As part of your structured study plan we emphasise the importance of practicing with past exam papers. Practice, practice, practice.
You will have been doing this for years.
The reasons are obvious and are 4-fold:
*Make yourself familiar with the format of the exam
*Practice case studies and questions
*Get used to writing for three hours
*Assess your answers against the model answers
These are all really important for your preparation to be good preparation.
There is one other very good reason; so that you get to know what information is included in the tax table at the back.
The format of these tax tables rarely change, although obviously the figures are updated in accordance with the tax year being examined.
The tax tables are also consistent between subject papers.
I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to spend some time familiarising yourself with the information in the tax tables and this is equally relevant to AF3,
AF4 and AF5 study. It might surprise you to know this, but there are times when the answer to a question is actually in the tax tables and yet candidates haven’t even bothered to check. It might only be one or two marks, but these are easy marks and you want them on your answer paper, not hiding at the back of the questions.
Knowing what is in the tax table means can save yourself a certain amount of study and revision time (and worry) in NOT having to remember quite a lot of factual
information. For example, the National Insurance rates are given in weekly, monthly and yearly amounts so you don’t need to work any of that out for yourself. Again it might only save you thirty seconds in doing your calculation, but every second counts and it will give you the confidence that you are using the right numbers.
You’ll have quite enough to do in the exam room as it is. Use every (legitimate) additional resource available to help you do a good job.
One mark can be the difference between a pass and a very painful retake (as we all know).
Use the tax tables and bag every single mark.
