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Further education

You'll find discussions about A Levels and universities on our Further Education forum.

ACA advanced level exams

1 reply

debbie029 · 12/09/2018 12:37

Hi guys!
I have seen some threads popping up regarding ACA exams now and again so thought I'd turn to you for help.
I will be sitting the final 3 aca exams in November and im freaking out a bit as I took a year and half gap from exams!
I feel a bit overwhelmed with SBM specifically - I tried a few questions and have no idea how to answer them so end up looking at the solution.
Do you guys have any advice? I am planning approx. 5 weeks of "intense revision" for all 3 courses, is that enough?

OP posts:
Stickerrocks · 12/09/2018 23:19

Who are you studying with?

Let's start with SBM. The emphasis on the tuition phase of the course is all on the FM side of things. However, around 40% of the syllabus is actually classic BS, 10% audit and a big chunk of ethics thrown in. At this point you should be building up your exam file with lots of worked examples in it, ready to practice as many past questions from the Nov 17 and Nov 16 papers in the immediate run up to the exams. It's essentially a slightly more technical version of the case study, so just give the client practical advice around each element to the requirements.

I know little about CR except to say that it's ridiculously time pressured. With both SBM & CR ensure that you have practiced using the software and got used to typing & planning your answers, because it takes a very different mindset to plan without having a physical question paper to annotate in front of you.

ACS - It's absolutely essential to understand the marking grids and the "rule of 4" in each skills assessment box. If you are NOT using a training provider and are studying for these alone, use R4 from November 2017 as a typical case from you lead examiner. If you are using a training provider, do exactly what your tutor tells you to do. Case is not the time to show any personality and do your own thing. You will fail if you don't write an exec summary and your report must be balanced across all 3 requirements. Always put your conclusions and recommendations for each requirement under a specific heading, show lots of professional scepticism in requirement 2 & 3 and challenge every assumption made. Only calculate figures for the appendix in requirement 1 if you are going to talk about them. Get together a list of wider context points using the pre-seen and get a minimum of 4 points within each requirement. There is now only one bullet point for your own research, so don't waste time on that when you could be working on SBM & CR instead.

Don't waste money on the Case Study (etc) Simplified series of books. Any of the top 3 tuition providers idea a far better job than they do and the books just confuse everybody by giving mixed messages on approaching the exams. Save your money and buy chocolate/wine instead. If will be more practical help.

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