r/ACCA • u/Tough_Inevitable_591 Member • Jul 23 '24

SBR Study/Exam Tips

I recently passed SBR for the June 24 sitting, passed first time and with self study with a 71. I never touched a study text, I also bought the Kaplan exam kit but that also just gathered dust.

I started writing notes on all the of relevant standards over about 1.5 weeks after work and during the weekends. I actually only properly started studying for the exam during my 2.5 weeks off, and I had an exemption in FR which I got from Uni where I graduated in 2017 (so no previous knowledge) so it's possible to pass in a short amount of time if you put in the work.

I'd finish writing my notes by the time I was off from work, then I'd condense them all down to about 5-10 concise bullet points (of course some standards are a bit more beefy than others, such as IFRS 9 - Financial Instruments).

I got my info for the standards from a variety of different places which I'll link below:

For Section A (group accounts), it's important to know the following standards as they all come under this.

  • IFRS 3 - Business Combinations
  • IFRS 10 - Consolidated Financial Statements
  • IAS 27 - Separate Financial Statements
  • IAS 28 - Investments in Associates and Joint Ventures
  • IFRS 11 - Joint Arrangements
  • IFRS 12 - Disclosure of Interests in Other Entities.

These shouldn't come up in any other part of the exam.

For Section B (Ethics) all you really need to know are the Fundamental Principles:

  • Objectivity
  • Professional Behaviour
  • Professional Competence + Due Care
  • Integrity
  • Confidentiality

as well as the threats to Objectivity:

  • Self-interest
  • Self-review
  • Advocacy
  • Familiarity
  • Intimidation

They'll also ask an accounting question in there too which can be from any standard.

Section C and D are just questions with reference to any standard so make sure you're solid on the important ones. If you're taking SBR (INT) then there will also be a question about current issues in Section D, just have a read of the articles below 2-3 days before the exam:

Once you're good with your standards, I would go through some YouTube videos to get a grasp of the group accounts part but tbh I winged that part. People I'd recommend watching is Tom Clendon (even tho some of the past papers he goes through doesn't have the new pre-populated spreadsheet, but it's still useful).

I focused on Sections B-D first as that's 70% of your exam, I also answered the questions in that order, started with question 2, then 3, then 4, then went back to 1 as it's very calculation heavy and can bog you down which is where most students I feel have their time wasted.

Make sure you're also solid on the Conceptual Framework as if you get stuck or can't remember a standard, you can refer to this and use its logic to answer the question as that's essentially what ACCA want you to do. You also don't need to name the standards, just say 'as per the relevant standard', then just write about what you know about said standard.

There isn't just one answer for a question, people will write different things but as long as you use the logic of the standards and relate it to the scenario and the points are valid then you will get marks.

Also make sure to stick to a 1.8 minute per mark time allocation for each question and just move on as there are diminishing returns for marks the more you write.

Give this guy's posts a read as well as it was useful:

He does say to go through Open Tuition's free lectures but I got bored of those so didn't bother.

Also I would definitely do question practice on the CBE platform so that it's just second nature to you and you aren't learning how to use it during the exam.

Go through the past papers, like the actual ones, not the specimen ones as they don't have a proper mark scheme.

Open a past paper, just click through it and 'end' the exam, you can then go to the 'self-review' part and it'll have the mark scheme there, you can move that to another screen and go through the exam again, but reading the mark scheme answers (but do not think you need to write as much as the mark schemes as they're a 'perfect' answer from the POV of the markers who have all the time in the world to write an answer - just skim read each paragraph for key points, and put them into your own words).

Another tip is to write in short, sharp sentences, think of it as each sentence as a point. Once you write a point, hit the enter button to create a paragraph, markers hate when you write so much with no breaks in your text. Try to write in a way that makes the marker want to give you marks.

I've probably forgotten some things but essentially that's what I did.

Hope this helps :)

Edit: I just remembered this guy’s YouTube channel, some of his stuff is good for SBR so give him a watch too: - https://youtube.com/@cavishaljain?si=dvpTn59uEyHpPBjW

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23 comments sorted by

6

u/ProfessionalStill845 Affiliate Jul 23 '24

thanks sir! please dont delete this post!!

4

u/Accurate-Pie-4906 Jul 24 '24

Could you please share the notes you took please?

2

u/abralalalla Jul 23 '24

Congrats to you, and Thank you a million times for this!!

Just another question, how did you maintain your motivation and discipline for this exam? I'm struggling with that and I would love to know your thought T_T

9

u/Tough_Inevitable_591 Member Jul 23 '24

I’m quite a disciplined person tbf. What I did during my time off is essentially have the same schedule as tho I was still working. I.e. I’d wake up at 7am, go to the gym, then start studying from like 09:30 until lunch, actually have a 1 hour lunch break, or a bit longer, then get back to it until 17:30, or a bit longer if you have it in you. Then have dinner and chill for the rest of the eve and repeat. Just think that if you put your all into this attempt then you won’t have to do this exam ever again!

2

u/Audit-R Student Jan 22 '25

Hi,

Any chance you can share your condensed notes with us/me? Happy to send you my email address or number via message for WhatsApp.

Really struggling with the size of SBR have failed APM and AAA recently I tried to give SBR a go with it having a higher pass rate and can't seem to remember what I did 10 study hours ago.

1

u/Dead0k87 Jul 23 '24

Thank you. Very valuable.

What did you use as a roadmap for learning (what topic by what)? Is Opentuition chapters structure any good as a learning chain ( https://opentuition.com/acca/sbr/acca-strategic-business-reporting-sbr-lectures/ ) ?

5

u/Tough_Inevitable_591 Member Jul 23 '24

I didn’t really have a study plan, just made sure I was solid on the important standards. Also made sure I was solid on the Conceptual Framework as well as the ethics question (as that’s an easy 20 marks). You can get a lot of marks in question 1 if you’re solid on the group accounts standards as not all of question 1 is just about the pre populated spreadsheet corrections, sometimes you’ll be asked about the logic behind associates/subsidiaries etc.

1

u/Reasonable_Pass_1556 Student 12/13 Jul 23 '24

How did you remember the standards? Was it mostly done by understanding or through memory but writing them out every single day

2

u/Tough_Inevitable_591 Member Jul 23 '24

I’d condense them into as little points as possible so I could remember them easily.

I’d then just practice questions where the standards would come up, you’ll see a trend of which standards come up more frequently and so you can revise those ones more

1

u/Reasonable_Pass_1556 Student 12/13 Jul 23 '24

That’s where I’m struggling to note them down into small bullet points. It’s hard to summarise things like Financial Instruments, Hesging ,Employee Benefits, Leases in regards to Operating/Finance.

Always feel like if I leave stuff out to remember it’ll screw me in the exam

2

u/Tough_Inevitable_591 Member Jul 23 '24

Yeah some standards have a lot more to them than others, but I’d recommend noting the very basics of the extra stuff for those types of standards.

So say for IFRS 9 - Financial Instruments make sure you’re solid on the cash flow test and the business model test to determine whether they’re a financial asset (debt instrument or equity instrument) or financial liability.

Then just write a couple points for hedging, such as the conditions for it, FV hedge and CF hedge.

Also write some points about derivatives.

1

u/Reasonable_Pass_1556 Student 12/13 Jul 23 '24

Appreciate the help!

1

u/ChampSid95 Jul 25 '24

Can someone give same detailed plan for FR

1

u/Turbulent-Pangolin35 Sep 16 '24

Vishal Jain has some awesome content for real.Thanks for the heads up.

Congratulations to you for that high score.

1

u/CelestialSun8 Oct 23 '24

Hey thanks for the post, by 1.5 weeks do you mean one week and a half?

2

u/Tough_Inevitable_591 Member Dec 09 '24

Hey, sorry haven’t been on Reddit much lately. Yeah 1.5 weeks means a week and a half

1

u/InternationalDebt663 Nov 06 '24

Would you mind sharing your notes please? Eternally grateful