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It’s essential to embrace the possibility of failure in order to achieve success. Reason being that failure should only be seen as a temporary setback on your path to a successful career – it should not prevent you from succeeding. Professional exams are not easy and many ACCA members have failed a paper or two on the route to membership. Forget your failures and instead focus on learning from your mistakes and plan for your success.

Grasp the situation?

It’s important to establish what went wrong in order to prevent this from happening in future exams. Did you allocate sufficient time to each question? Did you attempt each question? Did you understand the requirement? Did you simply not study enough? Was your exam technique poor? The answers to these questions will assist you in focusing your efforts when you study.

Review your approach to studying

Review your study habits and establish whether your mode of study is suitable to your lifestyle and routine. Assess whether your study habits need to be changed and whether you could do things differently. Are you aware of the different modes of study available to you: face-to-face (part time or full time) tuition, online study, distance learning, home study – to name but a few?

Attending tuition with one of ACCA’s approved learning partners, joining an online study group or registering for revision courses can all be very effective study methods. Ask your tutor or search ACCA’s tuition provider directory (see 'Related links').

Gain an understanding

It is not surprising to note that the reasons for not passing an exam can actually be easily resolved. A few pointers you may find useful include:

Insufficient knowledge
You cannot successfully pass an exam if you haven’t studied adequately. Be prepared. Topic or question spotting is a common pitfall – there are no shortcuts, so ensure that your preparation covers the entire syllabus.

A cut above the rest
Many students forget to apply their minds to other factors that affect exam performance. Often, these techniques can help you gain those extra marks that will ensure exam success:

• achieve balance before the exam: exercise and a balanced diet aids memory recall
  
• rest the night before the exam
  
• prior to the exam commencing, avoid talking to people who are panic‑stricken
  
• during the exam, ignore those around you
  
• understand the wording of a question, eg state and explain, explain and critically evaluate, etc
  
• use as much paper as you need – do not cramp your answers
  
• use a black pen that is blotch-free and easy to read
• speed reading the text is an invaluable tool if applied correctly
  
• if you do not make answer plans, at least note critical words/points/ideas
  
• state the obvious in an answer, do not assume
  
• if you are struggling for ideas, re-read you answer as it may help you jog your memory
  
• deviate from your time allocation only if you are sure you are scoring marks – do not abandon that question only to move on to a question where you may not be scoring.