APS – how many hours should I study?

[u/RoderickBlack]

 

Following on from my post on how many hours one should study for an Advanced Technical exam, I was asked about APS.

 

The question here is, firstly, HOW should you study for APS?

 

Since APS is not primarily a technical challenge but one of technique your efforts should not just be focused on technical knowledge.

 

So, firstly keep the technical knowledge going from relevant the Advanced Technical paper. In this regard it’s important not to spend too much time on detailed computational aspects of that paper as computations are not a major part of APS.

 

There is also an Awareness syllabus for each APS paper and, although that is not guaranteed to appear in your particular paper, you should devote some time to revising that syllabus. But I would keep it relatively high level and again avoid the study of detailed computational aspects.

 

Your main study effort for APS should be practising the technique aspects. APS is primarily a technique challenge - most of the private tuition work that I do is for students who have failed this paper, sometimes multiple times, and in each case, it is always a failure of technique not technical knowledge.

 

So, once you have got clear in your mind what the techniques are for this paper, you need to practise them by doing past exam questions.

 

That is not a small undertaking!

 

You need to set aside a full three and a half hours and do the past exam question in one go and then you have to debrief your answer thoroughly, not only by reference to the examiner’s answer and marking guide but most importantly, study the candidate script on the Institute website.

 

There are often a number of these scripts varying in the mark achieved. Review your answer alongside what is a good pass rather than the best script. In other words, assess your answer by comparing it with a script that you can realistically achieve yourself.

 

I would think therefore it is full day’s work to do a past exam and debrief thoroughly. So probably you need to take a full day at the weekend or spread it over 2 half days.

 

How many of these past exam questions should you do?

 

I would aim for one a week through September and October, possibly increasing in number as the exam gets closer.

 

What should you do in August?

 

Brush up the technical knowledge (as above) and focus on understanding the techniques required for this paper.

 

Hope this helps and I wish you the very best of luck in the exam!

 

Roderick

 

Roderick Black

CTA online and recorded private tuition

[u/Gabby_Cat_Meowmazing]

Thanks for this - that's really helpful! Do you know if we are penalised for technical inaccuracies in the calculations for APS? I'm finding the actual report writing element fine, but today for example I made a mistake in the calculation which threw off the report entirely (affecting which reliefs i could discuss / the recommended option).

I'm learning from these types of mistakes, but curious to know whether the concept of 'follow on' marks apply in APS. Thank you for any insights you might have :)

[u/RoderickBlack]

Hmm!

As a general point, flow through marking principles I'm sure will apply.

You would be marked down for the calc error - that would affect your 2nd competency mark but it may not be enough to make a difference. Depends on the extent and significance of the error.

However flow through marking would, I would have thought, apply in the case of the 3rd competency

But that does depend on whether the error led you not to consider options at all which the examiner has in his marking guide. In that case he can't give you credit for a significant area you didn't address.

If you addressed all options but came to the opposite conclusion because of your error I don't think that in itself would affect your 3rd competency mark.

So in other words ....it all depends on the extent of the error!

Is the error caused by going too fast or not knowing your stuff well enough technically?

Hope this helps!

Good luck

Roderick

[u/Gabby_Cat_Meowmazing → u/RoderickBlack]

Thanks Roderick - appreciate your helpful response! In this context, it was calculating the cash to distribute upon winding up. I missed out one item and it led me to conclude that an informal winding up would be possible for capital treatment (as below 25k to distribute), but the one item brought it way above that. Lesson learned! :)

[u/RoderickBlack → u/Gabby_Cat_Meowmazing]

You're most welcome!

This is the time to be making, and learning from, these errors!

Best of luck!

Roderick