Section A will contain both narrative and calculative questions. There will also be a mix of application and knowledge and perhaps more important to note difficulty (think easy, medium, hard here). The examiner is promising that each area of the syllabus will be covered in section A.

　　For section B, she stressed that there could be a question that was purely narrative (see December 2014 balanced scorecard question).

　　The performance in the December 2014 MCQs was very good, said the examiner. The pass rate rose 5% on June 2014. As other examiners have noted, some students are failing to use the correct answer sheet. That said, she felt there was no evidence of confusion over any of the questions. Looking specifically at the 10-mark questions, she revealed Q1 on learning curves was answered well. In Q2 there appeared some confusion of the term ‘bottleneck’ and in Q3 candidates could tackle relevant costing numbers but not explain the reasons behind them!

　　When it came to the 15-markers, in Q4 students had a good knowledge of the four perspectives of balanced scorecard. But there was an inability to write goals and measures. In Q5, variance calculations were done well but there was a lack of understanding of what an adverse material mix variance actually shows.

　　The examiner revealed that her questions are often affected by what is happening in her life. We discovered she gets her hair done a lot and goes to the gym. Her neighbours are medics and a former partner works in the games business. One time she was looking for inspiration and just starting staring at the printer in her office – inspiration came.