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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.

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Reply 1
I start with Deloitte in a fortnight. Their own material suggests 2-3 hrs every night and 10 hrs at the weekend, not sure whether that is an average or vying on the safe side but that is what they claim.
Reply 2
Are you SERIOUS? 2-3 hours every night and 10 hours at the weekend?? Is that 2-3 weeks before an exam? Or constantly for the 3 years while you become qualified??

That seems ludicrous.

Can anyone else comment?
liverpoolguy
Are you SERIOUS? 2-3 hours every night and 10 hours at the weekend?? Is that 2-3 weeks before an exam? Or constantly for the 3 years while you become qualified??

That seems ludicrous.

Can anyone else comment?


I'm pretty sure the homework only occurs during college.

Yes, it is a lot of work, but if you really want to be an accountant, that's what you have to do.
Reply 4
so are we saying the 2-3 hours per night is just during college time? How many weeks of the year is this?
Reply 5
Yep, this confirms that I shall not be doing an ACA :smile:
Reply 6
And thats exactly how I feel. I have friends who are studying CIMA and are already commanding good salaries yet they're not having to spend 3 hours a night and 10 at the weekend studying!
Reply 7
I'd say 2-3 hours per night and 10 hours at weekends is a good figure 3 months before the exams, in addition to study leave, if you want to pass well. I'd say you could get away with a month long crammer if you were reasonably clever too, whether or not you'd want to risk that is another question.

I have to say, working 9 hours a day and then coming home and forcing yourself to do another 3 hours of study is the ultimate test in self discipline. I personally couldn't do it and had to resort to a 1 week crammer before the exams :p:
Reply 8
On a side note:

How difficult are the actuary exams? When does someone, for example who studies maths, do these exams (during college or work)?

EDIT: I googled a bit and found out that the rule of thumb when studying for an acturial exam is to study for about 400 hours, so that's a lot of time (especially considered there are a lot of exams to pass)! And most people seem to study during work (some might have passed one or two exams during college) and some companies offer their employees on the job studying time, which is kinda needed tbh.
Reply 9
Dajoruna
I start with Deloitte in a fortnight. Their own material suggests 2-3 hrs every night and 10 hrs at the weekend, not sure whether that is an average or vying on the safe side but that is what they claim.


I am currently sitting my final advanced stage ICAEW exams (hopefully the last exams ever for me!!!) so I can give you my 2 cents worth.

During the time I am at college (from about 3 months before the exams), I study about 3 hours every night (the recommended time) and about 10 to 12 hours over the weekend. Worst is when you go back to work in between college and have to study for 3 hours after coming back from work about 8ish (sometimes 9pm / 10pm during the busy audit season).

However some people cope well with less revision, but to be on the safe side I would say about 20 hours a week of revision as self study would be expected.

ACA exams are tough, I know people with 5A's at A-level and first class degrees from Oxbridge failing these exams miserably, so don't underestimate them. However I also know people from very average universities pass first time, so it really does depend on the person.

Hope that helps
Reply 10
Thanks for all the responses. All very very useful in helping me choose between ACA in practice and CIMA in industry.

Would still love to hear from others on this??

How many hours revision are they putting in in their own time for their ACA exams? Wheres Clubber Lang when you need an expert??

Do you think you could just cram solid for about 3 weeks before the exams and pass??

I have crammed for every exam I've ever done. Can I get away with this for ACA??
Reply 11
liverpoolguy
Do you think you could just cram solid for about 3 weeks before the exams and pass??

You'd fail with very high probability. You wouldn't even be entered in for the exam as you'd have probably failed most of the preliminary progress tests your company will use to make sure you're working consistently.

My revision hours have been in line with what KingsComp has said above. I have a good academic background (e.g 4As, 1st class, etc) but have still managed to fail an exam. That's not to say anyone here would - the vast majority of people studying in the Big4 firms pass exams first time - but they're not trivial even when you put in the effort :smile:
Reply 12
Having looked at various posts here regarding the ACA and ACA vs CIMA, im starting to be put off by the ACA.

Recently finishing a degree in accounting & financial management (2.1) I felt the ACA would be suitable for me as I quite enjoyed the financial accounting modules of my course and they were the ones i did the best in.

Though if im perfectly honest i kinda strolled through university and didnt put that much effort and study time in. I attended lectures and did the tutorial work, but didnt do any wider reading or additional work and revised for exams 2-3 weeks before, usually achieving a 2.1/2.2 with the occasional 1st.

Reading that the ACA would require study time of 2-3hrs a night and 10hrs at weekends, as well as full-time employment im beginning to think the way i study and learn wouldn't be enough to pass the exams. Obviously if i were to go for the ACA I could say to myself that I would put more effort in, but may still not be enough.

So far ive only applied for and looked at graduate opportunities offering the ACA qualification, not just the big4 many other firms within the top20 and even smaller accounting practises based around yorkshire. Im thinking it would be worth while considering CIMA opportunities as well.

Ive not really looked at the CIMA qualification, what is required and typical job roles CIMA qualified do, but any sort of guidance or advice would certainly settle my mind a little.
Reply 13
When it came to school/college/uni, I didn't, like you djpathic, study much.... I couldn't do 2 hours a day and 10 on the weekend during uni - I still can't believe people are able to do this while working FULL TIME - I worked full time for around a year total and I can say I can't imagine coming home to study - heck weekends are usually made to go out - I am to become a study geek for 3 years of my life? Surely this can't be true :frown:...
Reply 14
Do you REALLY have to put that much time in though?

I also didn't put much effort into university and mainly crammed for exams but still came out with a 2:1. I was kinda hoping the figures of 3 hours per night and 10 hours at the weekend were quite overexaggerated and I am still hoping that is the case.

Can someone who is doing or has done ACA please come on here and tell us they only do an hour a night or they only cram a month before the exam??

Where are you all?? Or are you to busy revising???
Reply 15
liverpoolguy
Do you REALLY have to put that much time in though?

I also didn't put much effort into university and mainly crammed for exams but still came out with a 2:1. I was kinda hoping the figures of 3 hours per night and 10 hours at the weekend were quite overexaggerated and I am still hoping that is the case.

Can someone who is doing or has done ACA please come on here and tell us they only do an hour a night or they only cram a month before the exam??

Where are you all?? Or are you to busy revising???


You can't compare university with ACA, one of the main reasons is because the ACA exams are a competition, they will NEVER let 100% of the students pass. The ICAEW WILL fail an average of 30% of the students on each exam sitting between all the papers. Therefore if you are not better than the bottom 30%(ish) you will fail.

Remember that there are only about 4000 students that get training contracts each year, so its quite easy to be within the bottom 30%, especially when you consider that you are competing against some very clever students including several IB rejects.

The cramming will not work, because firstly the content is huge especially for subjects like Financial reporting and Tax, which will be impossible to cram in a few weeks before exams, and secondly because the exams are not knowledge focused but more on application, so it takes a good amount of time to actually understand the content before you can start cramming.

And the figure of 3 hours per night and 10 hours over the weekend is AVERAGE, I know people that do MUCH more than that, in fact half my class at college probably do significantly more than that.

Just thought I should give you an insight into ACA, because you will only be fooling yourself if you believe you can pass by cramming a few weeks before the exams.
Reply 16
So you really gotta keep that up for 3 years? Sheesh I was thinking big4 had good job security over IB, but being able to fail limited exams or risk getting fired - quite a scary thing to think about eh?
Reply 17
If you put the work in its easily do-able. The content of ACA is not particularly challenging, the sheer volume of it is horrendous, and then being able to apply that knowledge is another step altogether. If you want to guarantee passing 25 hours a week sounds about right to me.
Obviously people doing the work will know better, but I just wanted to give a mention to my first round interview at Deloitte (assessment centre on 31st :eek: )

Anyways one of the questions I got asked was about the ACA, and I mentioned that I was told the recommended average is 15-16 hours a week homework/extra study.

But the manager who was interviewing me said (NB: I dont remember the exact response) the weeks youre at college yes its about that much, maybe more some times such as close to exams, but the weeks you are working they dont work you like that.

As I said, the people putting in the work now will obviously know better, but thought that seeing as it was straight from the mouth of a manager at a Big 4 firm, it was worth pointing out.
Reply 19
comic_book_guy
But the manager who was interviewing me said (NB: I dont remember the exact response) the weeks youre at college yes its about that much, maybe more some times such as close to exams, but the weeks you are working they dont work you like that.

Yeah, that's right in a sense. In weeks you're working, you're either a) waiting to go back to college for the next learning phase, or b) preparing for exams as you've already had the learning phase in college for the next set of papers.

If a), you're not doing any work at all, as there is nothing to do. If b), then nobody is forcing you to do anything, but if you don't put in the hours you won't get though the content in time. For me, the split between phases A and B is roughly 50:50 in the first two years. The third year is simply spent racking up hours to say to the institute that I have enough technical experience. So over the course of a 3 year contract, only a year or so spent working intensely on revision on top of the normal day job. The exact split will differ depending on how different firms structure things :smile: