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CIMA November 2008 exam feedback

Chris Cain and Kieran Maguire, members of the PQ Exam Review Board take a look at the latest sitting.

Chris Cain
FBT
P1 was a fair paper overall, if maybe a little time-pressured. Students should have been expecting to see many of the topics examined, including divisional performance and transfer pricing at section C. The backflush question may have been a surprise to the less-prepared student. P2 was very predictable. Anyone revising the last four papers would have recognised what was wanted.
The fairly extension scenario in P3 may have given students issues with time management, but the requirements in the compulsory question should not have caused any problems for diligent students.
P4 held no real surprises for the well-prepared candidate. Students should have scored well on the multiple choice. Question 2 combined ethics, the marketing mix and Greiner's growth model, which are regular topics for this paper.
Students sitting P5 will have found section A challenging. The paper also included a stakeholder question which I am sure many students will have attempted; they needed to make sure they answered the question asked, not the question they wanted asked.
P6 was a very fair exam that should not have provided any difficulty for the well-prepared candidate. Question 2 looked at customer relationship marketing, with just under half the marks available for applying the six markets model. Students may not have been familiar with this model, although it is in the CIMA study system. However, this was an optional question and students had plenty of choice with the remaining three questions.
Section A in P7 had a couple of challenging questions but generally covered a range of learning outcomes as expected. Section B and C were straightforward with questions that a well-prepared student wouldn't having any difficulty in completing.
P8 was a well-balanced paper based on learning outcomes. A foreign consolidation was expected but a lot of candidates would have been put out off by the SOCIE even though there were easy marks available.
The P9 exam for November 2008 contained all of the main topics that one would expect on this paper; investment appraisal, overseas aspects, objectives of entities, working capital and business valuations. Although this was one of the least technically demanding papers for several sittings, most candidates would have found the exam quite time pressured, especially section A.
TOPCIMA this time around presented an interesting 'twist' with students having to prepare a report to the newly appointed Northern Divisional General Manager rather than the board of directors or the Ministry of Energy. Most training providers were suggesting that the November exam would not include "how cultural change may be brought about" given that the twist in September was "cultural change". Overall, it was a fair exam and, as always, tested students' time management ability.

Kieran Maguire
MMU Business School
The section A exams for P7 were the usual mix of the predictable and the bizarre. It was disappointing to have negative questions in this part of the exam, as such an approach does cause extra problems for dyslexic students and those for whom English is not the first language. Therefore to see question 1.1 asking 'Which of the following is not specifically listed..." and 1.3 "Which one of the following would not have the effect..." was unfortunate. Some other questions were a little subjective in terms of the possible answers, which is an issue for a multiple choice question. There were 13 marks related directly or indirectly to tax out of the 40 marks in question 1, but these were scattered randomly over the question. To make the paper more student friendly it might help if the tax 'mini questions' were concentrated next to each other. Overall, this question had a couple of peripheral issues (OECD Model tax convention and capital concepts) that are not related to the workplace of CIMA students, but overall it was reasonable.
Question 2 (which is actually five fairly independent questions) required candidates to talk about the development of IFRS (worthy, dull but straight regurgitation for a well-prepared student), economic order quantities (a 'Marmite' topic, you either love or hate), cash flow forecast (straightforward), deferred tax (fairly benign, although the revaluation may have caused some problems) and cash flows (bizarrely split into two small questions). Candidates, provided they had revised, should have dealt well with this question.
Question 3 required the preparation of an income statement, balance sheet and statement of changes in equity from a trial balance, along with a PPE note. This should be meat and drink (apologies to any vegetarian readers) for all candidates. Anyone who did not perform well at this question should seriously consider a different job, as it involved financial reporting fundamentals and has been tested on many previous occasions. There were a few challenging elements, such as a business closure and finance lease, to deal with, but even so there were sufficient easier elements to obtain a good mark.
Overall, a fair paper. The format of the exam still seems very strange, but the content is at an appropriate level.

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