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AAT December 2008 Exam Review

Fiona Williams, Sutton Coldfield College, provides a paper-by-paper account of the December sitting.

As a general comment for this diet, I have to ask, who decides with an exam what is plain English? Students are not really sure what was being asked for in some of the questions. Changing layouts is a common gripe for this sitting. Some papers also seem to be starting to become time-constrained, rather than the more traditional (for AAT anyway) time limited.

Overall PEV was not a bad paper, although the length of the paper, including the amount of writing, seems to have put time pressure on many sitters. Section one seems to have had an additional task and was there a typo? If the regression formula is to work then the typo is in the period numbers. Nov should have been period 30, Dec period 31� The £12.00 does link back to the start of question one and the standard cost of £12.00. However, when you calculate the regression using the details in the task, Nov calculated to £11.90. This could have caused some concerns with students.
Task 1.1 d) asks the students to comment on some additional information. Firstly most students would be expecting a subdivision of variances question and probably tried to do that here. Secondly, moving labour from variable to a fixed cost may be just a step a little too far. We have been told that the analysis of variances will be examined in more depth, and this is welcomed, however there would have been enough for students to comment on with the better quality of material causing a favourable efficiency variance due to saved Q&A time, or the reduction of wasted units needing to be produced, or simply with it being a more stable material to work with.
If students answered one task at a time, and read the information for that one task before moving on, then this would have been a reasonably easy paper. However, if they were a good student and read the whole paper first then many parts could become confusing, for example the move from a variable to a fixed cost. Which leads me to ask, why give reading time if the paper is now written in a read / answer, read / answer � type of paper?

Likewise, BTC appears OK, with not too many comments being received. Mainly it appears that student (potential) mistakes are from not completely reading the question, with figures like 0.017 being dealt with as 0.17; how many air-conditioning units; and exactly when did Harrison start trading and for how long a period are we dealing with. Come one guys, this is Technician – read the question!

On the ECR paper one question on \'Relevant and Irrelevant costing\' methods came up which does not appear to be within the standards. This definitely had a knock on effect on the timely completion of the remainder of the paper. No process-costing question again – which is one of the areas that the examiner has always stated he is moving further into, yet the evidence is that he has moved further away from it! (Where is K&U 26 assessed?)
EOQ was brought into the exam, isn't this supposed to have sole domain within the skills tests? Last thing here, I would really like to see the whole discount table printed rather than just giving a set percentage. This way students are not only tested on the techniques, but also where they get the numbers from and it would have helped students with the IRR question.

Over time, I have really noticed a decline on the written side of the PLB paper. This exam only had two short answer questions – nothing on banking, although I admit, knowing payee and drawee are probably far too outdated today. I do feel that we should see a few more of the legal questions within this paper (or is that me being too old fashioned?) Nothing to really loose any sleep over on this paper, it was fairly standard, for example the bank reconciliation requiring balancing of the opening balance before progressing onto this month's reconciliation.

Thumbs up again for DFS. The (nearly) new examiner is being consistent with his papers and testing the students on what is required (i.e. the standards) rather than exam technique. Doesn't appear to be any catches (and so there shouldn't be!) or any discrepancies in what was required of a question.

FRA appears to be a good, standard paper. A few students stated they couldn't get the trial balance to balance, but still did OK since they added a suspense account, thus proving they had a knowledge of how this should be dealt with. Accruals and prepayments didn't really cause any problems (hint! A is for add; P is for 'go away!'). Closing stock calculations may have caused a few headaches, but overall, as long as students had gone through past papers they should have been well prepared for this one.

Overall the level for the PCR paper appeared to be about correct, but where the majority of pre budget calculations are normally all completed in task 1.1, there were numerous additional complex calculations in task 1.2. For a 3 hour paper there was a lot of work to do. This was a new format and threw a lot of very competent students who were expecting a more traditional format. This meant they wasted a lot of time with self doubt. Where such large deviations from standard layouts are going to be introduced by examiners a key note article on the website and in Accounting Technician would seem to be appropriate.

The common theme over both tax papers was that these were OK! Wear and tear being the most discussed item after the exam (so it seems). In some ways you have to feel for an examiner who is never really sure how her paper will be moving over time, with the BIG external influence of the government! At least most of the other examiners can build up over time, but with Tax you have to adapt to the legal changes so often. This also has an influence on how students can prepare for these papers, with the old saying of paper after paper not being really useful. It is true to say this was really the last paper before the new tax changes regarding the simplification of CGT. So in some ways the old paper might seem easy!! So now everything on the standards really is assessable - nothing can be left out for June 09 revision.

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