Hi guys,

I read few topics about people taking 2 or 3 papers at the same time. Could you please advice me how to manage time doing more than one paper at the time? I intend to do F4 and F5 from September but I am not sure will I manage. First of all because I have active toddler at home and second reason: it seems that when I study one thing I can't study another because I think that I might confuse them or forget some things I read about one or another. I am not sure is my explanation clear :? :oops:

Anyway, could somebody share their experience with me please?

Its very easy to do F4 and F5 at same time. Last year i did F4,5 and 6 and it was fine.
But it depends on your capabilities.

however mahjabeen did you do those papers with a small child at home?

laurra, you won't mix papers up as the papers are so different. I have done 2 papers at a time, with an 11 year old and a 5 year old but when I first started my son was 2 so I know what you are feeling like. I just had to study when he slept and use other people (husbands and mums) to help me when I needed more time.

Good luck but I'm sure you'll be fine. If it does get too difficult then there's no reason you can't take one paper at a time.

No Bluewednesday, I have no kids at home. I am only 19 :D.

But I can understand its really difficult to study with a kid and you have 2 so its really difficult to manage time.

Doing more then one paper a day is no big job! You can easily manage to give 2 and if you have time nad dedication then 3.

bluewednesday will offer you 24/7 tutor assistance via email and I'll administer it , so you got a free distance learning pack :lol:

Hi,

Yes I will try two papers now and if I don't manage I will take one by one. The problem is that I work full time and my partner works evenings. So after all day at work I come back home, let nanny go home and spend all evenings with my 18 months old. Here is nobody to ask for help :?

But as they say "you won't know if you don't try" :)

How did you allocate time for papers? Did you do 1 day one paper next day other paper? Which paper are you doing now or you finished studying already? Was F4 and F5 difficult?

I just sat P2 and P3 but because i did a revision course for P2, I did P2 Sun, Mon and Tues and P3 the rest of the week. I work part time so had some time in the afternoon but obviously had to fit the childrens activities and homework in as well. However I did find myself studying in the evening but that was hard work as I would wake in the night with formulae going through my head!

I did my fundamentals under the old syllabus so F5 was covered under 2.4 and I think F4 is law, I found that one difficult but managed to score okay on it. Do you have to do that combination? I did law and tax together and that worked well as it was a wordy paper and a calculation paper together which made life easier, I don't know how much calculations are in F5.

Are you doing courses or homestudy? And do you work in a relevant position? That could all help.

Pass rate of F5(which was the lowest(34%) in F1 to F9 series in Dec-07) indicates that students face difficulty in passing this paper. If you have done CAT(Complete) then you might not face difficulties in passing this paper because CAT- Paper T-7(Planning Control & Performance Management) contains almost 40% of the F5 curriculum. However, there is some knowledge GAP between F2(of ACCA) and CAT T-7. I would recommand you to do atleast additional topics of T7 like pricing, Total Quality Management, Performance Measurement and its applications & Budgeting(Which are not present in F2 curriculum) then start F5. If you follow this track then i assure you that you will easily manage to pass F5 otherwise on the sole knowledge of F2(previously 1.2) it is difficult to pass F5. One more important thing is that statistics of one of the famous tuition provider of pakistan states that their CAT-Finalists manage F5 easily and they all pass their F5 exam(i.e. 100%) on the other hand their 1.2/F2 passed students find it difficult to pass F5 and mojority of them failed this paper.

F4 is a Company Law. Majority of Accountancy Students find law papers difficult because they are very different from typical accountancy subjects, indeed this is the first theoretical paper(paper based exam) for fresh ACCA student and this bring some extra burden on students however, passing this paper is as easier as passing F2 and F3, the reason is lenient passing criteria for law papers almost by all accountancy bodies because Accountancy bodies are just concerned with your ability to understand the provision of laws(not their applications) and they expect from you to just identify the correct consequences of particulr actions for example what would happen in the case of insider trading/dealing or what are the actions that could disqualify a director from his office. I meant to say that it is difficult to study F4 but it is much easier to pass this paper, just you need to know the basic things of this paper(i.e. Agency, Partnership, Tort, Contract, some important provisions of Companies Act and Employment law). One most important thing for F4 preparation is that do not exercise rote learning approach over this paper if you try to do this(i.e. rote learning) then you will waste you precious time in learning unimportant things instead you could use your this time in F5(which is really a demanding paper). For an average student 2 hours study per day is more than enough to pass 3 papers per attempt and if you are more than an average student then 1 hour per day for 3 papers is enough, last but not the least do not think too much about passing, if you have made your efforts then you will easily pass.

Go ahead start it as a challenge!

Regards,

Muhammad Amir.

Thanks Muhammad Amir, that's informative. It is true about pass rates, it seems people are struggling with F5 and that is why I am scared a bit.

Just follow the approach that i have told you(i.e. T-7 Study) then see how easier your life becomes in passing F5.

Regards,

Muhammad Amir.

Well, I need to do this combination as I passed 3 first papers so next are F4 and F5 because as I understand you need to take exam in order, no? I will be doing courses, 1 evening a week for each paper and yes, I work in finance so it is relevant. I just need to talk to my boss for him to give me jobs which are related to papers I am doing.

BTW, I have one more Q about TDM. How does it work? Should I do all those 9 essential and 4 optional questions in one year or all those questions are to be done throughout out my ACCA studies?

But I am not doing CAT and as I understand this T-7 is from CAT?!

If you have not done CAT then before picking up the F5 study text you need to read following topics from T-7 Book.

1)Budgeting

2)Pricing

3)Total Quality Management

4)Performance Management and Its Applications.

These are the topics that are not form part of the F-2(1.2) curriculum. If you manage to study these topics from T-7 book then it will be lot easier for you to grasp the advanced knowledge of F-5.

Regards,

Muhammad Amir.

wise words...