Aqa buss 3 June 2015 revision thread

Hi everyone haven't seen a thread for this years exams so thought I'd create one. How is everyone's revison coming and any tips for the exam and /or revison ?!

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Reply 1

annaispastry

I've mainly been making notes on key formulas and theories plus advantages and disadvantages of various strategies/concepts. For the exam I try to evaluate throughout my analysis as well as in a summary paragraph at the end to make sure i've covered everything

Reply 2

boing360

Does anyone struggle with finishing this exam in time

Reply 3

TheHonestMisty

Original post by boing360

Does anyone struggle with finishing this exam in time

Yes! I find that I run out of time on the 34 marker :frown:

Reply 4

sg123

can someone please mark this for me! and tell me what I need to improve on, really could do with some help
(2) First Cars PLC has set itself the objective of being the leading car club operator in London by 2012. what do you consider to be the most important issues that the company faces when implementing a workforce plan to achieve this objective? Justify your view (16 marks)

Workforce planing involves forecasting the number and type of employees the business needs in order to meet its objectives.

One of the issues first cars company faces, when implementing a workforce plan is the higher percentage of existing temporary staff of 80% compared to the car club proposal of 10%. This may be important to consider because if the majority are on temporary contracts it may be because they have other commitments such as education and are currently students. therefore, if most of the staff are required to be full-time, the temporary staff may lack the skills and expertise needed. Thus, this may be an important issues because the work-force may not be able to meet the requirements and will need further training, which needs to be implemented in the workforce plan. This is because in order to meet the objective, the staff need to be literate and multi-skilled. However, this depends on if they are able to leave their other commitments in order to be trained as full-time staff, if not, the workforce plan needs to consist of recruitment and job description in order to recruit new staff.

Another issue, is the high training budget of £400,000, this may be an issue because of the rising costs of petrol, car tax and insurance which also need to be paid for. Therefore, she will need to find a source of income to provide for the budget and cut costs, which can be done by redeploying her employees from 300 to 30. But this may be difficult to implement as she may not be able to pay their redundancies due to her current cash-flow problems and limited financial reserves. However, this depends on how the 30 staff react to the re-deployment as it might demotivate them due to lack of morale and may hinder the company of achieving its objective.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 5

wazza213

My issue is CPA, i'm not able to draw one :frown:

and if it comes up then i'm fu**** any help ?

Reply 6

charwilks

Does anyone know how much detail we will need to know about income statements? eg can there be a specific question on this or will we just have to bring in ideas about that particular business' income statement position in our analysis? Thanks :smile:

Reply 7

charwilks

Original post by wazza213

My issue is CPA, i'm not able to draw one :frown:

and if it comes up then i'm fu**** any help ?

hey my teacher sent me these and they're really useful

(edited 8 years ago)

CPA activities answers.doc688.6KB

Critical Path Analysis extension task.doc48.1KB

L13 14 CPA.ppt556.5KB

Reply 8

jordwint

Has anyone got any predictions of what is going to come up?

Reply 9

tomscfc999

Original post by wazza213

My issue is CPA, i'm not able to draw one :frown:

and if it comes up then i'm fu**** any help ?

you will never be asked to draw a CPA, however you do need to know the advantages and disadvantages of using cpa. also you need to know about the significance of critical and nine critical activities :smile:

hope this helps

Reply 10

tomscfc999

Original post by Heatherjones77

Hi Heather. With income statements/balance sheets, it is important to be able to read into the values. When doing the longer questions, it is important to know the implications of the different values so you can discuss them in an essay. For example if a business has high costs resulting from strike action, it is important to mention this. If there is a question about it, in is crucial that you use the data provided, as this is the key to getting "GOOD" application. My teacher always tells me that the case study is your best friend in the buss 3 exam, and this is true, as there is so much data in the appendix that you can use in your points. However remember to use the written information from the case study as well. If you combine the two and relate to the question you should have no problems in getting top marks for application. hope this has helped :smile:

Reply 11

mike717

Hi guys, I am struggling with 34 markers, my teacher hasn't thought us how to do it, can you guys help me out?
Thanks

Reply 12

charwilks

Original post by mike717

Hi guys, I am struggling with 34 markers, my teacher hasn't thought us how to do it, can you guys help me out?
Thanks

for the 34 mark question it is usually whether a business should go ahead with a proprosal.
The structure my teacher taught us was
Introduction- including a definition and say what you are writing the report on

Then 3 reasons why the business should go ahead with the proposal

3 reasons why the business should not go ahead with the proposal

Then a conclusion saying what your judgement is on the proposal/what this depends upon/ long term or short term consequences or advantages

The conclusion is the main place that you will recieve your evaluation points from, however, try to include an evaulative point on the end of each point. For example, just using 'however, this depends upon' can get you into the higher bands for evaluation.
Also 3 points either side isnt always necessary if you are running out of time, two points either side are perfectly fine in more depth as the exam is generally quite time pushed!

Hope this helped :smile:

Reply 13

jamescalebsmith

Original post by Heatherjones77

thanks that's wicked

Reply 14

mike717

thank you very much!!
I am not quite good at picking out relevant data to the question, sometimes I use stuff that are meant to be answered in 34 marker to answer 18 marker.
Is 34 marks all about Finance? ratios and those calculations?

Reply 15

charwilks

Original post by mike717

No not necessarily, you have have a finance question as one of any of the questions.
This means that you should pick out the pieces from the case study dependent on what the question is asking. For example, if a question is asking about a proposal you should pick out, if the resources are in there, things like ratio analysis like gearing and ROCE to support your answer to gain good analysis.
You could also get a calculation question as a 10 mark at the beginning. So it really depends on the question and there are no set rules about which topic is to each question

Reply 16

mike717

Original post by Heatherjones77

Thanks
so for application and making a point,
e.g. this is beneficial because it motivates staff and potential for reducing labour turnover of 55% which is high and costly for the business. right?

Reply 17

Josh_MG

Original post by Heatherjones77

The 34 marker for BUSS3 does not require an introduction.

We have been told to have 2 arguments for & 1 against (or vice versa depending on what your main argument is) with your recommendation at the end.

Paragraph structure:
-Point
-Evidence - Combining two pieces of data from case study(include calculations)
-Explain - chain of analysis (this will mean that.....leading to....therefore.....)
-link back to question & add a depends on factor (this will help give you extra evaluation points)

Recommendation:
-Make a clear decision of they should accept the proposed strategy or not.
-The main reason.....
-Another reason(long term/short term)
-This depends on....
-link back to question.

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Reply 18

charwilks

Original post by Josh_MG

Every teacher teaches differently. I am just saying what i have been taught and trying to help.
This technique works for me and i can achieve the marks i need with this structure so i am not wrong, you just have obviously been taught in a different way to me

Reply 19

Josh_MG

Original post by Heatherjones77

Sorry, if what I said came off as your method was wrong, that's not what I intended. I just suggested the method I was taught, that maximised your chances of getting high marks. :smile:

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