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4 STEPS...
to maximising marks for questions that require written answers
Unleash your knowledge and structure your thoughts for maximum impact. Every word counts - make them work for you!
Good quality accountancy is as much about communication as it is numbers. This is because without the communication skills needed to explain the numbers, they are just that; figures on a statement or in a spreadsheet, as opposed to insights that support business performance and decision making. If you were a client looking for an accountant or an employer seeking to fill an accountancy role, which skills would you value?
So how do you successfully combine accountancy and written communication?
Step 1
Make it personal
Generally writing is easier once you understand what you are writing about and relating accounting topics and concepts to personal and/or work based experiences is one of the best ways of developing your understanding. There are lots of simple ways to do this regardless of whether you currently work in an accounting environment or not. You could:
● Use free accounting software and/or a spreadsheet, in conjunction with your own personal banking transactions to practise double entry bookkeeping and reconciliations
● Generate sales invoices for items you sell online; it doesn’t matter that you won’t actually send them, the point is to see how an accounting system works
● Look at receipts and see which items include VAT and at what rate. Use HMRC's website to find out whether you will have paid VAT if the receipt doesn’t show it
● Watch video footage of different business environments. For example, whilst the context of a supermarket is easy to connect with, it is less likely that you can relate to a factory that produces food unless you have experience of working in a manufacturing environment. Watching something like ‘Inside the Factory’ makes concepts of cost accounting easier to grasp
● Use your personal finances to have a go at budgeting. Maybe prepare a cashflow projection as well, to see if any saving plans would enable you to buy, for example, a new car or house. If you need to take out a loan, what’s the payback period and NPV of your intended new non-current asset?
Step 2
Be systematic
Once you know about accounting topics and understand them, you will be able to start answering questions about them. However, producing good written answers starts with reading, to ensure you have accurately interpreted the question.
One of the key things you need to understand are the command verbs that examiners use to indicate the type of answer they are looking for. Relevant resources can be found on the learning portal:
Identifying command verbs is part of a systematic approach to breaking down and unpicking complex information and questions, called BUG. It’s an acronym for:
● Box the command verb
● Underline the key points
● Glance back over the question to ensure nothing is missed or misinterpreted
Using BUG will help you be confident that you’ve interpreted questions correctly so you can produce answers that will maximise the marks available.
Step 3
Talk
In an assessment you would compose your answer after you’ve used BUG to break it down. However, you don’t want to be writing about a topic for the first time in exam conditions. Writing is a skill that develops with time and improves with practice. It is generally easier to do once you understand what you are writing about and talking about things helps us to understand them. This is because in order to say words out loud, our brains have to re-arrange information and that process helps embed knowledge into our long term memory. Therefore, before you start writing, talk to your tutor and other students about your understanding of:
● what a question is asking
● what type of answer the verbs used require
● what your answer should include
● how your answer could be linked to the scenario, if there is one.
Having these kinds of conversations will result in you being confident that your interpretation of a question is accurate and will also help you structure your answer before you actually write it. Perhaps you could record conversations, noting down phrases or wording which would be good to use in written answers.
Step 4
Write about it
Once you put pen to paper, you can keep sentences and paragraphs short. Try not to worry too much about spelling and grammar as it isn’t assessed and at work corrections are often suggested by software. The important thing is that you can express your knowledge and understanding clearly, so concentrate on the structure of answers and focus on technical content, linking it to any scenario information given.
Whilst you are studying, write about topics as a way of developing your knowledge, understanding and confidence. Once you start revising, practise writing answers that will maximise your marks. The length and complexity of required answers develops over the levels as the verbs become more advanced and the number of marks available increase. So at level 2 you may only need to write a sentence or two whereas at level 4 you might need to provide a couple of paragraphs. The length of the answer needed will be indicated by the number of marks available and the type by the command verb.
The answers for written questions are not as definitive as they are for calculations. Which is why the model answers for AAT practice assessments include mark schemes for written tasks. However, these are not exemplar answers. Therefore it’s important to understand the difference between the answers examiners expect and mark schemes. The latter only provide guidance on what content could be awarded marks, not how it should be presented. Therefore, regularly seeking constructive feedback about your written work is crucial so that your tutors can help you develop appropriate answers.
Key takeaways
1
Relate knowledge and understanding to your own experiences
2
Practice breaking down and unpicking complex information and questions so you’re confident of your interpretation
3
talk about topics, questions and answers
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