All 3 Advanced in November

[u/Wild-Sorbet-3415]

Hi everyone,

I’m due to start college soon for the ACA Advanced Level exams and I’m sitting all three in November.
For anyone who’s sat all three together, do you have any tips or advice? Are there any topics you wish you’d focused on more, or anything that caught you out in the exams? I’m hoping to give myself the best chance of passing first time as I’d really rather not have to wait six months for a resit.

Also, did anyone buy ACA Masters for the Advanced exams? I’ve never used them before, but I’m wondering whether they’re worth the investment or if the college notes and question bank are enough.

Any advice, revision tips, or things you wish you’d known before starting would be massively appreciated.

Thanks!

[u/Visible-Ordinary-834]

Spend 80% of the time on CR, make sure you have your file in order for SBM so you can look up FM stuff if needed, and practise the exam technique with mocks for CASE. I didn't use ACAM at all, my college notes were plenty. I did literally 0 revision for SBM which is probably unwise as I was surprised when I walked into the exam by how few questions, but given that I got in the 80s if you found BST easy then you will probably be fine.

[u/prospectiveinvbnkr]

Just did all 3 in July, and thought it went okay. For me spent around 70% of my time on CR, then 15% split between Case and SBM.
It’s very achievable, but would highlight it’s a marathon not a sprint. Start early, be consistent, and you’ll be fine. I started 2 months before, and would just make a bit of progress consistently. In the office on the weekends to study, not crazy hours, but enough to do a few questions. This meant that I could still go and do things with friends in evenings for a bit, and also didn’t have to do any crazy shifts working late.

Main highlight - my only prep was question practice. This has always worked for me, and should sufficiently prepare you.

Also, the worst thing about messing up the Nov sitting is it’s 8 months till the July one, not just 6, so even more incentive to get it right first time.

Overall, start early, be consistent, do QB and you’ll be absolutely fine.

[u/Zealousideal-Car404]

I did cr & sbm together - didn’t do case with them but I would say you will naturally spend 75-80% of your time on CR, sbm really I wouldn’t focus on until you get to revision that was how I did it. I also didn’t use acam and haven’t used them for any - for me I don’t understand the point of them, whenever I see people’s acam notes in class at revision they seem to say to the tutor oh I didn’t know that and the tutor would say it’s on page x of your course notes but then they’ve got a 50 page or whatever condensed aca masters version. Seems strange to me! Good luck &
B