BPP: Dec 2007 Exam Tips (P1, P3)

ACCA Paper P1
Professional Accountant
December 2007 Exam Tips and Useful Articles

Tipping is not a precise science at the best of time, and for the first sitting of a brand new paper it is little more than a ‘shot in the dark’. It would be inappropriate to guess what is likely to appear in the first exam, so the following tips suggest important areas to cover. However please remember that no one knows what is in the exam, apart from the examiner. Your safest bet is to achieve good syllabus coverage in your revision, as the examiner aims to do in the exam.

The following is a guide to areas that you should include as part of your revision:

Section A:

Application of corporate governance principles:
A deep understanding of the purpose and aims of good corporate governance, together with an appreciation of the relevance of different approaches (rules or principles) that could be utilised is key. Questions are likely to require the application of corporate governance to address organisational control deficiencies described in the scenario is quite likely.

Identification and assessment of all aspects of business risk:
The use of a methodical approach to identify, categorise and assess the array of risks facing an organisation will be a common feature of scenario questions. From this position the examiner can than then ask candidates to propose and recommend remedies.

Internal control mechanisms and their review:
Internal management control systems are a key feature of any successful organisation. Indeed corporate governance mechanism could in themselves be viewed as of the internal control framework. The questions are likely to either identify deficiencies in internal controls or ask students to suggest enhanced controls to manage risks identified.

Corporate social responsibility and environmental management:
The need to act appropriately in terms of social and environmental responsibilities is key feature of the modern business world, and could be an element of a scenario question. This being the ethical stance that an organisation takes allows for many theories and frameworks to be incorporated into answers.

Section B:

Although likely to be based on small scenarios, Section B questions are likely to test specific areas of the syllabus in more detail.

Corporate Governance:
This could require detailed discussion of aspects of the Combined Code or Sarbanes Oxley, or even a comparison between the two. Specific areas relating to the role of non-executive directors, remuneration and disclosure requirements could also be tested, which requires the recollection of detailed syllabus knowledge to secure a good mark.

Risk assessment and management:
Describing the frameworks used in assessing and controlling risk any organisation either in a holistic view in specific detail (e.g. risk profiling) could be on the paper. However there will be no computation of the value of risk required.

Internal control (inc. internal audit):
Approaches to enterprise risk management together with embedded /cultural risk awareness would appear to be prime topic worthy of revision.

Professional values and ethics:
An array ethical theories and frameworks could be specified and tested in detail. Emphasis is likely to be on the role of the professional accountant and the possible conflicts and threats to independence that can arise and need to be resolved.

Useful Articles:

If you want to read around the subject or improve your understanding there are a number of articles on the ACCA website.

‘Big Brother’ by George Bakehouse studies ethics and how advances in information technology have changed the way businesses work

Effective report writing by Mustafa Muchhala explains the key points of effective report writing

‘Examiner’s approach to Paper P1, Professional Accountant’ by David Campbell, examiner for Paper P1offers his approach to the Professional Accountant paper

ACCA Paper P3

Following are the Exam tips for P3 Business Analysis that are likely to appear in Dec 2007 Attempt.

• Assessing options for growth
• E-marketing
• Software packages
• Change management
• Six sigma
• Project management