hi,

it did not cross my mind but you are probably right. me personally i would never ask for help in an exam, i do like challanges, but i can actually imagine people would do that. anybody does this is not cheating on the exam but cheating on him or herself...you can pass an exam in many ways but if you havent got the actual knowledge what,s the point?
that,s just my opinion

-- Edited by attilabenko on Monday 7th of June 2010 11:23:49 PM

I wouldn't value an exam taken at home, too many resources to draw on, too easy to cheat.

For some reason I don,t think people who are continuously doing these sort of things will join in this debate...

Hi

I am doing a book keeping course. My training provider is 'Training Link', who are not being very helpful in assisting me with the course material. That is the main reaon why I ask for help on this forum. They give the following reason for not providing any help with the course-

They say that I have passed all the assignments in the allocated work book and have got them correct. the next stage is now the mock exam (which I do at home on the computer). After passing the mock exam, I would be given a date when I can sit the proper exam.

It is the mock exam that I am stuck on. They are saying that because it is an 'exam', they cannot give me any assistance. The thing that most upsets me is that they are only willing to go through the mock exam with me if I get the trial balance to balance. Obviously, if I did get the trial balance to balance then I would most likely get the correct answer, and there would be no need for my training provider to go through the exam paper with me!

Another thing that I have been silly in doing is that - This book keeping course is in 3 levels. I am on the first level - however, I have paid for all the 3 levels upfront. However, the total amount of money hasn't exactly left my account, I am paying in instalments. If they don't change their behaviour, I have a good mind to cancel the future direct debits and change my course & provider - I am thinking of doing the AAT.

Would I be breaking any laws if I cancelled my direct debits and chose not to continue with the course?

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Hi,

I think its silly they won't help you thats what they are paid for isn't it! The mock exam is to highlight any weaknesses if there are any.
Like Steve says read the contract and see if you can cancel, even if they charge you an admin charge its got to be worth it.

AAT is definately the best route.

Good luck.
Amanda

Geek

I wasn't aiming that at anyone in particular, just a general discussion of people's views.

With mock exams I also think perhaps you training company is correct in not giving you advice otherwise they would not know what you need more help with prior to the proper exam.

Regards cancelling a direct debit again as others have said it would depend on any contract you may have signed with the provider. If you have signed on the dotted line it would be somewhere in the small print as to what, if any, cancellation charges there were or whether you were contracted to the full amount whether you continued the course of not.

Hi Sheila,

the current deluge of questions was something that I discussed with Manjinder on another thread. He was in agreement that considering the level of questions in his first thread it was a good idea to take a step back and rethink his current stage studies.

I have noticed though that we are now getting a lot of very specific questions and there were a couple a few days ago that just cut and pasted questions and demanded an answer which made me think that they might have been under the impression that we were being paid for the help that we give on here.

The fact that specific questions were asked did make me wonder at the time whether we were being asked to assist in an actual exam situation.

In a few of my replies I've tried to point people in the right direction but not given any actual answers which is the approach that I think, at least for exam style questions, we should adopt when answering on the site.

For specific questions of course one cannot help but give the answer but when it's a whole trial balance that needs resolving, yes the likes of ourselves can do it but it's really not helping the newbies if we end up doing it for them.

I think that with some of the people just moving into bookkeeping they are trying to run before they're really ready to walk.

Unfortunately with so many redundancies at the moment people are believing the hype and are jumping into bookkeeping like drowning men clambering onto the first piece of driftwood that comes in reach.

Unfortunately people invest a lot of money on the back of empty training provider promises before realising that it's really nowhere near as straight forwards as training providers would have them believe.

It's my belief that some people will never get it and others that do will never enjoy it. Hopefully our messages on this site help some people to read the right books before investing large amounts of their redundancy money but I know that many more join the site when it's already too late.

Anyway, I'm getting off piste. basically, yes, I agree with you and think that we should answer exam style questions with how to answers rather than the actual answers.

Just my thoughts. Hope it made sense.

Hi Manjinder,

Did they give you much help when you were going through the book learning it before the mock exam?

I agree with Peasie, it may have been a special price with all 3 levels, hence one level will be expensive.

Have you checked they are legit??? The only reason I say this, is years ago (about 10), I signed up for a computer course the guy came to my house and again heavy sales stuff, anyway after about 2 hours and struggling to get rid of him I agreed to sign up for the course, can't remember who with, paid a cheque, I think the deposit was about £50 then again installments after that, anyway read on the internet that the company was going bust and there would be loads of students left high and dry. Well I cancelled my cheque with the bank I think it cost me £10 and cancelled all my installments etc. I rang them to tell them I didn't want to do it (there was a cooling off period), and they said they would send the guy round to collect the books (worth about £100), anyway never turned up, so I have these books, some very useful in my loft.

So although we would all like to think the training providers are OK, some are not.

Its just a thought HTH
Amanda

PS, can you not finish the mock exam as best as you can after going though it and checking it for errors etc, you may get it to balance then, and then send it in to see how you have done, at least it will highlight any areas that need more practise before the real exam.



-- Edited by Amanda on Tuesday 8th of June 2010 04:12:06 PM

Oooops thats got to hurt, seems like it does pay to shop around after all.

Shamus wrote:

---

Shamus wrote:

---

If the situation is that you have financed a purchase then there is no difference between buying the course and buying a car.

You may even find that the finance arrangement if not actually with who you think that it is!

If conversely the materials for the next two parts have not been delivered and will not be delivered until you pay for them then the situation is quite different. That seems more akin to a magazine subscription.

Hi Peasie,

you quoted the wrong line of mine then. From your quote it's obviously the first option that's applicable. Namely that you have taken out a loan exactly the same as you would to buy a car.

---

I'm not sure what the logic was behind the bit I was quoting. Maybe to point out that it wasn't like a magazine subscription. Who knows the way my mind works at times. Certainly not me. What I did find funny was when I pasted it into this forum the font became even smaller. "The small print" becoming even smaller.

I've been doing the ICB Level 2 Manual mock exam just now and in between questions I've been visiting the forum. I found the exam a little too easy for my liking. Maybe that will backfire and I'll actually fail it (or fail the real thing). Or maybe the stuff has actually sunk in. They send out a mock exam with Ideal Schools. I think I may go ahead and purchase another one from the ICB as I won't be able to sit the exam until July anyway.

And there you go!

Sometimes it worries me how much superfluous knowledge must be swimming around in the recesses of my mind. No wonder I can't remember half the things that I need to when I hold onto all these things that I really don't need.

On the exam front my money is on that you've got it sussed Peasie. Rather than invest in another ICB Mock why not do some of the old CAT exams which are available for free on the ACCAGlobal website,

Have a look here :

http://www.accaglobal.com/students/cat/exams/

go to any of the papers that interest you and try the past exam papers in either UK or International versions.

Might be a good idea to save them to your own drive as you never know when the ACCA are going to do an AAT and make them only available to signed up members.

Have fun and talk later,

Shaun.