Exam Report Fab
Examiner’s report
F1/FAB Accountant in Business December 2011
General Comments The December 2011 examination was the first to be examined under the new syllabus and included questions on topics such as money laundering, micro-economics and business ethics that were previously not examinable. Understandably, there was a much wider divergence in performance across the 50 questions that in previous examination sessions. However, this was not entirely due to new material appearing in the syllabus and the examination. Candidates generally dealt with questions on ethics very well, except for a scenario question on conflict of interest, which had a pass rate of 34%. By contrast, a scenario asking candidates what actions an individual should take when she discovers that her manager is acting inappropriately had a pass rate of 78%. There was one question on micro-economics and one question on money laundering, and most candidates struggled with these. Of the topics that carry over from F1, there was a very mixed performance. Most candidates answered questions on Tuckman’s theory, organisational structure, training and performance appraisal successfully. Surprisingly, a relatively straightforward question on budgetary control caused difficulties (see below), as did questions on Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne experiments, communications, Mendelow’s stakeholder grid, organisational culture and leadership, However, it cannot be concluded that candidates find theories more difficult across the board, as there were strong performances on other theoretical questions. Candidates performed slightly better on scenario-based questions than shorter questions. However, there is evidence that spending longer on the former may affect the ability of candidates to complete all 50 questions, as a significant number of candidates did not answer all of the questions on the paper. SAMPLE QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION Question 22 required knowledge of the budgetary control process: VTP Company has
F1/FAB Accountant in Business December 2011
General Comments The December 2011 examination was the first to be examined under the new syllabus and included questions on topics such as money laundering, micro-economics and business ethics that were previously not examinable. Understandably, there was a much wider divergence in performance across the 50 questions that in previous examination sessions. However, this was not entirely due to new material appearing in the syllabus and the examination. Candidates generally dealt with questions on ethics very well, except for a scenario question on conflict of interest, which had a pass rate of 34%. By contrast, a scenario asking candidates what actions an individual should take when she discovers that her manager is acting inappropriately had a pass rate of 78%. There was one question on micro-economics and one question on money laundering, and most candidates struggled with these. Of the topics that carry over from F1, there was a very mixed performance. Most candidates answered questions on Tuckman’s theory, organisational structure, training and performance appraisal successfully. Surprisingly, a relatively straightforward question on budgetary control caused difficulties (see below), as did questions on Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne experiments, communications, Mendelow’s stakeholder grid, organisational culture and leadership, However, it cannot be concluded that candidates find theories more difficult across the board, as there were strong performances on other theoretical questions. Candidates performed slightly better on scenario-based questions than shorter questions. However, there is evidence that spending longer on the former may affect the ability of candidates to complete all 50 questions, as a significant number of candidates did not answer all of the questions on the paper. SAMPLE QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION Question 22 required knowledge of the budgetary control process: VTP Company has