How to prepare for ACCA exams: Guide to Approach ACCA Exam.

ACCA exams are one of the most flexible exams in the accounting world and provides enough opportunity to the students to choose the way they would like to write their exams. Despite such flexibility provided to ACCA students, the overall average pass percentage of ACCA students ranges from 30% to 60% from subject to subject.

It is possible to pass an ACCA exam by having the right strategy towards preparation for attempting the exam, our guide will enable the students to practice efficiently and effectively for the upcoming exams of ACCA.

Tips for Attending ACCA Exams:

In this writeup we will provide you with tips on how to prepare and the most important areas which need to be covered to pass an ACCA exam. Follow the below 7 rules to clear all levels of papers in a single attempt:

• Read through the complete study guide and revision kits. Please note ACCA has only 2 approved publishers namely BPP and Kaplan and both materials are very good for the preparation, it is important for students to read through and study the complete study text and work out problems from the revision kit.
• Ensure that you make short notes on your own for self-study, in cases, if you were unable to make these short notes then the short notes offered by the publishers can be referred.
• Understanding of technical articles. Technical Articles are articles published on Acca global wherein recent trends on a particular topic of the subject are published and such knowledge is important for the students as they can be tested on this area in the upcoming exams. Please note that the technical articles are published subject-wise and provides detailed information on the content and the subject.
• Solving past exam papers. It is recommended that at least the last 5 papers should be solved by the student before targeting to attempt the paper. These papers are also available on Acca global, unfortunately, the multi-choice and multi-task questions are not available on these question papers and students will have to depend on other sources for solving and getting confidence on such questions.
• It is critical for students to solve the questions rather than just looking and studying them out. The aspect of solving questions will help them to get to know where they are wrong and shall avoid them from making such mistakes in the future. A lot of students have the habit of just glancing at the problems and not solving them, they face immense difficulty and challenges in the exam hall as they are not aware of how to attempt the Acca exam papers.
• Exam Success Formula is 2+2=92. What this means is that students need to study the study book 2 times and revise them 2 times before they write the exam. This kind of activity will make a thorough readiness of the student for the exam and shall enable the student to earn marks easily up to a score of 92.
• Lastly it is important for students to write a minimum of 2 full mock exams before writing the final exam this will enable the student to know the areas to focus on in the exam hall.

To know about complete ACCA syllabus and how ACCA exam Works: Study ACCA Exam Pattern

The biggest question now is that you as a student know that you need to do all the above 7 things which are mentioned, but how do you achieve this.

During your preparation for ACCA exams, you need to prioritize the below aspects too to achieve success, and the success mantra is as follows:-

• Regular study – Students must study on daily basis at a minimum of 2 hours a day. It sounds very easy to study only for 2 hours a day, but in practice, it is one of the toughest things to do.
• Sound Sleep of 8 hours – Students must have a sound sleep of 8 hours in a day, this will enable the student to have the high concentration power and enable the student to understand the subject.
• Maintenance of Health – Students must maintain their health in order, which is very critical for them to be able to write exams. If you have studied everything and well prepared and if health is not in order, then the whole preparation will go in vain. To maintain health there are 2 important factors one is to drink clean and hygienic water and the second is to have proper meal cycles.
• Plan of Study – One of the most important aspects of the life of an ACCA student is to have a plan of action for study. If the student does not have a plan of action to study, then the student will not know whether the student is on the right track to finishing the portions at the right time. Here it is important for students to plan, based on the date of the exam and reverse calculate the number of days available, and plan to achieve success using the formula of 2+2=92.
• Avoid group study – It is important to avoid group study to the extent possible as while writing exams the student must write exams on their own, they are not writing as part of a group. In group studies always there are only certain members of the group who benefit. You can have doubt clearing sessions in the group or discussion sessions in the group, but never do group studies for an ACCA exam.

From the above it can be seen that writing an ACCA exam is a mere work of having the right and methodical approach towards examination which shall enable the student to get the required success in their exams. Always remembers to get success in ACCA it requires 75% hard work and 25% smart work.

In the end we would say that “Trust yourself, your know more than you think you do”, wishing you all success in your exams.

About the Author: The writer of this blog is CA Jai Goel he can be reached on jai@cfonext.co.in and he has successfully cleared ACCA by attempting 4 papers at a time in 2 exams sitting all on self-study by applying the above success formulas in ACCA. Contact us for more clarifications regarding exam preparation.

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