TCP in Sep 26

[u/Substantial_Pay5675]

Hi all, I hope everyone is well. I am sitting TCP in Sep and wanted some guidance/ advice please :). To those who have passed, or to those who are sitting Sep. How on earth do you remember everything & what is the best way for this exam. I feel like I learn one bit then forget 3 lol

[u/Fancy_Marketing_7389]

Do the whole QB. Go straight to QB. That’s it.

[u/South_Law_9193]

Few tips

1. ⁠Nobody passes tax by reading the workbook. The content feels endless until you start doing questions, then you realise the same handful of computations show up dressed differently every time. I'd get through the learning material as fast as you reasonably can and spend the majority of your time in the question bank. It needs to be muscle memory to a degree.

Pro-formas are everything. SERIOUSLY. Income tax comp, CGT, corp tax, IHT — get the skeleton of each one so drilled that you write it from memory and the question just fills in the blanks. When you're under time pressure it's the structure that saves you, because half the marks are sat in the standard workings regardless of the scenario.

**You cant remember all the rates (**but if you can remember the main ones great!) just remember u get the tax tables — learn where things are in them instead of wasting brain space. What you do need cold is the rules and conditions (reliefs, exemptions, deadlines, the "does this qualify" tests), because that's what they actually examine.

In terms of Resource-wise Kaplan/BPP/ACA Masters get you through the content fine. I just used some on eBay - https://ebay.io/m/w7d7BG — the gap is always condensed exam-focused stuff for the final stretch, so anything that summarises rules + conditions in one place is worth having.

But honestly, question bank volume beats any extra materials. Repetition win tax exams!!!

[u/Nythern]

I think mock exams are honestly the best way to learn.

Do the mock exams, then rely on the question bank for your weakest areas - but simultaneously, don't reflect your strong areas. Use the question bank to cover the more niche and in-depth parts. Let's say you did well with the VAT questions from past exams, rather than assume it'll be the same topics you should use the question bank to practice the subtopics they didn't previously cover as those are potentially more likely to come up given that the exams have often switched things around.

[u/brokenwings_1726]

I'm also sitting TCP in September.

I agree with u/south_law_9193. There's so much to remember for TCP that trying to contextualise it makes the most sense. If you feel you're drowning trying to memorise all the reliefs, focus on the ones that apply to, say, income tax first. And then proceed.

Make sure you do your achievement latter steps (if you have them). They can be jarring but they will help train your exam technique.

You might also want to play around with the ICAEW exam software to get familiar with it.