ZCTA FinAcc Part-time – Examiner’s Comments (Test 1)

PART A

General

- A lot of students did not show calculations. This makes it difficult for the examiner to follow
your solution and award marks in calculations, a lot of the marks sit in the calculation and
not just the presentation of your answer.
- Students failed to outline the effect of the prior period error of $250,000 in the financial
statements
- Many recognized that there was a change in estimate, but failed to account for its effects in
the financial statements
- Some students failed to attempt this question, maybe due to time constraints or lack of
knowledge as to what to do

(a) – Students confused the adjustments to profit before tax with the tax calculation for (b)
resulting in the work under (a) being regarded as a calculation for (b). This is probably due to
failure to not knowing what items affect our accounting profit.
(b) – Some students used the profit or loss instead of the balance sheet method in calculating
deferred taxes
- Students were using wrong tax bases in the calculations, refer back to IAS 12 where it talks
about tax bases
- Students failed to include prior year assessed losses in the deferred tax calculation
(recognized and unrecognised loss carried a few marks)
- Students used the wrong tax rate in the tax calculations (e.g. 21% etc.)
- Students left out tax rate reconciliation in presentation (marks lost)
(c) – Students had different balances for prior year closing and current year opening, these are
supposed to be equal to each other.
- Students seem to lack knowledge of what goes into the SCE. Include the profits calculated in
(a), and deduct tax Calculated in (b), and deduct dividends paid.
- Many missed the effect of the prior year error on the RE

PART B

(A) – Some students did not attempt this question possibly due to time constraints

- A few students were not complying with the required and were not answering the question
using the Conceptual Framework hence they did not manage to get a lot of marks.

- A few students did not do well due to poor technique of answering theory questions

(B) – A number of students failed to attempt this question possible due to time constraint.

- Others failed to get easy marks from describing the error in the error note.
 ZCTA FinAcc Part-time – Examiner’s Comments (Test 1)

- Other students did not seem to identify where the error was and were therefore not able to
show the effects thereof.

- A number of students did not seem to know how to write down the effects of the error.