How difficult & time consuming is ACA?

Can people give me their thoughts on how difficult and time consuming the ACA qualification is?

In particular how do the exams compare to your average degree exam in terms of difficulty?

Also I have heard different figures mentioned for how much revision time you need to put in to pass the ACA exams. I have heard people talking about revising every night or every weekend? How much time outside wokrk (Big 4)do you need to put in to revising in order to pass these exams?

I know everyones different but I just want to get an idea. I consider myself intelligent (2:1 degree, ABB A-Levels) and I seem to remember things easily. I'm trying to get an idea how much time I'll have to put in.

Well done on your 2:1. The ACA, however, does specify AAB for A-levels

I got ABB for my A-levels and have just started with Deloitte so don't quite see the 'point' of your reply to the original poster...

I got ABB for my A-levels and have just started with Deloitte so don't quite see the 'point' of your reply to the original poster...

Well done on your 2:1. The ACA, however, does specify AAB for A-levels

Just adding to this as I have just started college doing the ICAS qualification which is on par with the ACA. I have good a levels and went to a top 10 university graduating with a high 2:1 and currently working for E&Y, and like you my degree wasn't a hassle. The CA is however a different experience, it is very intense and even grads in my class who did accounting degrees are finding it challenging, as well as all the grads with 1st classes.

As said above, its the sheer volume of it that makes it so hard, and you really cannot imagine what it feels like till you're actually undergoing it. When we started, we were told to do 25hrs per week to ensure we passed. I spend at least 3hrs a night studying and 10 hrs at the weekend. It will take over your life, but luckily at E&Y we have block study which means going to college from 9-4.30 for 8weeks and then being free from rigid study the rest of the year until the next college block

I'm in exactly the same position as you - the size of the Financial Accounting notes package we got on the first day was somewhat daunting, to say the least . At least I've passed the first progress test, and we're on to Law for a bit now - the block-release format, without the extra pressures of client work is definitely a very good thing!

My ACCA book for module 1.3 is 562 A4-pages long, and you do 2-3 modules per exam sitting. That gives you an idea hopefully..

How think is it? 500 pages+ ? (I am serous about asking this because I have heard many horror stories.

I've not counted the pages (each module - there are 17 - is separately numbered), but it fills a large lever arch file completely. This does include all the exercise questions, and model solutions, so it's not actually all that bad - Financial Accounting seems to be more about techniques than rote learning. The other subjects all have smaller notes packs as well, so the work is manageable - though plentiful

2 weeks down now... only 6 until exams

The whole stack of notes is for the first module/paper (which one?) of Financial Accounting for ACA is it?

Good luck with double entries and Accounting standards!

It's not the ACA, but the CA (ICAS equivalent of the ACA), and it's the notes for just the Financial Accounting paper - each paper has its own separate set of notes. To get the terminology clear, each paper/subject (same thing) - there are 5 - is then divided up into 'modules' (i.e. chapters).