The Student Room Group
Reply 1
I don't know.. Is it even possible to compare the difficulty of ACA v ACCA?
Reply 2
ACA is seen as more rigorous. But the ACCA isnt a soft option though.
Reply 3
ACCA has a larger syllabus than the ACA, but the ACCA exams are seen as 'easier' because you get a choice of questions so if there was a part of the syllabus you didn't like, you could just ignore it come the exam.

Doesn't really answer your question... either qualification will be a challenge. I can only speak for the ACA, but it is in another league compared to university finals or anything I've done before.
Reply 4
Ok, thxs for the reply..

Also, how much mathematical background do you need?

Is +/-/x and divide all you need?
Reply 5
Hey I'm planning on registering and writing the ACCA exams soon, wanted to know what's the pass percentage of ACCA like, as in how many people who take the test pass on an average? and is it possible to clear 4 papers at a time with one month's study?
Reply 6
Barny
In any case the pass mark for both syllabuses is 50%, that means if you do not answer 50% of the exam you can still pass

I did 1 week of cramming for all 3 of my first ACCA exams and passed them(I guess that isn't saying a lot of ACCA exams though :p:) and I didn't even go to college to learn it in the first place. They're very doable.


Lol... the way you wrote it seems like ACCA looks easier.. 50% pass mark wtf...?
Barny
ACA and ACCA are 50% pass mark.

aldsz - if you go to the ACCA website it'll tell you the pass rate for each paper, it varies from 30-50% depending on the paper and how hard that particularly exam was.


55% for all but 3 of the 15 ACA exams.
Barny
Accountancy exams are tough at first, but you'll soon realise they're pretty much a joke(if you've got half a brain, particularly in the early stages) when you get your exam results back. I did 1 week of cramming for all 3 of my first ACCA exams and passed them(I guess that isn't saying a lot of ACCA exams though :p:) and I didn't even go to college to learn it in the first place. They're very doable.


If that is true then I'm hugely jealous. I'm in a Big 4 ACA intake and your comments above are not representative of my experience of that of my colleagues. We've been finding the exams ****-hard, and none of us have been foolish enough to leave revision to the cramming stage.
Reply 9
In terms of difficulty, I doubt there's much in it but if pushed I'd probably say the ACA. Barny makes a good point about the Big 4's army of ACA students. However don't forget that even within big 4 firms people do the ACCA and in mine at least, ACCA students are those with slightly lower maths points at GCSE. Perhaps it's a relic of past policy, but I would have thought they'd stick everyone on the ACA if they were in fact fully equivalent. That perception is also affected by the odd throwaway comment from tutors at college (who teach both ACA and ACCA).

Both will require lots of work. It takes time to get comfortable with the content if you've never done accounting before and once you've nailed that, you need to focus on exam technique/practice which probably plays a bigger role in final performance than at university. If told to cram for multiple exams in a week, pretty much everyone in my year would fail; fact. Give them two weeks and things wouldn't be much better. And thats with people who've studied good subjects at good universities; they're far from being dummies :smile:
Reply 10
What an unamed Big 4 firm said to me during the application/int stage was:

"Sorry, we can't offer you a ACA qualification, because you got GCSE grade B maths.. You'll have to do ACCA~ We have statistics showing recruits with GCSE grade B+ and further A level maths have better sucess rates in ACA"

Litreally they mentioned that!

From that, is it a correct assumption, ACA requires intense A-levels mathematics, whilst the ACCA is for the rest?~
Reply 11
Do CIMA --- better perceived in industry then ACCA, also most ACA/ACCA's/CA move into industry after 3 boring years of audit....
Reply 12
just a quick question...would i be able to do some of the acca exams while at uni to be exempted from some of the aca ones when i graduate and go into training?
Reply 13
Barny

Accountancy exams are tough at first, but you'll soon realise they're pretty much a joke(if you've got half a brain, particularly in the early stages) when you get your exam results back. I did 1 week of cramming for all 3 of my first ACCA exams and passed them(I guess that isn't saying a lot of ACCA exams though :p:) and I didn't even go to college to learn it in the first place. They're very doable.


hi i know this was written by you to help someone out agess ago but i got a couple questions to ask aswell.

when you say u didnt go to college do you mean that no further education was done at all. and if you feel its very doable do u fink someon like me can pass
gcse hasnt finished yet but so far ive gotten a B for maths and im considering doin maths for a levels and btec buisness national diploma what do you think even though i know yyour not an expert
Reply 14
Barny
Yes, you can. I'm pretty much doing exactly the same thing. PWC told me I'll get full exemptions for the ACCA exams I've done, KPMG were a bit cretinous about the whole thing and said I'd probably have to take the ACA exams again - but I fail to see that ever happening.


hi isnt it a bit of a workload to juggle ur uni degree and acca exams or isit ok to handle depending on the person u are? andd what qualifies you to be exemppt from certain exams?