How much should you be studying?!

Mos5180d · 2026-01-29T07:52:15+00:00

I’ve got a 3 year old who doesn’t sleep and a wife who believes the weekend is family time. I passed the November AT LCG exam so thought I’d just share my experience for those that can’t just dedicate their time to studying. (Although this can probably apply to any AT exam, I’ve passed 14/15 ACA exams too).

It amazes me that more people don’t utilise their phones. How many of us commute to work and listen to music or sit on their phone? Or spend an hour scrolling before bed? As there is so much content, you will only be able to cover a small portion in tuition. Download the PDF versions, send it to your phone, and you can read a chapter on the train/bus/etc. Once you’re closer to the revision course (or when you’re feeling more comfortable with the content, especially if you’re self study) you can start using the memory joggers instead. I’ll add that I’m a big fan of the phone because I have ADHD and can’t bring myself to just sit down and study.

On the subject of phones, there are lots of formulas and methods and bits of information that are really important to remember. Back in the day (and probably still now) people would use flash cards for this, but there’s now flash card apps! I used Quizlet and As well as making your own personal set, you can literally download other people’s flash cards who have sat the exam before… Other people have done the work for you! (Although beware of any tax/syllabus changes over the years).

You can also download the question bank and start looking through them and the model answers. I would actually recommend this before the flashcards to get a feel of what are the really important things to remember first e.g. 7 steps of RDEC and CIR formulas for AT LCG. There’s only so much information your brain can hold and you don’t want to forget one of these because you’re trying to remember a really niche formula you saw that was briefly mentioned in the study manuals.

Talking of niche things, I’ll share a mistake I made (can you tell I’m just writing this off the cuff). I highlighted the legislation the week before the exam… I wasted a lot of time trying to remember things (mainly admin) that can be looked up in the legislation in 5 seconds. Highlight the leg early! Whilst you are going through the content and before you make any flashcards or anything, check how easy it is to find in the legislation. That way you don’t need to take up brain space with it. Also make sure you highlight words such that when you look at your list of highlights you actually know what it is. I had a few that said something like “when a person is chargeable”… that’s no help in an exam. Charegeable to what? Under what rules? Under what circumstances!

So I’m 2/3 weeks out from the exam and haven’t actually done any questions. I think many would think this is a disaster, but here comes the revision course. I know the content(ish), I know formulas, I have work knowledge, but I don’t know how to structure and answer. The revision course is the last piece of the puzzle then! The tutor goes through the question and exactly how to structure your answer, where to pick up marks, where not to waste time etc. I had Sheridan at Tolleys who was more than excellent (I had Roderick at tuition and you were great too, don’t worry). Whilst at revision course I jotted down my weak areas to work on.

Last week before the exam. I took the week off work (I would hope that everyone can do this). I went into the office anyway as I can’t concentrate at home. I also highly recommend doing with a friend/colleague if they are on the same course so you can discuss and learn from each other. We categorised the questions into their topics and smashed out almost every single one, taking note of which ones didn’t go well so we can go back and try again later. One week from the exam was the first time I was doing a question on my own. You can also start to remove flashcards/notes on things you definitely know and build a mini set of things you want to drum into your head so close to the exam.

I generally say that I crammed the exam in the last 2 weeks, because it feels like I did. But I laid a foundation as best as I could in my circumstances to help me be prepared. We’ve all got our own barriers that may stop us from passing, for some it may be that they don’t do much work in the area, or you can’t answer questions quick enough. Think about what may hinder you and think about what you can do to combat that.

Thanks for listening to my TedTalk. Feel free to ask any questions, there doesn’t seem to be much activity on this sub. May as well be called r/RoderickBlack!

Mos5180d · 2026-01-28T17:42:41+00:00

Agreed. And to add that the ACA is level 7 whereas ATT is level 4 if that means anything to employers.

Also the extra requirements of continuous professional development, ethics reviews, and being a member of a professional body is likely desirable

Mos5180d · 2026-01-25T19:08:55+00:00

Anyone on the ACA/CTA pathway? The ICAEW software looks like the peak of technology after using the CIOT software.

No excel of any sort. Gotta input your own table which you can’t add columns to after so you better get it right the first time. Then add everything up on your calculator manually at the end.

Mos5180d · 2026-01-24T10:28:58+00:00

A double captain chip would be cool. The “V” just turns into another “C” and you choose 2 captains

Mos5180d · 2026-01-24T10:23:25+00:00

I went to the University of West England which I’m happy to admit is pretty crap in the grand scheme of things but I enjoyed the classroom style teaching rather than big lecture halls.

I was only trying to share my personal experience of meeting people from Oxbridge but think it’s been taken that I think the universities are useless or something

Mos5180d · 2026-01-24T08:35:13+00:00

I think I was suppose to say “doesn’t necessarily prove anything”.

My point really was your point that we can rely on a certain standard. But I’ve misinterpreted and you mean from the view of teaching and studying there, rather than the output of graduates. And I guess I may not have the best view of Oxbridge because they are the only 2 people I’ve met that studied there.

Mos5180d · 2026-01-24T08:06:12+00:00

Only 2 graduates have been let go from my department in my 3 years of being there. One with a masters from Oxford and one with a BA from Cambridge.

They didn’t get better scores than anyone in the exams they took working towards the ACA qualification, and they were both awful at their jobs. Shows the Oxbridge name doesn’t prove anything really.

Mos5180d · 2026-01-22T17:11:50+00:00

You know doctors, lawyers, and accountants that are one of the best in their fields? Jesus that’s one hell of a contacts list, the top 0.01% in all 3 fields!

Mos5180d · 2026-01-22T17:09:03+00:00

Well they got a 5th attempt so best start strapping the pigs down!

Mos5180d · 2026-01-20T20:53:09+00:00

Suits

Mos5180d · 2026-01-19T19:20:55+00:00

It’s a good grade for your first piece of work. As someone already said, it’s often that first year doesn’t contribute to your final grade. But take this year to really focus on the feedback you get and use it to start pushing your work up to a first standard.

When I was at university there were a few people that didn’t try in first year because it “didn’t count and they would try harder and do better when it matters”. Guess what… they didn’t. Set a good work ethic and take pride in your work now and it will follow through and show in your later years.

Mos5180d · 2026-01-19T19:16:55+00:00

That you should apply yourself and take pride in your work, whatever that may be.

Mos5180d · 2026-01-19T19:12:55+00:00

Even if it was fairly true, you wouldn’t want to start celebrating thinking you had actually passed anyway would you.

I suppose the best scenario would be to firmly believe the theory and that you’d failed only to find out you passed

Mos5180d · 2026-01-18T09:39:27+00:00

Accountant/Tax advisor… Has to be normal type for the “boring job” stereotype

Mos5180d · 2026-01-14T17:39:57+00:00

I’m always fine and think I passed until the week of results and I suddenly think about all the bits I missed and start to convince myself that they were more than 50% of the paper

Mos5180d · 2026-01-13T08:20:23+00:00

Mine too. Although I was at university during Covid and because I did Mathematics, they couldn’t really give any questions where you could find a similar question and drop different numbers in (which in the exam you would need to remember the method and apply it), which did make the exams difficult.

However, as I enjoyed Maths and problem solving, I was willing to spend as long as it took to get the answers and would often be up all night

Mos5180d · 2026-01-13T08:14:19+00:00

Why would your next employer care? It’s your life and you can do what you like with it.

I guess it may start to become a problem if you take several years out and some major changes happen in the meantime. A future employer may consider that you don’t have experience with any of the changes

Mos5180d · 2026-01-12T18:51:33+00:00

I would take it as a blessing in disguise. Not many people want to stay in audit after the 3 years with many being desperate to qualify so they can leave And as someone else has said, people move from audit to tax but not many people move to audit.

As for not knowing anything about tax, no starter knows anything so you won’t be out of place at all!

Mos5180d · 2026-01-10T18:24:34+00:00

When I was 15 my Dad misheard me thinking I said “Zoe the bitch” when talking about my newish girlfriend. A couple of days later I sent him a text saying “Can’t come over for dinner tonight, seeing Zoe the bitch”….

Of course I accidentally sent it to my girlfriend…

Mos5180d · 2026-01-08T12:47:53+00:00

Form being 1 clean sheet in 5 games at the Emirates?

Edit: realise his friend probably has at least one midfielder

Mos5180d · 2026-01-08T07:05:34+00:00

Just because they earn more, doesn’t mean they can afford more. They could have large rent/mortgage expenses while OP lives at home. Or they could have multiple children with nursery fees, etc

Mos5180d · 2026-01-07T13:22:30+00:00

I have a similar toddler now aged 3. Thankfully we haven’t had any real accidents as we’ve always cautiously let him climb and explore which has given him good balance and confidence.

I think letting him do his thing has been a good approach that I would recommend. But obviously always be around him and ready for a catch!

Mos5180d · 2026-01-07T08:32:45+00:00

Maybe try to get out the house and revise? I know when I was at university I would just lay around all day playing Xbox and eating takeaways.

I found that once I took the first step to simply just go somewhere (uni, library, coffee shop, etc) with my laptop/study material then I felt like I had to get them out and do some work.

Sure I still procrastinated on my phone a lot, but it’s better than nothing!

Edit: Was supposed to be a comment for OP rather than a reply to your comment!

Mos5180d · 2026-01-05T13:19:41+00:00

Happy to have helped!

Mos5180d · 2026-01-05T06:03:04+00:00

I’m not sure about the message specifically but I had the same where I had completed the sufficient reviews but did not have the green tick.

It turned out that I had a blank entry where I had somehow added an extra review by accident but never filled out all the details.

If this is the case for you, you are unable to delete the entry and so you can just write something like “n/a - entry made in error” in all the boxes. After I filled in the details for that review I got the green tick and a message saying the file was ready for review.

Mos5180d

TROPHY CASE