Common mistakes students make in advanced assessments and how to avoid them

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AAT publishes Examiner’s Reports for all assessments, which reveal what areas of assessments students are performing well in, and the areas they are struggling with.

The reports are intended to be constructive and informative and promote a better understanding of the assessment requirements. Here we outline some common errors made in the Advanced assessments and how to avoid them.

Management Accounting: Costing

Common mistake: Not double checking answers

  • On average, students completed this assessment in 69% of the 150 minutes that they had available.
  • Students should spend more time re-reading the questions and checking their answers.
  • Over 70% of students achieved minimum requirements in most tasks. Tasks 5, 7 and 8 showed the weakest performance.
  • Key strength areas demonstrated by students are understanding inventory valuation methods and overhead allocation, apportionment and/or absorption.

To prepare for this assessment, visit the AAT Lifelong Learning Portal to complete the:

  1. Real-life scenario.
  2. e-learning modules.
  3. Green Light Test.
  4. Practice assessments.

Indirect Tax

Common mistake: Struggling with VAT practice

  • On average, students completed this assessment in 68% of the 90 minutes available. Some tasks, such as Task 7, could benefit from more time and attention.
  • Performance in this assessment has improved when compared to previous years, but it seems that students still struggle with certain areas of VAT practice.
  • Students were either very good at the calculations or very poor, with very few cases in between.

Students would benefit from:

  1. Making use of the e-learning material on the AAT Lifelong Learning Portal.
  2. More practice with calculation tasks.

Full reports can be viewed on the AAT Lifelong Learning Portal (log in to view content).

Further reading:

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