HikmaDaily

Every year I see the same thing. A student who understands double entry, who can explain why depreciation is an expense, who answers well in class, walks out of the exam with a grade well below what they could have got.

It is rarely the hard topics that cost them. It is a missing heading. Carriage outwards put in cost of sales. The whole provision for doubtful debts charged to the income statement instead of just the change. Twenty minutes spent chasing a balance sheet that is out by 300.

Whether your exam is six weeks away or six days away, the fix is the same: find where you are leaking marks and close those gaps. Here is how I tell my own students to revise, with a plan for each stage at the end.

First, get the mindset right

You cannot learn the whole syllabus again in a few days, and you do not need to. What you can do is find the places where you are leaking marks and close them.

That means less reading. Accounting is a skill subject, and you do not get better at it by reading, any more than you get better at swimming by reading about swimming. Notes feel productive because everything looks familiar. Familiar is not the same as being able to produce it on a blank page in 15 minutes. For every hour you spend reading during revision, spend at least two writing answers.

And treat every wrong answer during revision as good news. Each one is a mark you have found before the examiner did. Students who get upset at wrong answers start avoiding questions. Students who collect them improve fastest.

1. Start with a blank page, not your notes

Take a blank sheet and write down everything you remember on a topic before opening your notes. For income statements, write out the full layout: revenue, less returns, cost of sales with opening inventory, purchases, carriage inwards, closing inventory, gross profit, then expenses down to profit for the year.

Then open the notes and compare. Whatever you missed is what you actually need to revise. It takes ten minutes and tells you more than an hour of reading.

2. Learn the formats until you can write them half asleep

A large share of marks in Accounting go to layout: the right headings, the right order, the right labels. If the format is automatic, your thinking goes into the figures. If it is not, you waste time and marks working out where things go. These are the ones to know cold:

• Two- and three-column cash book, and the bank reconciliation statement
• Sales and purchases ledger control accounts
• Journal entries with narratives, and the suspense account
• Income statement and statement of financial position for a sole trader
• Partnership appropriation account and current accounts
• Receipts and payments account, and the income and expenditure account for clubs
• Manufacturing account

Write one or two out from memory every morning until the exam. It sounds boring. It works.

Start with the income statement. The sole trader income statement format sets out the layout line by line, with a full worked example to practise from.

3. The small things carry real marks

Examiners give marks for details that students treat as decoration. A title with the business name and the correct date (“for the year ended” for an income statement, “at” for a statement of financial position). Balance b/d and c/d written in. Dates in ledger accounts. Narratives under journal entries. Each one is small, and across a paper they add up.

4. Know the traps before the exam finds them for you

These are the mistakes I correct most often:

• Carriage inwards goes in cost of sales. Carriage outwards is an expense.
• Drawings are deducted from capital. They are never an expense in the income statement.
• For the provision for doubtful debts, only the increase or decrease goes to the income statement. The full provision is deducted from trade receivables.
• Accrued expenses are added to the expense and shown as a current liability. Prepaid expenses are deducted and shown as a current asset.
• Capital expenditure goes to the statement of financial position. Repairs and running costs are revenue expenditure.
• In a bank reconciliation, unpresented cheques and outstanding lodgements belong in the statement. Bank charges and direct debits go in the updated cash book.

Write these on one card and read it every morning until the exam, including the morning of.

5. Do papers under time, then mark them like an examiner

This is where most of your improvement will come from. Sit a full paper, timed, without notes. Then mark it with the mark scheme, and be strict. If the scheme wants a heading and you did not write one, that mark is gone.

Keep an error log: a page with three columns for the question, what you wrote, and what the mark scheme wanted. After one or two papers you will see the same few mistakes again and again. Those are your real revision topics for the days left.

6. Always show your workings

If your final figure is wrong but your method is right, workings can still earn you marks. Without them, a wrong answer gets nothing. Label each working clearly so the examiner can follow it. It costs you thirty seconds and can save several marks per question.

7. Practise the written questions too

Many students throw away the “advise”, “explain” and “discuss” parts because they only practise numbers. These questions follow a pattern. Make a point, explain it, and connect it to the business in the question. If you are asked whether a trader should take out a loan, do not write a general essay about loans. Use her figures, and end with a clear decision.

Your revision plan, by how much time you have

Time left	Focus
6 weeks or more	One topic a week: blank-page test first, then that topic’s past-paper questions. Start your error log. Write one format from memory each morning.
2 to 6 weeks	Two timed papers a week, marked strictly. Rebuild your traps card from the error log. One written “advise” or “explain” question a day.
Final week	A full timed paper every other day. Formats and traps card each morning. No new topics; fix what the error log keeps showing.
The day before	Formats from memory, read the traps card once, then rest.

Starting late? Sit one paper first, whatever day it is. A marked paper tells you where to spend the time you have.

On the day

Read the whole question before you write anything. The last line often tells you what format they want. Check how many marks each part carries and spend your time to match. Never leave a part blank, since a correct heading alone can earn a mark.

And if your statement of financial position does not balance, write the totals, move on, and come back at the end if there is time. You lose a mark or two for a difference. You lose far more by running out of time on the next question.

Revision done this way is less comfortable than reading notes. It is also the only kind that shows up in the result.