Exam Week - December 2014

This week I sat my two re-sits, two exams that I had failed in June.

The same complaints as before, the size of the desk which I measured this time, it was approx 45 cm x 60 cm, which when you consider that you have 2 A4 booklets (an A4 page is 21cm x 30 cm), plus pens, pencils and at least one calculator, there really isn't much room.

There were still the disturbances from people going to and from the toilet, luckily I wasn't sat right by the door for either of the exams this time.

For the first exam, the candidate sitting immediately to my left spent the entire 3 hours either talking to himself, chewing his gum really loudly or coughing.  I think the candidate to the right of me seemed to drop everything he had on his desk onto the floor at least once.

The second exam was a lot quieter, coincidentally, the average age of the candidates was a lot higher, there was a much higher proportion of people in my age group, usually they are all much younger.  The room was also a lot colder for this exam despite being more people in the room.

However, whereas for the first exam we were all sitting the same paper and therefore all finished at the same time, the second sitting was three different exams, one of which was just 2 hours.  Obviously the candidates sitting the 2 hour exam were allowed to leave once their time was up.

So why is that not considered a disturbance, yet someone leaving a 3 hour exam before the 3 hours is up is considered a disturbance?

The exams themselves were the first of the new format, part multichoice and part traditional questions.  And I am not sure whether I liked it.  I am looking forward to the exam review in PQ magazine to see what tutors and experts thought.

From the mutterings around me as people exited the exam hall, no-one seemed particularly happy.

Changes to exam format.

Before you all keel over in shock, yes this is an actual post about my ACCA studies.

This sitting (December 2014) sees the first sitting of the new format exams, and I think the examiners are making it harder for people to pass, I am not sure if this deliberate or just a side effect.

I am sitting two exams this time - Financial Reporting and Financial Management - and both now have 40% of the marks coming from multiple choice questions, 20 in all.

Initially we thought this would make things easier, but it is not so.

Previously, because the markers viewed your workings, you could receive 'method marks', if you used the right method but the wrong figure, you would lose, or, more accurately, not be given a mark for the wrong figure, but if you carried that wrong figure through you would still get marks for using the correct method.

With the new multi choice questions, although you still have to do all the working for each question, these will not be seen by the markers so your answer will either be right or wrong, 2 marks or zero marks.

The remaining 60 marks, the exams are marked out of 100, will be from traditionally marked questions.

50 marks are needed to pass each module.

This could be interesting.