BPP Blog

Working for a professional education company, I have personally been helping accountancy students pass their exams for nearly ten years – being able to help people unlock their potential and broaden their horizons has undoubtedly been the best part of my career so far. Recently though, I have experienced the opposite side of this relationship as, twice in quick succession, I found myself becoming a student all over again. more

Examiners will often feedback the same points after every exam sitting on what students have done wrong – we have collated some of the most common answer weaknesses and given you some advice on how to overcome them. more

Your accountancy exams can be a stressful time, but if you can try to manage your stress you are not only more likely to perform better on the day, but also get through the whole experience in better shape. more

You feel that you’re running out of time… what should you be doing to make the most of the time you have left before your exam? Well firstly don’t panic! Easy for us to say, but honestly there are always things you can do which will help your chances of passing. more

The 1969 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay was awarded to Mel Brooks for his script about a Broadway producer and his accountant who attempted to defraud their investors by staging a play so offensive that it would close within a week, allowing the aforementioned producers to pocket the remainder of the budget. “The Producers” is an outrageous example of a fake production staged under false pretences – surely this could not happen in real life could it? more

The first of a new feature, we’ll be bringing you interviews with BPP tutors from around the country so you’ll get an idea of the depth and range of expertise our tutors bring to their role. This time it’s Emma Vincent, CIMA Tutor and Course Leader at BPP’s Manchester centre…….. more

In this issue we are looking at financial reporting. Some of these documents will be very familiar to you but not necessarily with their ‘official’ names - something to watch for in your studying and revision. more

By now your exam revision should be well underway and you should be developing your skills. Check out our top three tips for you to practice over the final few weeks. more

This month we feature David Illingworth, Financial Manager with the Co-operative Group based in Manchester in their Funeralcare division. David started his accountancy career with Barclays Bank in London in 2003 where out of several thousand applicants he was one of 40 successful candidates to gain a place on their graduate training programme. This gave him a broad financial grounding as he worked in a number of departments, progressing to Finance Business Partner as he advanced through his CIMA studies with BPP. After six years working in London, he moved back to the northwest joining the Co-operative Group. more

We think so. Following student feedback BPP’s exam surgeries have had an overhaul for this sitting. With drop down menus, more relevant content and easy navigation you’ll be impressed. Although BPP’s Practice and Revision Kit gives students a wide choice of questions and answers there’s always the feeling of did I take the right approach, did I really understand the question and could I have done better. more

Passing the exam first time is the dream of every student. Some students are good at coping with exam pressure but for the majority it takes a lot of hard work to get results which is why we are here to help. BPP’s Question Day are the final step in the process. You have the opportunity to sit a mock exam written by our Subject Specialists, understand where you are going wrong with our personalised feedback and a 1:1 discussion with your tutor helping you learn to manage your time in exam conditions. more

From the 1st September the AAT are amending the syllabus and will be rolling out the changes from this date onwards. more

With exams looming now is the time to start developing your exam skills and putting them into practice. Exam skills are the key ingredient and with all our knowledge and experience why not use this to help you pass. See our ‘Ultimate Exam Skills’ top 2 tips for this month , more will follow in the next newsletter. more

We spoke to one of our previous students Joanne Lyttle, about her experience of BPP’s Online Classroom Live and why she favoured it over classroom learning. “Things got trickier when I became a Mum. Juggling a 40hr working week, overseeing a large team … and now a baby to look after meant I had very little spare time!” more

Will your MBO lead to BPR and a re-think on JIT? Sound familiar? Every profession has it’s own ‘language’ – the jargon, the buzz words, the lingo that everyone but you seems to know and Accountancy is no exception! In each newsletter we’re going to add to your knowledge, picking out selected terms and explaining them. more

It’s easy to think that after doing your initial studies with a learning provider, you can then save a bit of money by revising alone. But after all the time and money spent on your future career, are you really giving yourself the best chance of passing? We think not and know from experience that students improve their chances of passing the exams by 30% if they attend a BPP Revision Course. more

Hot on the success of winning the National PQ Award for Study Resource of the Year, BPP’s Online Classroom Live has been re-launched for 2013. more

What is needed to ensure effective auditing? In October 2012, news of a £40m bill for taxpayers – as a consequence of the West Coast mainline contract shambles – raised the question of why audits failed to raise an early warning flag. “The errors exposed by our investigation are deeply concerning. They show a lack of good process and a lack of proper quality assurance,” declared Philip Rutnam, Department for Transport Permanent Secretary. more

Need to do some ACCA retakes? Failing one of your professional exams can feel like the end of the world, but is it really that bad? And more importantly... what do you do now? Firstly, failing an exam doesn't make you a failure. Professional exams are designed to test you and as I tell my students if they were easy we wouldn't get paid so much for being a qualified accountant! The other thing I tell my students is that I failed an exam too. Yes, I failed a professional accounting exam when I was a student. And yet I still qualified (completing all my exams within two years while working full time), had a successful accountancy career and I am now am Head of ACCA Programmes at BPP Professional Education - not bad eh? How did I do it? Well I learnt from what went wrong, and used that knowledge to become better. The most important thing is to learn from the experience. I want to show you how you can do that too. more

I believe that for most people, the optimal time to get going is after the psychologically important break over new year if you are working towards the June CFA exam. Is it worth starting earlier than that? Well, it depends really. There is a risk that something you study in October has been forgotten by May. On top of that, the best study time is when you are properly engaged in what you are studying. If the exam is in the next calendar year, inevitably the pressure is less intense the efficiency of your studies drops. more