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ACCAs beware: is exam technique letting you down?

19 October 2011

Is your exam technique 'shockingly poor'?

Too many ACCA students are losing vital marks because of poor exam technique, say the examiners.
In fact in some cases it is deemed as ‘shockingly poor’. P3 exaimner Steve Skidmore revealed one of his markers said that the poor performance in June had been ‘compounded by some shockingly poor exam technique’. There is also evidence of students running out of steam, after spending too long on the first question.
F7 examiner, Stephen Scott, said if students had better exam technique then more marginal fails could be lifted into the pass category. He stressed: “Many candidates are failing because of technique rather than knowledge or ability.” Scott said he found it difficult to believe that a candidate who achieves scores of around 18 to 320 out of 25 in both Q1 and Q2 does not have the ability to pass the paper. “This happens all too frequently,” he suggested.
The F6 examiner, David Harrowven agrees: Candidates wasted quite a bit of time where something should have been obvious without having to produce detailed calculations, and also where more calculations were done then was necessary because the requirements were not read properly.”
Pami Bahl, the F8 examiner said: “”Where questions were left unanswered by candidates, this appeared to be due to a lack of knowledge or poor exam technique.”

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