Exam preparation

Here are some ideas to help you achieve your best in Accounting.

During your course of study

Your course file
With the help of your teacher, you should aim to build up a file of
questions and answers that you can easily access when you start to
revise. It is important that you have a wide range of questions and
answers covering all the key elements in the specification. The answers
might be your own work which includes indications of any errors and
maybe corrections, but they might also include model answers provided
by your teacher or taken from mark schemes.
Learning from your mistakes
When you check your work, as well as feeling pleased about all the
things you managed to get right, do make a point of focusing on
what went wrong. Use a model answer to work out the nature of
your mistake and spend some time getting to understand what the
correct answer should have been. You may, of course, need the help
of a teacher for this. It is a very good idea to ‘repair’ your answer. This
means pencilling in a correction (as long as you understand how this
was achieved). There is much evidence from international research that
this idea of focusing on mistakes and repairing answers, if carried out
systematically, can have a dramatic effect on performance, with students
achieving higher grades than would otherwise have been the case. By
the way, this idea of ‘repairing’ works really well for prose answers too.
Pencil in any points you did not include in your answer and strike out
any points that were not relevant.

Before the exam

Revision
This is where that course file will be of great value, particularly if it is
comprehensive and well organised. In Accounting the key to successful
revision is to actually answer (or re-answer) questions, not just to
look through answers prepared before. So try reworking questions on
topics you feel less confident about. Make sure that you have the model
answer or at least a corrected answer available, so that when you get
stuck you can check the right answer. Avoid using model answers until
you really have to, of course. Try doing some questions under strict time
conditions too, and answer the whole question, do not avoid the prose
response sections for example. As part of your revision check through
the course specification to make sure that you have covered everything.
Using past exam papers
Practising on past and specimen exam papers will make a lot of
difference to your confidence and, of course, your awareness of what
to expect. Use the mark schemes not only to check and ‘repair’ your
work, but also to help you gain an understanding of what might be
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 Exam preparation

expected. In the case of prose answers, for example, you will gain an
appreciation of the length of answer required. Many prose answers
are too brief and therefore score badly, or are too lengthy, which
means candidates have wasted valuable time.

Your exam answers

Here are some ideas that should help you improve the quality of your
answers.
Time allocation
uuTry to divide up the time available for answering the questions in
proportion to the marks available.
uuTry to avoid overrunning on any one question as it simply means
you will have to rush on another. Remember that you usually earn
marks more quickly at the beginning of an answer and rather more
slowly at the end.
Reading the question
uuCheck that you have read the actual question requirements carefully.
It is so easy to waste time by providing information that is not
required, or missing out some vital element that is expected. Here
are some examples. Provide an account if the question asks for it. It is
surprising to learn that some candidates think that a calculation will
suffice when an account is required. In the case of prose question, do
not give a one-word answer if the question asks for an explanation. An
explanation requires at least a sentence or two, i.e. some development,
so that you demonstrate a good understanding of the subject matter
of the question.
uuGo through the question data over and over again. For example,
as you know, some questions in Accounting contain a lot of
information and it would be all too easy, for example, to overlook an
item in a financial statement or an adjustment required by details in
one of the notes following a trial balance.
Workings
Workings are a crucial element in so many answers, so it is vital that
you do not leave the examiner to guess how you obtained a particular
figure. Take the trouble to make your workings easy to follow. It is
good practice to avoid providing a string of figures – a more carefully
labelled list of figures is much more helpful. Students who have got
used to providing detailed workings throughout the course are far less
likely to forget about this when it comes to the stresses of the actual
exam. In many cases, several marks can be allocated to workings, and
they can be lost if the workings are omitted and the answer to the
calculation is incorrect.
Focus on matters of detail
The following points are considered good practice in Accounting exams.

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 Exam preparation

Preparing and balancing an account

Always bring down any balance on an account. The balance brought
down should be dated for the beginning of the next period. Many
students are not well skilled in the technique of balancing accounts.
Presentation and headings
As you know, there are strict rules about the presentation of financial
statements which you must follow. These rules have been developed to
ensure that users are given clear and precise information.
uuIf available, give the name of the business first.
uuAvoid using abbreviations in headings. Many students spoil
otherwise good answers by using y/e for year ending or reduce the
date to a few letters such as Dec for December, for example. Do not
use GP, CoS, etc. for labels within an income statement; always write
labels in full.
Under exam pressure it is quite likely that you will be rushed at times
and that you will want to make changes to your answers. Try to ensure
that all of your work is legible, however rushed you are. When you
need to change an answer, make sure that your final answer is legible.
A common problem is that some students write a new figure over an
existing figure, and it becomes very difficult or almost impossible to
determine exactly what was intended.
Ratios
When calculating ratios make sure that your answer is given showing
the number of decimal places required. If you need to round a decimal,
in most cases it will be appropriate to apply the rule: 5 and above is
rounded up; below 5 is rounded down. If you are required to calculate
a ratio to two decimal places but the answer is actually a whole number,
then, for example, show an answer of 25 per cent as 25.00 per cent.
You are often required to make a judgment about a business’s
performance when using ratios. It is a common mistake to describe
what has happened rather than to assess how well a business is
doing. For example, an answer such as ‘the ratio has increased’ does
not convey whether this is a good or bad thing for the business. It is
important to say ‘the ratio has improved’ or ‘the ratio has weakened’.
Prose answers
Aim to be as precise in writing your prose answers as you are with
numerical work. It is good practice to include the name of the business
you are writing about and to show a good level of understanding by
using appropriate accounting terminology. It is easy to spoil an answer
by being vague: profit (when you mean gross profit); assets (when you
mean current assets); profit will be affected (when you mean profit will
be increased).

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 Exam preparation

Sometimes you will be asked to explain a difference between two

accounting terms. It is important to refer to both elements in your
answer. For example, you might be asked to explain the difference
between a provision and a contingent liability. A weak answer would
state ‘a provision is probable but a contingent liability is not’; a better
answer would state ‘a provision is probable (more than 50 per cent
likely) but a contingent liability is possible (less than 50 per cent likely)’.

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