CIMA T4 August Exam 2014 Review by Nick Best from astranti.com

Hi Everyone,

We had a fantastic response to our Issues Order Spreadsheet for the T4 Exam in August with over 100 entries. I thought today would be a good time to tell you about a few interesting statistics that it brought up.

Getting the 'wrong' issue order won't cause you to fail the exam, but often it is a good sign of a strong candidate if their issues are sensibly ordered and more importantly well justified.

Here are the issues in the average order given by candidates in the August exam with percentage of students that put the issue in that position. Shown in brackets is the percentage that put the particular issue in the prioritization 

1st: Industrial relations in country X - 38% (85% had as an issue)

2nd: Plan10/10+ - 45% (88% had as an issue)

3rd: Decentralisation - 45% (86% had as an issue)

4th: Competitor analysis  59% (68% had as an issue)

*1st/Ethics: Honourable mention for the Braking Issue which 15% of people put as the top issue and others put as ethics. What a difficult choice that was. Potentially a huge business issue but the examiner plays it down with language used and it's obviously ethical too - so can you just get away with it in ethics? Tough choice! (See the Astranti solution if you want to see how I'd treat this issue!). In the past exams where there was a lot of debate over the order the examiner made allowances for it, so I either way, it probably won't make much difference to your final marks. 

Other stats from the August exam

As well as the issue order, we also collect information on the rest of the exam. You can see what percentage of students managed to do specific parts of the exam below. I've also included past results from my research over the previous few exams.

• 62% finished all four issues (61% May, 51% Feb, 57% Nov, 46% Aug)
• 78% completed ethics section (78% May, 69% Feb, 90% Nov, 86% Aug)
• 48% stuck to planned times (38% May, 36% Feb, 39% Nov, 41% Aug)
• 32% stuck to timing and completed every part the exam (20% May)

Broadly favourable this time then, with a particularly high percentage completing all 4 issues which is great - this is really crucial for people's success. If you're one of the people who did all 4 you've put yourself in an excellent position to pass.

If you want to see what we would have put as the issue order you can buy our very own solution to the exam.

Find out more about the Astranti Solution to the August Exam here

November 2014 T4 Course - Special Offer Opens  - Ends Wednesday 24th

Starting from tomorrow you will be able to sign up to the full course for a special price of £695, saving £100 from the full amount. 

Find out more about the course here

find T4 mock exams here

Regards

Nick

Astranti Financial Training

41 Blatchbridge

Frome

BA11 5EJ

credits - astranti.com