
ACCA Exam Strategies: 10 Tips for Peak Performance
Clearing the ACCA exams is difficult. On an average 40% students clear ACCA skill level and 30% clear professional level. With some exams having passing percentage below 20%. These Tips for ACCA exam will help you navigate your way to success.
1. Have a plan
Failing to plan is planning to fail. It is crucial for every ACCA exam to plan and set deadlines before you start. Crucial tasks you need to set deadlines are course completion, complete practicing questions, first mock tests and final revision before your exams. Maximum students often themselves close to their exams and they have not completed practice for descriptive questions or did not give any mock test.
2. Early start
Most ACCA students relax for a week or two after the ACCA exam. Successful ACCA students suggest they start their preparation immediately the day after they give their ACCA exam. The sooner you start the more relaxed you would be in the long term considering you barely have 3 months to prepare for your exams.
3. Make summary notes
We recommend students to create notes while they are studying the course for the first time. This helps substantially reduce the revision time and increases retention.
ACCA skill level exams have MCQs and descriptive questions. Both require different strategies. Many students spend maximum time preparing for MCQs and fail to practice enough descriptive questions. Besides setting deadlines, you should practice questions daily.
Mock tests are crucial to help you navigate through ACCA exams. Giving these mock tests well in advance helps you understand the level of your preparation and missing elements you need to work on.
6. Clear your doubts
Always write down your doubts. Students either don’t ask their doubts or forget they had them. Close to exams you cannot afford to lack conceptual clarity. We encourage and follow up with our students to write down and ask doubts.
7. Technical Articles
ACCA publishes technical articles that help students to understand concepts better, know how to write answers and case studies to practice. Many times ACCA publishes updates just before the exam. Make sure not to miss these updates as they more often than not show up in ACCA exam as a case study.
8. Practice Drafting descriptive questions
Most students struggle to write descriptive questions in the exams. Students write long answers or use bookish language rather than customizing their answers. Resulting in incomplete papers or their exams getting nullified all together. Take guidance and make sure to learn how the answers need to be drafted for success. We have done podcasts with students who got world rank and they swear to work on their drafting skills to write perfect answers scoring 90% and above in ACCA exam.
9. Time Management
Usually the first mock tests never get finished in time. Even world rank holders claim they never finished their first mock tests in time. That is why you need to set timers and practice completing papers in a given time. So that you never get a single mark due to incomplete paper.
10. Mental health
Finally, no amount of preparation is complete if you are not at full health. Students usually sacrifice sleep and even food while preparing for their exams.