Students and examination success 5

S

OLUTIONS MANUAL

F rank Wood’s Bu siness Accounting 1 T

WELFTH EDITION

Frank Wood a nd A lan Sangster 1 / 4

Contents Preface4 Students and examination success 5 Answers8 © Pearson Education Limited 2012 3

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© Pearson Education Limited 2012 5 Students and examination success Experienced teachers and lecturers know just as much as we do about this topic. There will, however, be quite a lot of people reading this who are new to teaching, and who have little experience in understand- ing how the examiner views things. If we have anything to offer, it is simply that we have, between us, been concerned with accounting education for many years and have been examiners for several external examining bodies.The Notes for Students at the start of both Business Accounting 1and Business Accounting 2deal with examination techniques. Make certain the students read these. Go through these with them. If we all tell students that what these say is true, then they are more likely to believe us.How students lose marks

• Lack of knowledge (obviously) but they throwaway marks unnecessarily for all of the following reasons:

(a) Untidy work, including columns of figures not lined up.(b) Bad handwriting. Do not make it difficult for the examiner to read and mark.(c) Lack of headings, dates, sub-totals, etc. in accounting statements.(d) Not submitting proper workings.You can only get them to rectify everything under this heading by insisting on them correcting (a), (b), (c) and (d) from early on in the course. Do not wait until a few weeks before the examination to insist upon properly laid out and neatly constructed work.

• Students very often do not follow the rubric on the examination paper. If it asks for two questions only

from Section A, then it means just that. A remarkably high percentage do not follow the instructions per the rubric.

• Students fail to answer the questions as set. If, for example, an examiner wants a list, students will lose

marks by giving explanationsinstead. Students must tackle the question in the prescribed way and not do it differently. The percentage of students passing examinations would rise dramatically if only we could correct this failing. A good plan is to get them to highlight the instruction that shows how the examiner wants the question to be answered, e.g.Listthe ways by which . . .Describethe ways by which . . .Write a reportto the managing director about the ways by which . . .Discusshow the ways by which . . .Explainhow the ways by which . . .Then, get them to underline the key words in the rest of the question.They need as much practice as possible in doing this, especially for essay-type questions.Practice is even more essential for students for whom English is not their first language.At the end of this section are 20 essay questions in which we have already highlighted the instruction and underlined the key words. See if your students can do the same.

• Poor technique with essay questions. Business Accounting 2, Notes for students, the section headed

‘Answering essay questions’ covers this point. Discuss this with your students who have to tackle essay questions.

• Not tackling the required number of questions. I have always found it very difficult to convince students

to get hold of the idea that they will get more marks for five uncompleted questions than they will for four completed questions, when the examiner has asked for five to be attempted. Time planning is essential.

• By not tackling the easiest questions first. Years ago, we did quite a lot of research into the results of

students who had followed this advice, compared with those who ignored it. Following the advice pro- duced better results.

• By simply regurgitating the contents of a textbook in essay answers. For instance, when an examiner set

a question on, say, materiality. Most of the answers simply gave exactly the same examples, word for word sometimes, that we have given in Business Accounting 1.Examiners are looking for originality and imagination. Students will get excellent marks if they give their own examples. A good idea is that, for each of the concepts and conventions, they think up their own examples beforethe examination. There are going to be more and more questions on these things in the years ahead.

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• Examiners like to see answers where students realise that all accounting is not found in textbooks, but

exists for the use of businesses. Get them to use examples in essay questions based on what they have observed in the businesses around them.For example, a question on ratios and interpretation will often be answered by students just using figures. They should also say whythe figures have changed; what possible causes there might have been.In their life outside their studies, they should observe how accounting is carried out. They all go at one time or another to refectories, restaurants, shops, department stores, clothes shops, travel on buses and trains, etc. They should observe how the money is calculated and collected, what sort of bills or tickets are given out, how fraud or errors could occur, and so on. They can give this flavour of the real world in their answers. Believe us, they will get better marks.Essay questions – how not to misunderstand them 1Listthe various pieces of information which should be shown ona sales invoice.2Describewhat is meant by an imprest system.

• Accounting based on historical costscan be misleading. Discuss.
• The bookkeeper has said that if an errordoes not affect trial balance agreementthen it cannot affect

anything else very much. You are to write a reportto the managing director stating whether or not you agreewith the bookkeeper.5Givefive examplesof different compensating errors and explainwhythey canceleach other out.6Explainthe differencesbetween the straight lineand reducing balancemethods of depreciation.7Briefly describethe benefitsto be gained from maintaining control accounts.8Listsixinstances of errorswhich could cause the trial balancetotals to disagree.9Namethree methodsof inventory valuation, and briefly describeany oneof them.10 ‘Withoutthe use of accounting ratios, much of the accounting workalready performedwould be wasted.’ Discussthe amount of truthin this statement.11Howcan retail storesuse accounting ratiosto help them to planfuture inventory levels?12Assessthe benefitsof double entryas comparedwith single entrymethods of bookkeeping.13Definedepreciationand describehow the annual chargeis worked out using the straight linemethod.14 For a firm buying goods on credit, howcan it calculatethe figure of purchaseseven though a Purchases Journalhas notbeen kept?15Listthe differencesbetween the income and expenditure accountof a cluband the income statement of a trading concern.16 ‘It is unsatisfactory for the treasurerof a clubto prepareand present to the members onlythe receipts and payments accountas a summary of the records of the club’s activities for the year.’ Whyis this true?Whatis the betterthing to do?17 You are to give your adviceto the managing director of a company on the bestmanner of constructing departmental income statements.18Howdo the financial statementsof a partnershipvaryfrom those of a sole trader, and why?19Considerthe view that if profitwas not calculatedat all untilthe businesswas closeddown, then such a calculationwould be a simpleand straightforward affair.20 You are to write a letterto a friendexplaining in simple termswhy profitdoes not necessarilymean that you have cash in the bank.Practice on past full examination papers If students have not tackled past papers, under as near examination conditions as possible, they will often get quite a shock when they first sit an accounting examination.

This very often is due to two main reasons:

(a) There is such a lot to do in such a short time.(b) Even though there is so much to do, in professional examinations in particular, many of the questions are quite difficult with some complicated calculations or adjustments.If students can attempt, say, at least two such papers and then have their attempts marked and criticised, they will normally learn a lot from the experience.Examination questions and marking schemes We had originally intended to put here some typical examination questions and their marking schemes. However, after some considerable thought, we decided against doing so. There is no one precise mode of marking and any suggestions that we might make could perhaps create more arguments and consequent misunderstandings.Frank Wood and Alan Sangster, Frank Wood’s Business Accounting 1, 12 th Edition, Solutions Manual

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