Expected in Dec 2014 or June 2015 examination. They will move F4 to complete CBE first.


Nah, all professional qualifications has to meet the requirements of IAESB http://www.ifac.org/education, which means that ACCA and ICEAW follow the same standard of examination and requirements. In this I would say that value of ACCA is the same as value of ICEAW - get's you to the door, after that it depends on the individual.

You know that AIA is much easier than all the others and is fully recognised in Hong Kong but ACCA is not since that place is dominated by AIA. In Malaysia AIA is not recognised at all. So is AIA inferior? Yes in Malaysia, No in HK.


Technical competence of ACCA examinations would be higher all the time, whereas business competence of ICEAW is higher. ICEAW is still using old standards for accounting until today (they are still studying IAS 39), whereas ACCA has already moved on the test latest IFRS.

You still need to display knowledge, confidence, critical thinking to get the big jobs out there.

Yes the idea is to move towards 4 exams, since MCQ would speed up the process of marking the papers and cuts the cost down. It would also allow for CBE based examinations to be developed slowly.

The reason why ICAEW seems to be better off is that most of the students are forced to do their "contracts" before graduating - which means that when they grad, they have a strong experience ~ study and work culture.

The reason why ACCA grads seems to be lower off is that - they have no experience when they grad, they like to study first and work later. If you have the same formula that ICEAW uses for ACCA, you get the same results.


If you compare apple and apple - those that have equal experience / ACCA / ICEAW applying for a job. It would either boil down to the person interviewing you and what they think about your ability OR existence of cables

Obviously my answers will not be very objective since I am skewed towards ACCA, plus I am suspicious of any organisation that offer fellowship for branded CEO with ACCA just to get them in their member profile ~ TF

This post has been edited by frodo baggin: Jun 11 2013, 06:29 PM

Was Q4 the article that was recently prepared by the examiner. Yes the strategy of doing all 3 is safe bet as usual. 12 marks not so bad. If your q1 scores, chances of passing is high

Well you took risk, it prepares you for the next trial better

Sorry this news was made available at the recent meeting by acca for tuition providers and also the papers that were sent out for trials by the lecturers. Read about it when ACCA formally announce it. You can always review PQ magazine about updates.

Acca P5
There is of course me (Jay @ J pro) but that is only after the results are out and limited to 20 pax only, and also Arshad @ Ftms. Chan Siew Leng @ Kasturi, Akhbar @ Sunway other than those that is listed above.

Acca P4
Micheal @ Sunway Pj.

Obviously this list is biased by bounded rationality!

Who is good / bad - depends on your needs. Each person has their own approach which may or may not suit you.


Don't waste money - do the degree properly, get 1st class and then update to acca.
If you want to do another course - do law if you have free time (great combo if you enter into liquidation or tax)

Agreed - degree is not safe. Fail 4 times, you get kicked out,

F4 & F6 take Malaysian forget about UK. More relevant!

Acca is always higher than uni. Since it is professional - you need it to get promoted in the audit field. If you are in corporate it is still higher since many jobs ask for professional

This post has been edited by frodo baggin: Jun 13 2013, 12:45 AM

There is Joey who does it at KDU, Goh in Sunway College, CK Fung in FTMS, Marcus in KSA (PJ)

P7 you can wait till exam results are out. Normally I will be having a class catering for students from the audit firms the last sitting out of 18 students that did it, 6 are from Big 4, the balance are working with other mid - firms / corporate (only 4 are full time students) - class is usually on Sunday's.

Drop by this Saturday 15 June 2013 11.00 am to 1.00pm @ J Pro to check out the place http://jprotraining.blogspot.com/ and discuss the options.



About the options for the degree

If not mistaken, a clear cost and benefit analysis would be good.

If you are paying for 1/2 and the balance is scholarship
Financial cost = RM45,000 for Sunway and RM30,000 for Help
Financial returns = RM2,800 starting salary in Big 4 (for both)

I suppose the financial sense indicates a payback of 11 months for Help and 16 months for Sunway.

Companies prefer anyone who knows what they have studied - good English and some technical skills which both Uni can provide.

Review of Sunway Uni by some of the students (feedback from 5 students that I know, who are doing their degree)- HARD since the standards by Lancaster is higher, but the end outcome is still a degree. I only have one student from Help - I don't see any issues. All of them have the same comment - nothing they do prepares them for professional well, since most of the programs are internally assessed and not geared towards professional.
I suppose this will always be an issue with degree entering into ACCA, but most of those that has passed their degree with 2nd upper, usually pass without too much problems.

UK lecturers are usually quite good (not all, it is the same as Malaysian) - I studied under many during my time. The biggest issue about using them is their slang. If you can overcome that issue - they would be a good try out. Obviously we have to wait for locals to comment on them.

Parmandir and Marcus have many years of experience teaching this paper. Their styles are consistent in that both will use lots of practical examples during the class. The variation occurs in the level of in class question practice that will be done.

Lecturers for P3
Parminder (KSA)
Marcus (KSA)
Joey (KDU)
Jay (J Pro)
Laurence (Inti)
Wong (Sunway)
Dinesh (Sunway)
Martin (FTMS)

If you ask me, all have their own styles and maybe fine, but at the end of the day, it will still depend on your own work too.

This post has been edited by frodo baggin: Jun 13 2013, 11:57 PM

You can study any variant and option you want, this flexibility is given to you by ACCA. The only issue for you to know - whether there is a lecturer to support you and whether you will be impacted later - in your work knowledge and maybe your optionals.

Work knowledge - if you did Malaysian law, your knowledge of Malaysia law would be something compared to nothing when you enter the workforce.

If you did UK tax - you have limited usage in Malaysia. So why do it? - unless you plan to work in UK.

If you plan to work in UK, best to take UK variant P7, since it is recognised for getting you the audit license in UK.


Final answer - as long as ACCA system allows you to take the paper - you can do it>

Taking MYR and using global and UK text is suicide! . Nothing much there for tax . Not very sure about law, but there is significant difference!

This post has been edited by frodo baggin: Jun 14 2013, 02:45 AM

Agreed - I studied under that Gwailo (Micheal) back in 1996. He is good since he makes up his own questions and has some pretty good spots. Not sure how his spots turned out this time though? His answering technique is very short and straight (just the way I like). Back then the classes were in Sunway, and it was huge 250 - 350 students (just like how it is now - things never change!) and half the students did not like his continuous screaming and shouting - but it was fun.


Windle is new to Malaysia, hence there is no feedback - cannot comment on his approach and style - wait for students to go in and come out. FTMS is trying a formula that was tried by Sunway in 1994 - 1997 (the early years, when almost all the classes were taught by UK Lecturers). It did not work out since most Malaysian's had a problem with Language used by Gwailo.

Guys there is a rumour that the giant is planning to enter the market - LSBF - that will really put pressure on Sunway I suppose.

I think that there is a kiasu syndrome in Sunway - most of the students are informed by the management into believing that if they study there, only then they can get a job in Big 5 . They are also conned into paying RM4,000 for the OBU when the fair value is about RM2000 - RM3000 - sad story. In Inti, the students are given a bonus if they studied there - RM1,000 discount on their OBU fee of RM3,500 - so they only pay RM2,500. I made sure that students get a benefit for studying there.

Also the resource fee is mad - ACCA students use very little resources, so their fee should not be hit by high resource fee . I also made sure that resource fee for the students was based on ABC principle - take more subject pay more resource fee ~ so it was Rm100/paper .

I have done quite a bit for setting a good value deal for the ACCA students, but unfortunately not many are aware of it - well that depends on the marketing (which Sunway spends a lot )

Obviously you cannot compare resource fee with KSA - they don't have resources!.

Nick - did you sit for P2/P6 this time?

Heard the P6 paper was easier?
The college has to vouch for the student - does not guarantee the job. I had students that got a job with the big 4 without any vouching by the college (Sunway). If you can speak good english and are reasonably confident, you can get the job. The vouching by the college only gives you 10% possible chance. The results and your personality is 90%

Honestly I have talked to the partners before and they are not influenced by the so called recommendation.

Threaten (intimidation) - that is really not professional - are you sure???? Paying RM1,200 for powerpoint classes is a real rip off.

The reason why they are not breaking up the class - profit



Obviously it does - pass first time is better than failed. Passed with high scores would indicate higher technical knowledge compared to those that passed with lower score. Put yourself in the interviewer shoe - which would you pick?


[quote=ang1222,Jun 16 2013, 01:11 AM]
Hi everyone, I am thinking of study P paper in UK.
Completed degree and get exemption of all F papers.

Anyone can share the knowledge or experience about studying ACCA at UK ?

Like which school is good for ACCA or what kind of thing should be take note.

The schools there are about the same - the specialist in the market for UK is BPP. Kaplan and LSBF. Most are operating after the exam results are released.

Some of the universities offer a spliced program (Masters + P level) which would be a good deal if the prices are reasonable, but their lecturers may not be that good. Cannot recommend 100%.

Regarding MQA subjects - there is some changes being made by our local MOE - they need the students to take the paper one more time - something about credits being fulfilled or something......

This post has been edited by frodo baggin: Jun 16 2013, 02:29 AM

Sorry the MQA is for the previous question - not yours. If you are going to UK, there is no need for MQA. Actually most of the students I know go to UK for the holiday and exposure - not so much about the place where you study - the risk is the same as studying in Malaysia - you can get some good lecturers and some bad lecturers. Depends on luck.

Why are you going there? Job, Exposure, Got money to spend?

This post has been edited by frodo baggin: Jun 16 2013, 02:34 AM

Wow that was a highly motivated debate about the topic. Excellent mannerism showed by both of you - congrats on keeping professional tone.

Other forum members should take note - professional's must maintain a certain image, even in the forum.

Honestly the lecturer would only contribute say 20% - 30% unless the spots are perfect replica of what comes out in the exam. I used to spot quite accurately for old CAT T5 in the past - one time 97% of the questions was actually spotted out - but it was a range spot (not narrow spot). I would give say 30 areas out of 100 for spots. Students that studied all 30 were successful, but then again there were students that decided to spot within the 30 - they failed.

So in the end, it depends on the students. Lecturers can only lead to horse to the water, they cannot make the horse drink the water!

About accent - it depends, if they come from UK without Asian exposure, high chance their slang could be a problem - which is what I faced. Windle and Clendon have been around Asia, indicating that they may have adjusted for Asian requirements.

So, those who want to try it out - do go for it. After all Sunway classes is always full and there is no place for sitting.

Better that having a secret account and trying to win students direct - like CK Fatt or the others.
When did you get back from UK Kaplan? Which papers were you trying out there? How was the experience there? Did you get a car and bring it down using the AP? Do share your expertise since it would be very enlightening for those that want to go there. I had many people ask me the same question - to go or not to go?

This post has been edited by frodo baggin: Jun 18 2013, 06:41 PM

P1 can be self studied but if you are lazy - go for class. It requires a lot of memory work, reading the technical articles. In terms of technical difficulty - I would rate is as easiest among the P papers. F9 on the other hand is harder and considered to be technically challenging.

Now the question is - are you working? Do you have any budget limits or time limits? Do you want to do full time or part-time?

Diploma students are usually given 1 paper exemption from ACCA (paper F1), so you will be taking F2 Management Accounting and F3 Financial Accounting. I have never heard about the requirement that a diploma student must get distinction to join - where did that rule come from? If you have passed all the papers properly in your Diploma, you should have no problems joining ACCA. Number of exemptions available for your particular diploma can be checked in the ACCA database.

Hope that helps

This post has been edited by frodo baggin: Jun 19 2013, 01:41 PM

Between P1 and P3 - if you are doing F8, I would belief it would be to do F8, F9 and P1 since F8 has some relationship with P1.

From what I have seen so for for degree student
No.1 Make sure you have no compensated passes for your papers that are listed within the exemption database for your degree. If there is compensated passes - this will be void exemptions
No.2 Referral passes could be a problem if the transcript does not stipulate properly the way it is awarded.
No.3 Make sure you use the correct transcripts - partner university transcript could be used by accident when you should be using the college which awarded (this is tricky and has happened to few students before)

Make sure you really want to do ACCA - since there is an entry cost involved - exemption fees. This can be very expensive.

Obviously F8 exemption is awarded on the basis of you passing the audit component - not only passing the degree, which can be done using compensated passes.

Hope that helps

Not to worry - you would still get an exemption.


Never heard of this - so far one student told me he passed by doing q1 and q2 only in p1, ran out of time for the last question.

I am sure ACCA does not have a deliberate fail just for minor technical non-compliance. They would have notified the students and lecturers formally.

Don't worry too much

Yes that is one way of looking at it. P1 is perceived to be the easiest of the 3 papers but if you take the two papers together - the exams are too close together . Taking 1 and 3 provides some room for recovery after the 1st exam.
Which I think is more important.

I would suggest doing P1 and P3 and then do P2 and P7. That combo works well the synergy between P2 and P7 is healthy.

In the end - it depends on what type of person you are - if you are the type that can prepare earlier and the last few days is relaxed go for all 3.

P2 difficulty is still overrated - Yes there is standards and there is consolidation which just require technique and understanding, but among the 3 examiners - he is the most stable person around and does not want to rock the boat too much. The paper has been almost the same for the past few sittings.

The reason why everyone says P2 is hard or complex is because 1 or 2 lecturer made that statements to a class of 300+ for the past 10-12 sittings. Imagine 3000 students being given the impression it is hard + then given tons of notes the size of Mount Olympus to digest. Obviously it would be a herculean task - hence the perception that it is hard - which is perpetually amplified by the students that did the herculean task.

If you asked the students that passed the exam - some would say that they focused on a few major areas and passed the paper - the same as other papers in ACCA.

So is P2 harder than P1 and P3 - not really since it does not have the pass rates that is enjoyed by the optionals 30 - 40% for the claim it is hard.

This post has been edited by frodo baggin: Jul 5 2013, 12:07 PM

Yes - mapit accountancy materials.