for my ACA exams and found it very hard.

The exams are hard. Just to reassure you, I failed two of my advanced stage and I didn't get fired. I was well rated and had done fine in the rest. I know three people who got fired but they repeatedly failed the early exams and struggled with the job too. One qualified at a smaller firm with a different approach to exams that suited her better. The other two were honestly not right for the job and now do stuff they much much prefer (professional singer and lawyer I believe). It's stressful but just work your hardest and if you are finding it overwhelming, step away, go for a walk or have a night off. Good luck.

Hi, just wanted to say that i am a partner at a big 4 firm (i have namechanged).

I took my exams a long time ago so don’t think i have anything to add on the exam side of things but if you have been sick while you have been studying you need to let your coach and HC know asap because it will count as mitigating circumstances. The firms tend to have central policies which have to be applied across the board otherwise there is little control.

I am assuming that you’re at risk of being sacked because you have sat once before? Your team will not want to sack you, especially if you have had good appraisals, so help them to help you but telling them now rather than if/when it all goes wrong. Otherwise it just sounds like a sob story.

Oh and i would really get off Mumsnet

Good luck!

I work closely with the exams team in Big 4. Please, please contact your internal exams team before you sit and register any mitigating circumstances beforehand, as it's a lot more difficult to do anything after.

Do you have a mentor within the business? Most of Big 4 also have a counselling helpline, so please contact them.

If you fail exams, within our firm anyway, you are entitled to one resit. We would then encourage you to take as much annual leave or even a small amount of unpaid leave to facilitate your revision and studying.

I get a lot of my guys coming to me with similar fears. As I say to them, ultimately the business wants to keep you. If you are putting in the effort and asking for help, we will give you all the chances & support.

Thanks so much, I appreciate the advice! No I am not resitting but frightened of a “bad fail”, no illness or anything though.

I’m working through the QBs now so fingers crossed it sticks. Thanks again, officially off MN for a while so wish me luck

Re support etc, I have been lucky on this front but honestly speaking, struggled with managing my time whilst revising for these three - which is entirely my fault but may lead to my exams team perhaps correctly not feeling like I have put enough effort in perhaps? Or not sought the required amount of support for tutors. This is perhaps reflected in my poor mock marks.

Just before you go, BPT mock results in the mid 30s are surprisingly common. It's amazing how well you can turn things around in a few days.

Interesting thread, I was let go after failing one of the six first stage exams, wasn’t even an accountancy paper. Everyone in my intake who failed even by 1% was out the door. I had great reports from clients but it made no difference. This was decades ago though. Are the big 4 more lenient nowadays?

I found that having the big 4 name on my cv made me very marketable, even with only having done 1 year and the one fail. It’s not the end of the world. But I reckon you can do it

@Lemons1571 I'm also surprised by this advice. I was excellent at my job, my office fought to keep me, but ultimately, company policy meant they couldn't keep me. I was right at the very end too - it was my last paper.

People do get fired from the Big 4. Because it's so hard to get into the Big 4, those people generally have never failed anything in their life, and they certainly haven't been fired before. That's what makes it so hard - the thought of being fired is terrifying!

The reality is much different. There is life after being fired - and actually, as Lemons1571 says, any Big 4 experience is marketable. People go crazy for the Big 4 on your CV, even if you spent hardly any time there and/or you were booted out.

It probably won't get this far. You'll probably pull yourself together and do better than you think. But if you don't? Not the end of the world. I promise. Some of the previous advice about mitigating circumstances and your firm not wanting to let you go is unhelpful - if your exam policy says you're out after a fail, you're out. You'll never overturn a national policy - even if you're at one of the bigger offices, the partners at your office are a tiny percentage of the national decision makers.

The best advice anyone can give you is to try your hardest. Whatever happens, you'll find it a lot easier to deal with what comes next, knowing you gave it your all.

Good luck. Rooting for you!

Lemons - we have definitely seen a marked change. In our Big 4, we no longer have entry requirements (ie 2:1 or above in degree) but now it is just "a degree".

We have a number of grads with 2:2s and even a 3rd, who then really struggle with the exam element. I know that we also struggle to attract & recruit the brightest & best - mainly with a starting salary of 17.5k. We have lost 10% of our September intake already - not through exam fails, but because they have decided to look for more money elsewhere.

I may have some BPT notes as well - 16/17 tax year - so I think the right one - drop me a PM and I'll dig them out tomorrow for you.

Do you study with BPP or Kaplan? BPP seem to under mark for my firm hugely - I got in the 20s in all my mocks and in the 70s in the exam.

The others are right not to neglect BSand FM if those are the others you're sitting - but ultimately I did focus about 60% of my time on BPT and got similar marks in all of them.

Personally I'm not massively into folders, and mainly tabbed up the textbook but I'm a fast reader so could get away with it. Definitely flag any concerns before - remember to spin the presentation of things to your advantage.

Audit training contracts were always low paid cannon fodder that moved on directly they hit the qualification. I was in the last intake that accepted 2:2’s (which I had - perhaps I swayed them to require 2:1 minimum ). I wonder why the shift, have they realised they might be missing out on great people because they’re restricting the pool? Sacking someone with one fail in her last paper is a bit short sighted imo

(We are also much more lenient on fails now - some of our intake are on their 3rd attempt at a given paper.)

Total aside but I am surprised to see a big 4 starting salary of £17.5k for grads. Aren't they £27k in London and £20k outside of London? Anyway I digress.

Firstly, given that it's coming up for busy season, they are highly unlikely to sack you. Secondly, stop studying and start churning through past papers!

The college gave me a bunch of past papers, ask around from colleagues who recently qualified or ask the institute directly if you don't already have enough. Grade them yourself or ask your tutor or a smart colleague to (swap papers), and let that guide your revision...if there's something that comes up which you don't understand, find extra examples to practice. Practice was the key for passing the final exams, since you already have the detailed knowledge (even though you think you don't).

Let us know how you get on!

Good luck I'm sitting ACCA finals this week and just want the week to be over!