ACA BPT June

I got 99 in BPT and that was just by smashing the question bank out everyday.

I hope what I’m about to say next is actually helpful because I found BPT to be alright and far from the ‘horror’ everyone described it to me as. I found the questions to be quite repetitive, if you ignore the random as hell tax laws that only the prize winner is going to get. I think it was profit shifting on my exam in September 2021 and the examiners pointed out that nearly everyone completely missed the mark with that one lol. I definitely was one of the candidates to have never even heard of the tax implications of profit shifting and still got 99 because of the crazy headroom marks.

I took a lot of comfort in the fact the pass rate for BPT is usually 85-90% which means if you’ve got 2000 people sitting that exam you just need to beat 200-300 other people. The easiest way to do it is cover your 7 taxes, write APPLIED POINTS TO THE SCENARIO and finish the exam. No matter how many times the examiners say that’s the key to passing you can guarantee 150 people will just write the tax laws down which will get them zero marks. A lot of people don’t finish BPT (although I found the content to be pretty easy I will admit it’s very time pressured, probably equal in terms of time pressure as case is) so if 50 people don’t finish the exam they will likely fail and those are the 200 you need to beat.

Yes, you’re probably going to go into the exam feeling under prepared. Yes, you’ll probably find the exam hard. Yes you’ll find it extremely time pressured. But so will everyone else and nearly everyone passes. You’re aiming for 55% and that’s all you need.

Just smash out the QB. I don’t know whether they still do it but use the question breakdown at the front of the QB on BibliU and cover as many different topics as you can.

Just don’t neglect FM and BST (although I’m not sure how much work you can really ever do for BST given it’s such a commercial ‘on the day’ exam). Quite a few people in my cohort failed FM because they completely neglected it and FM is the easiest exam in my opinion.

Good luck! Don’t panic. You’ve got this!

Oh wow that's incredible, unfortunately I don't think I'm even close to that calibre haha, managed to get some low 60's and a high 60 for AA, FAR and TC last year. TC being the one I was definitely more comfortable with so that's one of the reasons I wasn't quite sure what to make of BPT because it's obviously difficult but not as bad as I had heard. But of course with everyone saying how difficult it has made me panic and not know how much work I need to be doing.

But thank you, thinking about how people who don't finish or don't follow instructions and instead just state the rules instead of applying them is what leads them to fail is reassuring as is the fact that there's so much headroom.

I didn't find the content particularly hard, just the volume of it was staggering. The main thing panicking me, which I'm sure is panicking everyone else is just being able to spot the tax rules in question quickly and then applying it to the question in enough detail. And yep there is a question breakdown in front of the QB so my plan is to cover at least a couple of questions for each type of tax rule now. Would you say doing them in exam conditions is the best way forward or to have a quick stab at the q and then read through the model answer as I am quite short on time and still pretty worried about whether I'll be able to get enough pratice in the next two weeks? I took the latter approach before and it went alright but I know BPT is a different sort of beast so perhaps this technique would be a hindrance here.

And yeah I made sure not to neglect FM or BST, FM has been strangely easy (given how much I disliked MI and also much easier than FAR and TC) and with a few more pratice questions I know I'll be in a decent position for it. Just need to make sure I get the buy/sell bits correct for hedging haha. My college also does exam prep and the tutor has taken us through the FM content again and done some questions with us so I'm a lot less anxious for it. BST is just odd haha, as you've said it's very much an 'on the day' exam. Like with AA there was still some linkage to the content but here anything and everything seems to go. I have some exam prep sessions and a mock coming up for it so will be relying on those along with a couple of practice q's (especially those q's with data). Some common sense and decent comprehension skills do go a long way for it, just hoping I'll have that common sense with me in the exam haha.

It’s a bit difficult to say tbh. I always did full questions, but I know plenty of people that just skimmed questions towards the end and made quick notes so that if something similar came up they could just flick to these quick notes.

Something that I did which I found to be quite helpful (not sure whether it is too late to incorporate into your plan of attack) was to take in exactly that, a plan of attack. I knew I had to cover the 7 taxes (although there was zero inheritance tax on my exam which threw me because I came out thinking did I just completely miss the inheritance tax bit haha), spend 1/4 of my time planning, breadth not depth, and just finish the exam by moving on once my time allocation was over. As much as I was dying inside not finishing the IR35 question I ran out of time on Q2 so had to move on.

This is why this exam is so very passable. I did not have a clue on profit shifting, didn’t finish my Q2 the way I wanted (pretty sure there was also some CGT on a lease I couldn’t do on Q2) and also didn’t finish the calcs on Q3 and still ended up with 99. The examiners aren’t looking for perfection. They’re looking to see whether you’re good enough.

Just keep going and stay positive. One tutor I had at college always said these exams test your nerve as a lot of people go in with a negative mindset and then once the exam starts to go badly they give up. Go in thinking you’re going to be in that 85-90% that will pass, do what you need to do i.e. write relevant points applied to the scenario and finish the exam and you will pass.

If you were with BPP, may I ask how you fared in the mocks vs your real mark of 99?

My BPT exam (along with FM and BST) is in roughly two week. For context, I have finished all the content for BPT but have barely done any question practice and the fact that I have been told by everyone and their mother that this is the most difficult exam in existence, am I in trouble now or is there enough time to pummel the QB and just pass.