P2 Corporate Reporting
This is a very demanding paper, which required students to spend time and effort to prepare well in order to be ableto pass the examination. The examination consists of two sections. Section Acontained one question for 50 marks and Section B contained three questions of25 marks each, from which students had to answer two questions.
The examiner commented that, in order to pass this paper, studentsmust dedicate a significant amount of time, discipline and energy in order toobtain the required level of knowledge and application. It is important thatstudents are able to apply the fundamental principles within the accountingstandards.
The first question normally include a 35marks for consolidated financial statement, where the consolidated statement offinancial position is the most popular. It commonly involve a step acquisition,disposal of shares in a subsidiary. In addition to the consolidated adjustments, this question will also include a number of adjustments involvingthe application of accounting standards.
The first question will also normally include an ethical issues in a scenario given. The examiner commented that students should freely raised any points that is relevant to the subject matter of the question.
Questions 2 and 3 require knowledge of specific areas, where the examiner will provide scenarios that involve a number of accounting standards.Therefore it is important that you spend as much time as possible to build your knowledge and understanding to apply the principles in the accounting standards.The examiner has mentioned that there is no trend in which accounting standards will be examined. As such students are always reminded to study all topics across the syllabus.
Questions 4 is on current issues, however,recent trend has seen that the examiner has tested on specific accountingstandards. Therefore, once again it is difficult to guess when the examiner will set question involving current issues again.
Lastly, the examiner has commented that students do not seem to have progressed their knowledge sufficiently well, perhaps due to not spending enough time practicing past questions and/or spending too much time on SectionA.
You may have been aware of the examination technique that I have mentioned and reiterated here, what is important now isthat you actually exercise it.
Ensure you prepare yourself well for the examination, remembering that there is no short cut, spend every minutes thatyou have studying the subject matter well.