Hello and welcome to this short presentation on the new format
of the ACCA F2 exam which is going to be effective
from 2014, my name is Andrew Mower and I am a tutor at Kaplan Financial
in London. So today we are going to look at
what the changes are going to mean for the exam structure
so how we are going to change the exam structure, we're going to look at
the new type of question which are known as multitask questions
and then we're going to look at how to tackle these MTQ's, as they are known
so how to answer these multiple task questions and what to look out for
in the questions. So first of all
your ACCA F2 exam is still going to be two hours long,
it's still going to be one hundred marks, it's still going to be a fifty percent pass rate
but now it's going to be made up of two sections, section A
which are going to be your objective test questions, of which you'll have thirty five
still two marks each so that makes up seventy marks of your paper
but now we've got section B which is going to be these multitask questions
you're going to have three multitask questions, ten marks each
so that makes up the remaining thirty percent of your paper. So what are these
multitask questions?
These questions are going to be a different style
from what you've seen before and we're going to know which areas
these are going to come from, so you'll have one multitask question
from syllabus area C, which is budgeting, you'll have one
from syllabus area D, which is standard costing and you'll have one
from syllabus area E, which is performance measurement
so you'll know which subjects you're going to have in each of these three MTQ's
and the rest of the paper will be changed accordingly
so that the overall balance of the paper is not effected. So these multitask questions
can contain
multiple choice, multiple response
multiple response matching, number entry and these four
you've seen before in the previous format, so the old-style
of your ACCA F2 exam, but now we've also got this idea
of gap fill and hot spots, so we'll look at
each of those questions and some examples of each, but these gap fill and hot spots
are the new style of questions that you'll see from 2014.
So let's now look at some
examples of some MTQ's and how to go about answering them,
there are a number of things that you need to watch out for when answering these questions
because remember ACCA F2 is marked by
a computer so we need to make sure that we get things like the format right
and we're answering our questions to the right number of decimal places,
that we're rounding properly things like that so that the computer
isn't going to mark it as incorrect, even though you know your stuff. So first
things to look for
when we look at our question, are that we've got these new collapsible sections
so we can now collapse various areas of our
screen, so it makes it easier to read different bits.
Each question is going to be made up often of multiple tasks as well
so there can be several tasks within each
MTQ, so we need to look out for all those different tasks.
In this example we've got
a question which is asking us to give one number to one decimal place
and another number to the nearest whole number
so really watch out for that in the question, that you're getting the right number
of decimal places
and that you're not too lazy with your rounding at the end and make sure you get
the most marks.
Units will also be given at the end of each box
or at the start for example if it's dollars but then look out for whether it's units or
whether it's percent
and make sure that you are answering those questions accordingly.
On this example
I've collapsed task one just to show you how it can be useful
so now we can still see the scenario, and you quite often get these scenarios
at the start of of a
multiple task question and therefore we can still see task two
and the scenario, we've completed task one so therefore you can collapse that
and it makes it easier to look at your screen. Watch out for periods changing from
each task, so in task one it may say
calculate for period three but then the next task it may say calculate for period four
so just be careful that you're not just assuming we're always in the same period
and also please be careful about these thousands of units that they sometimes
put,
so if the answer in this question was say fourteen thousand units
and you typed in 14 000
then you won't get the marks because they've already put the three zeros
at the end of the box for you, so your answer just needs to be 14
14 and that will be it because they've got the zeros at the end
so do not put in those extra zeros if they've already given them to you.
Also you mustn't put in any commas in the middle of your answer
so just be careful of that as well.
Something else that's changed with these MTQ's, is that whereas before
if you got a part wrong of these multiple choice questions
or these multi task questions then you wouldn't get any marks
in the MTQ section, so section B of your paper
you'll get credit for each individual line you get right
so in this section for example we've got eight questions
asking us yes or no for each question.
Now you will get 0.25 marks for each of these
in this example because there are eight questions and they total two marks
so if you get one wrong it doesn't matter you'll still get the credit for those
other ones you got right and similarly
with task three here, if you get one of those two that it's asked for
right you'll get one mark
obviously if you get both right you'll get both marks and if you get none right you'll get
zero marks. So whereas before if you got one wrong you wouldn't get any marks
now you'll still get one mark.
The task can also be independent of the scenario
so just look out for those so this task three for example you don't
actually need
the scenario to be able to answer it, so they can be little stand-alone tasks
so please keep an eye out for that as well.
On to the next example at the top of this page
there's the completion status bar and this will be at the top of
every question you do and throughout the exam
so this shows you what percentage through the exam you are
and it also has this little drop down bar which then accesses
a little screen that pops up
and in each of those it tells you which questions you've answered,
which are yet to be answered and any questions you've flagged
so you can now flag questions as well for later review
and I'll show you how to flag your question in the next slide.
This question here is an example of a gap fill question
so this gap fill question doesn't actually have any separate tasks
but what you do have to do is fill in the gaps throughout this question
so each drop down bar here may have between two and four different options
so we've seen absorption or marginal in that first box
and then it may be higher than or lower than and then various other options
throughout
and it's all about clicking the right option for those boxes so that's known
as your gap fill
which may not have seen before.
On this slide we've got the flag button at the bottom so again that will be there
throughout your exam so if you want to flag a question for later review
you can click on that flag question. Your references now
something else that's changed will be on your screen
so if you click your references button which is at the bottom left of your screen
that will bring up your tables and your formulae
so the plan for 2014 is to no longer give you hard copies
of those tables and formulae, so you need to make sure that you're happy
with using that on the screen rather than having the bits of paper in front of you.
Please also be aware that you will often see for adverse and favorable
for NPV's etc that
it will have a drop down bar for whether it's adverse or favorable
or whether it's positive or negative, so you will not get the marks
if you put a little negative symbol in front of your number
in these questions, so always just type in a nice number
as it is, without any symbols and then you can click either positive or negative
or adverse or favorable from the drop-down bar.
This is an example of a hotspot question, so a hotspot question maybe where you
need to click
on one or more areas of an image or a graph
so for F2 it's most likely probably to be some graphs
so it may be at which point on this graph is the internal rate of return
and then you click on the relevant area, or as we can see here which
of these will give the least favorable variants, so you then need to click on
the point which is highlighted on the screen, it may be that you get some more
marks
and it may say which is the greatest favorable variants, so then you can click
on two different areas
and therefore get some more marks, so just be careful of the question there
make sure you clicking on the relevant areas.
Okay so hopefully that's helped to understand this new format
and these MTQ's that are coming in as of 2014
we've looked at the new exam structure, we've looked at what multitask questions
are
and hopefully I've provided you with a little insight in how to then answer these
MTQ's.
Just remember that ACCA F2 is all about question practice
so make sure you're really happy with this new format and really practice those
questions
before your exam. All that's left for me to say is best of luck
with your exam.