WARNING:The examiners deliberately try to avoid question spotting. Use the tips as areas to have a good look at, but remember that no-one knows what’s in the exam except the examiner. Your safest bet is to achieve good syllabus coverage in your revision, as the examiner aims to do in the exam.
BPP Tips:
The areas that we would expect to see most regularly in the exam are:
o Performance Measurement - questions are likely to include interpretation of given data and also a discussion of the value of or suggested non financial measures (a typical question from the April 2007 BPP Study Text is pilot paper Q4) The discussion elements of such a question could be practiced by looking at appropriate questions such as (question 18 Springfrom the April 2007 BPP Study Text)
o Budgeting - questions may focus on implications of differing budget approaches and their impacts on motivation. The conflict between ZBB and incremental budgeting is also likely to be explored (see April 2007 BPP Study Text question 13 ZeroBased Budgeting)
o Modern cost management techniques - are likely to feature frequently involving both calculation and discussion requirements (see April 2007 BPP Study Text question 3 Abkaber)
o Decision making techniques - particularly involving relevant costs, scarce resources and pricing decisions (see April 2007BPP Study Text question 8 RAB Consulting and question 9 Plastic Tools)
o Variance analysis - particularly mix and yield along with interpretation of variances
Examiner’s Approach Interview: F5 - Performance Management
