Prize winners from the December 2013 exam session hail from around the world. Discover their top exam and study tips. Perhaps their advice could help you.
　　PAPER F4
　　ELZBIETA KONDRATOWICZ, POLAND, 98 MARKS
　　The earlier you start reading through you study materials, the earlier you will get a good grasp of all the Paper F4 syllabus areas.
　　I started going through my study texts for Paper F4 in August to prepare for the exam in December. By the end of September, I already had attained knowledge of all the subject areas, and I knew what I should learn in detail by the end of November.
　　By starting early, the knowledge will start to naturally sink in. By the time of the exam, you will feel as if you have always known this stuff!
　　What is even more important is that the knowledge will stay with you for much longer than if you learnt by memorising case names or provisions of a convention just before the exam.date. While not everyone will have as much as four months to prepare for an exam, starting as early as possible is always a good idea.
　　PAPER F8
　　STEVE BILOCCA, MALTA, 90 MARKS
　　When writing audit procedures, choose your terminology carefully. Verbs such as ‘check’ are unlikely to explain what you intend to say. Use verbs such as ‘observe’, ‘enquire’ and ‘inspect’. In addition, when writing audit procedures, try to be as detailed as possible. State the documents from which the evidence will be obtained, and whether they relate to any specific period (for instance, ‘post year-end cash receipts book' or 'pre-year-end cash receipts book’ is preferable to simply writing ‘cash book’).
　　Also, ensure you have a good understanding of the various formats. For instance, deficiencies, implications and recommendations may be requested in the form of a report to management. By simply knowing the format of the report to management, you can easily obtain a couple of marks available for presentation. Make sure that you do not miss out on easy marks.
　　PAPER F9
　　FABIAN HARRINGTON-POIREAU, UK, 95 MARKS
　　For pretty much every exam I've sat, practising as many past papers as possible has really helped. ACCA’s website has past questions and answers from previous exam sittings. For the more technical exams, such as Papers F6 and F9, I think this strategy works especially well because you need to get used to reading the question, identifying which bits of information are important (and which you may need to work out for yourself), and then working through whichever model/computation is necessary.