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TaxationWeb by Simon Groom

Simon Groom, Head of Tax Training at Tolley Tax Training, provides some sound tips and advice to tax students.

Introduction

If I told you that there was one topic that you could guarantee would be applicable in every CTA examination and that it was likely to be worth at least 10 marks, you would certainly set aside a bit of time to study it. So why do many students choose to ignore it? Is it too difficult? Is it too obvious? I don't know the answer to that, but what I do know is that good examination technique makes passing any examination a whole lot easier - and its not difficult!

So what is good examination technique? Well, read on and you'll find out.

In this article we are going to look at general examination technique and then give a hint for attempting Paper I. But first let's start with some basic principles.

Know the format of the paper

Paper I has five different modules as follows:

Module A - Personal Tax

Module B - Business Tax

Module C - Capital Taxes, Trusts and Estates

Module D - VAT

Module E - Other Indirect Taxes

Each module contains 20 short form questions and you are required to answer any three modules. It is a three hour examination.

All variants of Paper II contain 10, 15, and 20 mark questions totalling 100 marks. You will be required to answer all questions set. Again, it is a three hour examination.

Paper III is slightly unusual in that it lasts for three and a quarter hours. The extra quarter hour is for reading time, though it will not be enforced as such. It should however be used for reading - more on that later.

It contains five 50 mark questions of which you must answer two. It may look as though you have a choice though in reality it is not as generous as it seems - again we discuss this later.

Paper IV is split into two parts. Part A examines Professional Responsibilities and Ethics and comprises 10, 15 or 20 mark questions totalling 50 marks.

Part B examines Law and comprises 10 and 15 mark questions totalling 50 marks.

Time allocation

Papers I is slightly unusual, however in general, for a three hour paper, with 100 marks available, the strict time allocation is 1.8 minutes per mark.

Is this however right?

How many people can resist the temptation to look through the whole paper to see what is on it before starting?

This takes time, and if you do not build it into your plan, you may find that you are 10 minutes short on the last question, which of course could always turn out to be the easiest!

Let's be revolutionary, therefore and allocate at 1.7 minutes per mark.

Approach on the day

In Papers II & IV all of the questions are compulsory so you have no choice, however it is always important to do your best questions first. How do you go about deciding the order?

Firstly read the requirements of each question - this should give you a good idea of what is required and whether you feel you will be able to tackle it reasonably.

This may automatically lead you to relegate a question to the end - do you know decided cases on the definition of plant and machinery? If not and that is the requirement, then don't start with that question.

Beware, however of relegating a question because you do not think you can do one of the requirements if that one only accounts for 3 or 4 marks - are the others attainable?

Having done that, skim through the question very quickly to get a feel for what is there.

You should now be in a position to grade the questions from good to not so good.

Start with the one you think you will do best.

Read the requirements

Read the requirements of the question first. There is no point in reading the detail of the question until you know what you are looking for.

Answer any sub-requirements now if possible

It may be that there are sections of the question that ask for facts or payment dates and these may be able to be answered without looking at the main body of the question.

Do these first.

Format

Decide the format of your answer and where possible, set up proformas. For example, does the question require a memorandum or a letter.

Keep your answer well spaced out.

You can always turn your page sideways if you need more space for a table.

There are marks specifically allocated for the correct use of formats.

Actively read the question

An excellent way to waste time in the exam is to have to read the question more than once.

To prevent this you must read the question in an active way, by:

- highlighting the relevant sections - the requirement tells you what you are trying to do, so you only need highlight the information you need;

- cross out any parts which are not relevant;

- jot down initial thoughts in the margin next to the appropriate paragraph;

- having gone through the question in detail, go back to the requirements and read them again to ensure that you are answering the question asked.

Answer the question doing the easy bit first

Marks are allocated for getting things right, so do the easy bits first.

When answering the question, remember the golden rule - you must assume that the marker has no technical knowledge. Therefore, your answer needs to set out in a way that can be understood very quickly.

It is important to set out each stage of the calculation and show all your workings.

Where a decision is made as to whether an item is taxable or not, if you include it, it is obvious that you think it is taxable.

However, if you leave something out, how does the examiner know whether you have left it out deliberately, have no clue whatsoever what to do with it, or haven¡¦t seen it in the question?

So - always state that you have left an item out if you want to get all the marks.

Remember that you only get penalised once for making a mistake, so if, for example, you incorrectly miss an item out, so that your taxable income is too low, but you then calculate the tax correctly on your taxable income figure, you will still score marks for that part of the question - provided they can follow what you have done!

This is what we call 'method marking'.

This also emphasises the importance of keeping going in a question to get the chance to display your knowledge - don't get too bogged down with trying to get every part correct - better to attempt all parts of the question than to get stuck on part one!

Presentation

Many students with good technical knowledge are unable to score as well as they should do because their presentation is poor. In the long questions there are presentation marks specifically allocated within the marking guides for layout, impression and style.

Points to consider are:

- buy a decent pen (black or blue only);

- only write on one side of the paper as requested;

- don't write in the margins - the markers need these;

- always use the format specified in the question;

- is it 'calculate with explanations' or 'explain with calculations';

- for a letter there is no need to make up addresses - a simple 'our address' / 'your address' will do - the letter should also have a brief intro and conclusion;

- for a memorandum , use the proper format again;

- remember to tailor the content to whoever it is written to/for;

- do not put calculations in the body of the text - use an Appendix;

- when writing do not make more than one point in a paragraph;

- ideally no paragraph should exceed 4 lines and you should double-space between paragraphs;

- use as many sub-headings as possible to break down an answer, underlining sub-headings with a ruler;

- do not waffle. Think about what you are going to say before you start writing.

Stop on time

If you do not stop on time you are reducing the time for the other questions.

At the end of each question you are probably struggling to achieve the harder marks. You could move on and find there are a lot of easier marks in the first part of the next question.

Paper I

At first glance it appears that you have a choice of which sections to do, however in reality it is likely that if you are studying for routes IIA, IIB, IIC you will attempt Modules A, B & C, and if studying for route IID you will attempt Modules B, D & E. The only potential exception is Corporate route students who may decide to do Module D instead of Module C.

You have 60, 6 mark questions to do in 3 hours - ie, 3 minutes per question. Don't fall into the trap of using the normal 1.8 or 1.7 minutes per mark as you will find yourself seriously short of time at the end!

In reality, taking into account reading time, you have just under 3 minutes. Don't worry too much about taking exactly the right time on each question but do keep an eye on the time after each batch of, say, 10 questions, which should take around 28 minutes. This gives you some valuable breathing space.

You can go through the questions in order if you wish but you may want to consider doing the easy questions first. Questions normally break down into three types:

i) Those you know you can do and are very quick to answer - eg definitions;

ii) Those you know you can do but which will take a bit longer - eg calculations; and

iii) Those that you know you will struggle with technically.

A number of people struggle with time on Paper I by answering questions in order and often miss out easy questions at the end. If you attempt all of the type (i) questions first, then the type (ii) questions, you know that you have got all of the easy marks. This in turn gives you confidence and you can spend the rest of the time working on the type (iii) questions.

It may not suit everyone but how about putting it to the test when you next do a practice paper - after all, that¡¦s what they are there for!

When answering questions remember that you do not need to fill the entire page available to you - if you do you have almost certainly written too much. For written questions you are generally looking for six key points that can be listed in bullet point format.

And finally...

You should think about the CTA examination as being like a driving test. You wouldn't attempt a driving test after only reading about driving a car. You would get out and practice driving, so apply the same logic to this examination - get hold of some past papers and go through them practising these techniques. The more you use them the easier it becomes.

Simon Groom
September 2006

Simon Groom is Head of Tax Training at Tolley Tax Training. He can be contacted at simon.groom@lexisnexis.co.uk

"LexisNexis Tolley® Tax Training" provides quality correspondence, classroom and e-training for the ATT, CTA, AIIT and ADIT examinations. In addition their e-learning package "Tolley¡¦s Tax Tutor" is excellent preparation for anyone studying tax for any professional examination (ACCA, ICAEW, ICAS, AAT etc). For further information please click the following link: www.tolleytraining.co.uk or email your query to taxtraining@lexisnexis.co.uk