I’ve completed the question bank and still failed my accountancy exam. What should I do next?

It’s well known that question practice is the key to passing accountancy exams. There are many articles online about the importance of question practice. You may be familiar with the driving test analogy, which is very true!

So what do you do if you have completed all of the questions in your question bank but still failed, possibly on more than one occasion? 

First steps to re-sitting an accountancy exam

The first step is to reflect on what went wrong on the day. You may have received some feedback from your examining body to help you identify your weak areas. These are the ones you need to focus on as you revise for your resit. It may be a particular topic that you have not yet mastered. It could be an aspect of exam technique such as poor time management or misinterpreting the question that is the problem. 

At this point it may be worth revisiting specific areas in your study materials to address any knowledge gaps. However, this should form just a minor part of your accountancy exam revision. You need to be able to put this knowledge into practice to pass the exam next time. 

Quality question practice is key

When going back to your question bank you need to consider the quality as well as the quantity of your question practice. Try to resist the temptation to race through the question bank in order to tick off all of the questions quickly before your resit accountancy exam. 

Try to mimic the real accountancy exam

At this stage, you should be practising questions without looking at your notes or the solutions as you won’t have these available to you in the accountancy exam! Practice using any techniques that your tutor gave you. This could reading the requirement first, eliminating distractors or looking for the easy marks. 

You should be practising questions to time. This will enable you to get used to the pressure you will be under in the exam. Perhaps you have been getting the answers right but you are taking longer than you have available.  

It’s also quite common for students to get questions right when focussing on a particular topic but then struggle when combining questions on a mixture of different topics. This is why attempting and reattempting mock exams is important. Alternatively, you could “create” your own mock exam by putting together questions from a selection of topics or styles in a practice session. An example of this is a mixture of objective tests and long-form questions. 

Self-marking your answers

When self-marking your answers, take a few moments to consider why you got an answer right or wrong. In multiple-choice questions, you need to understand why certain options are correct and others are not. This will help you spot the same pitfalls in similar real exam questions. Could you explain this to a colleague or a fellow student? Make a physical note of the mistakes you are making as a reminder to avoid them in the future. For a closer look into why self-marking is so effective, visit our article: Why should I mark my own mock?

Finally…

Avoid falling into a false sense of security if you can do all of the questions in the bank, possibly because you have memorised some or all of the answers. The questions in the real accountancy exam will be based on the same knowledge. The questions are likely to be similar but different to the ones in the bank. You will need to think on your feet on the day of the exam. Be wary of questions you think you recognise as they may not be exactly the same. 

Running out of questions?

If you feel you have exhausted all of the questions in your question bank then there are other resources that you can use to find additional questions. For example, you could attempt or reattempt the checkpoint questions and mocks in FI Learn. You could also look in your institute study text or workbook, and your institute website or practice platform for additional questions and Examiner’s reports.

Don’t forget you can also contact your tutor at FI for some further advice relating to resources for your specific exam.