FAE 2011 Where to begin

ahtfulal

starfair wrote: »

A document with changes in tax was posted to the student website haven't looked at it or the tax book yet!

Can you post the link to that tax document

starfair

ahtfulal wrote: »

Can you post the link to that tax document

Hi ahtfulal,

The document attached lists the changes to FAE from 2010 for the core and elective hope it helps

ahtfulal

Had a look through last year's paper (first time since I sat it) and my conclusions are as follows:

Core Paper: Looking back on it wasn't that bad, think you really have to spend time laying out your answer at the start and read the case a few times to fully understand it. The indicators were all fairly obvious apart from 2c "Discussion on potential financing facilities requirements" which you had to find for yourself.

Sim 1: The 5 indicators were all obvious, think in the exam I just lost the head and mixed everything up (really made a balls of that case as it wasn't that hard)

Sim 2: Probably lumped the first 2 indicators together in the exam and made a mess of my valuation calculations. I think once tax is mentioned in any of them sims you can be sure it's an indicator.

Sim 3: Even reading through the solution it has to be said this was a tough case, they really pulled that fourth indicator out of the bag and also the first indicator was very vague in terms of what they were looking for.

Overall, if I had to sit those papers again, I'd be a lot more confident about what's required! Had a bad first day and probably just lost interest in the sims on day 2.

Some point to note:
1) Make sure to read the case until you fully understand what is going on.
2) Plan your answer, layout etc. before starting to write.
3) Relate your answer to the case especially with financial reporting (reading the FAE Board Report they weren't too happy with checklists and tailored answers).
4) Bring in about current financial crisis wherever possible.
5) Make assumptions, recommendations and conclusions (don't sit on the fence).

Hopefully I'll make a better stab at it this time anyway! If anyone has any other ideas or noticed anything else please put up!

Stabshauptmann

I was hoping to make a start on Finance today.
Theres no Finance book - just case studies. And no lecture slide on the student website. How are people studying the subject?

SL10

Stabshauptmann wrote: »

I was hoping to make a start on Finance today.
Theres no Finance book - just case studies. And no lecture slide on the student website. How are people studying the subject?

Im planning on going through SFMA notes from CAP2 and the case study book. There is also a finance book that we got for CAP2 that I will use if needs be. I was going through the CAP1 and CAP2 finance toolkits to get a bit of revision in. Other than that I dont really know

SL10

Oh and I was just on the website there and the Tax challenging solutions have gone up there for anyone who was looking for them. Under Core course materials

Perkina3

Ah yes I just had a mooch through all the notes there an I am now suitably worried....

There is so much crap to sift through here..... The mocks next week are going to be laughable!

But quick question for ppl. Are there sample exam papers? I looked online and I only found individual cases....Like there are a fair amount of cases but there could be a few more like no?

Maybe I just haven't seen them all...

Bec_Boop

Perkina3 wrote: »

But quick question for ppl. Are there sample exam papers? I looked online and I only found individual cases....Like there are a fair amount of cases but there could be a few more like no?

Maybe I just haven't seen them all...

The sample papers are on the CAI website if u go into student services and then "New Syllabus" there's 2 core sample papers and 1 for each elective.

Perkina3

Cheers Bec Boop. Right well I started off today properly again and gave up on the case study straight away cause didn't have all the material I needed so will start again there tomorrow but also from what I can I don't think there are answers for every case study no? Like Swetter limited was the one I was looking at and I think I picked up all the indicators (seem pretty alright if I had the books to work through the information on them)

Anyone know when they will just put a block upload will all the answers to the case studies as there are still a few missing I think?

LightningBolt

Coming from a masters background there's a huge amount of work to do in eight weeks or so.

From reading the examiner scripts/watching the cross marking sessions the main things I picked up on is to make each answer unique. A lot of the examiner comments seem to focus in on the fact that students just listed off checklists or copied sample paper answers without actually taking the time to tailor the answer to allow for the question specifics.

Paul Monaghan highlighted fundamental errors quite a bit in his cross marking sessions, because it's now the second year of this exam I'd be wary of any accounting treatments used in the case studies.

My study so far has been to just go through Sean Murrays audit notes/lectures and mark through the Standards and Technical handbook. I'm going to start using the elective book and the four core sessions to hone in a bit on the various aspects of audit.

Need to start FR from scratch as I don't know a single thing. This is really daunting to be honest. I'm not sure if I should go through the FR toolkits only or actually read through all the IASs.

For management accounting I haven't a clue, I know it's part of Performance Measurement along with FR but I've generally been pretty bad at this area.

Finance I think I'll be okay for, I'd be comfortable enough with valuation techniques and risk management techniques along with financial analysis/due diligence.

Tax seems to be straightforward enough from what others have said. There's 14 business reliefs that apply to different stages of a company's life cycle so plan on knowing these inside out along with a few other basics to cover myself.

Business Leadership I'm not too worried as I thankfully covered a lot of the material in college in a bit of depth. I'll need to do HR and Ethics/Corp.Gov but the rest of it seems fairly manageable and looks to not require too much study time. (This area caught people out last year so if I wasn't so confident I'd devote more study time)

IMP again seems to be pretty straightforward. There's only so many things they can ask you so once these are all covered off you should be well prepared.

Question regarding the elective: They say you need to reach sufficiency. Does this mean that you just need to cover the breadth requirements by attaining Reaching Competence at a minimum or do you have to attain competence in every elective indicator?

ahtfulal

Perkina3 wrote: »

Cheers Bec Boop. Right well I started off today properly again and gave up on the case study straight away cause didn't have all the material I needed so will start again there tomorrow but also from what I can I don't think there are answers for every case study no? Like Swetter limited was the one I was looking at and I think I picked up all the indicators (seem pretty alright if I had the books to work through the information on them)

Anyone know when they will just put a block upload will all the answers to the case studies as there are still a few missing I think?

Attached Swetter Solution

SL10

Perkina3 wrote: »

Anyone know when they will just put a block upload will all the answers to the case studies as there are still a few missing I think?

I think they have posted up all the solutions to the SFMA case study book now. there is a zip file on the website which i downloaded yesterday. I havent checked to make sure everything is there though.

LightningBolt wrote: »

From reading the examiner scripts/watching the cross marking sessions the main things I picked up on is to make each answer unique. A lot of the examiner comments seem to focus in on the fact that students just listed off checklists or copied sample paper answers without actually taking the time to tailor the answer to allow for the question specifics.


Need to start FR from scratch as I don't know a single thing. This is really daunting to be honest. I'm not sure if I should go through the FR toolkits only or actually read through all the IASs.

For management accounting I haven't a clue, I know it's part of Performance Measurement along with FR but I've generally been pretty bad at this area.

Did you watch the cross marking sessions online or did you go to them? I missed them and want to watch them online but I can't see them in the streaming section.

For FR I would recommend going through the toolkit and as you come across IAS's to go and read them and make sure you understand everything. i think doing questions is the best way to tackle them.

For mgt accounting if you could get your hands on the CAP1 toolkit it is very good for getting a good grounding in mgt accounting. Explains everything in a very straightforward way and is easy to get through quickly. The CAP2 SFMA toolkit is also very good but doesnt have as much mgt accounting in it.

LightningBolt

SL10 wrote: »

I think they have posted up all the solutions to the SFMA case study book now. there is a zip file on the website which i downloaded yesterday. I havent checked to make sure everything is there though.



Did you watch the cross marking sessions online or did you go to them? I missed them and want to watch them online but I can't see them in the streaming section.

For FR I would recommend going through the toolkit and as you come across IAS's to go and read them and make sure you understand everything. i think doing questions is the best way to tackle them.

For mgt accounting if you could get your hands on the CAP1 toolkit it is very good for getting a good grounding in mgt accounting. Explains everything in a very straightforward way and is easy to get through quickly. The CAP2 SFMA toolkit is also very good but doesnt have as much mgt accounting in it.

Thanks.

Sorry, I actually attended the cross marking session. It was one of the few that I did. I watched the Auditing sessions a bit online.

You should be able to watch the cross marking session online though, if it's not showing up maybe email the institute?

Spoofer123

I failed the FAE last year and I think my falling point was not doing enough case studies. This year I just did a brief crash course through my material and made sure it was all clear, well referenced and easy to access. From here on in I’m just doing case studies.

Between this year and last year (and including the cases in the upcoming Mocks), I counted 41 Simulation cases & 9 comprehensive cases. That is a huge amount of material to cover, but I think the skills from practicing them will be worthwhile.

Perkina3

SL10 wrote: »

I think they have posted up all the solutions to the SFMA case study book now. there is a zip file on the website which i downloaded yesterday. I havent checked to make sure everything is there though.

Oh they are not the ones I am looking for... Saw them and downloaded them but THANK .

No I was talking more bout the case studies. Someone correct me here if I am wrong but I was under the impression for talking to a couple mates that while there are a fair few of the other cases ie from that big folder we got, there were still a few outstanding....

@ahtfulal - cheers for that solution buddy. Was on the ICAI website just before I posted that my msg and cudn see it!

Anyway... back to study on a sunday! Oh the joys! :P

On the plus side... in less than 60 days this crap is over!

daddydick

Maybe we should set up a "FAE 2011 - ****ting It" thread?

Every time I log on there's people (who are clearly doing loads of study, you're not fooling me) compaining that there isn't enough time, the exams are too hard, I broke my toe etc etc. Maybe we should try to keep this thread informative instead of sob-stories about how someone wet the bed thinking about FAE's or how the course is too demanding?

Fact is that if you have a Masters or have come through the CAP's you have a huge amount of knowledge already and you have 8 more weeks to fine-tune that knowledge to suit this exam.

Fact is that there was a large pass rate last year (in comparison to the CAP exams) so while exams are expected to be tougher this year I'd expect students to be more at ease with the syllabus and the exam structure and expect another good pass rate.

upnorthchick

Well said Daddy Dick! even tho im kacking it, i agree totally, im not even off yet and have the mocks this week and have did nothing... and im not panicking..

lets keep each other going and any ideas we get through studying or that then post them on etc... lets get this f'er passed first time!!

BRING IT ON!!

Clanno

Spoofer123 wrote: »

I failed the FAE last year and I think my falling point was not doing enough case studies. This year I just did a brief crash course through my material and made sure it was all clear, well referenced and easy to access. From here on in I’m just doing case studies.

Between this year and last year (and including the cases in the upcoming Mocks), I counted 41 Simulation cases & 9 comprehensive cases. That is a huge amount of material to cover, but I think the skills from practicing them will be worthwhile.

How you manage to get a hold on some many cases, I am of the understanding that practice cases is the way to go, however I only have last years FAE paper, last years mock paper, sample papers.

Other than these past question, all I have is books that are very specific to each indicator for example DC book for financial accounting.

So would you be so kind to explain how you managed to get 41 simulation cases and 9 comprehensive cases?

upnorthchick

Have you not got the resource pack?

upnorthchick

Does anyone know if the adjusted solutions to last years papers been put up yet?

Perkina3

Yeah there is a rake of them in the resource pack... Sure if you look online they have some of the solutions for those posted up after each of the case study sessions... Yeh apparently case studies and old FAE questions are the way to go....Aparently the old Multi D and audit elective stuff are decent for revision

SL10

Perkina3 wrote: »

Yeah there is a rake of them in the resource pack... Sure if you look online they have some of the solutions for those posted up after each of the case study sessions... Yeh apparently case studies and old FAE questions are the way to go....Aparently the old Multi D and audit elective stuff are decent for revision

Old Tax Planning paper too- I didnt realise the Audit elective paper was good too. I must get some of those!

upnorthchick

Perkina3 wrote: »

Yeah there is a rake of them in the resource pack... Sure if you look online they have some of the solutions for those posted up after each of the case study sessions... Yeh apparently case studies and old FAE questions are the way to go....Aparently the old Multi D and audit elective stuff are decent for revision

Yea i heard Multi D questions are good, i knew of ones that did the old FAE's that they had Multi D files that they passed on to each other through the years so if you know anyone that has one - maybe worth gettin your hands on.

Hackysack

Yeah apparently the Old FAE papers are useful to help you prepare for some of the Super 6 subjects.

Which is a surprising contrast when you look at the standard of the Prof III papers and how useless they were when you're preparing for CAP 2.

upnorthchick

Your right they where too, complete waste of time.. Multi D would be perfect for the super 6 im definately gettin my hands on as many as i can... and thrashing that out.

Perkina3

Now I know I probably shouldn't be asking a question like this already but it's been wrecking my head for the last 20 minutes...

In the OBC sim examiners report for the valuation of Silverturn Ltd.

Where the hell are they getting the conversion costs of €260k from and where are they getting average profit from? Looks like they have just plucked figures out of the air here.... anyone have an answer here or is this another institute 'solution'

Coldplayer

The conversion costs are an assumption.

The average profit is the the farm profits plus the expected uplift of over the five years, minus the savings divided by the number of the years

Perkina3

But the average projected profit for silverturn is 123k...surely this is what should be included...Fair enuf on the assumption. Will just need to remember to make those myself.

Bec_Boop

Sooo what are people planning on bringing into the mock exams tomorrow? Should we bring all our notes folders/case-study stuff seems like a lot to be bringing in and then the standards books and the tax book and a couple of the BL books are good enough too.

ahtfulal

Bec_Boop wrote: »

Sooo what are people planning on bringing into the mock exams tomorrow? Should we bring all our notes folders/case-study stuff seems like a lot to be bringing in and then the standards books and the tax book and a couple of the BL books are good enough too.

Me bring in nothing as I not doing them. Going by last year people seemed to go a bit overboard with suitcases. No messing but a desk actually collapsed in the RDS due to a heavy load of notes & books! I s**t you not!