ACCA true difficulty lies in professional papers, no more exemptions as a degree can only exempt up to all fundamental papers (max). Hence acca given full license to notch up the difficulty of the paper in here to fail and filter out undeserving students (namely those photocopy or brute force). Pass rate will normally be around 30% to 40% here (inclusive of those retaking it).
ACCA is not difficult as in requires you to memorize everything. if you are good in bluffing, means you can act and answer AS THOUGH you know although you know next to nothing which is itself an essential skill in real life too. 2 of the 3 core papers, you can bluff all the way through without even reading the text book.
Text book is actually useless as it was based on the past (past questions) but the exam papers always based on future (something never tested before or new stuffs).
Just a brief preview.
University HOW HARD is ACCA and WHY?, ACCA is hard?? need to know ..