Exercise, Workout and Fasting - PART 1

Remember people, health is wealth and is a vital component of academic excellence. A weak body can only let you do so much but a healthy body will max out your limit. 

I consider myself a sick person and very vulnerable to disease and frequently run out of energy quicker than most average person do. I remember when I was in primary 6, there was a basketball try-out to form a team everyone was to participate even the girls. It started with a stamina test where everyone was to sprint and only the last few were to proceed to the next test. Did you know who dropped out first, it was me. Seriously, its not made up and I was utterly embarrassed. 

Growing up in the 90s was great, strict diet - mostly home cook and very small amount of process food.  Everything is good except stamina is low, in mian xiang people with small ears have very low energy levels and vice versa. I find it true to a certain extent because I have small ears and my dad's ear is quite large and can outlasts me in jogging or badminton. 

However, after graduating from high school, I pursue study in West Malaysia and later Australia. Things started to change with living independently, choices become more apparently diverse and usually bad decisions are made. Eating out most of the time and out of control. I can remember those food such as McDonalds, Roti Canai (at least 3 pcs each meal), fried foods and sugar laden snacks & drinks. In Australia, I cook but purchase a lot of candies and chocolates. Years of bad choices, my body decides to award me with a protruding belly LOL. After graduating, working life was hell, often felt bloated, prone to stomach aches, flu and all kinds of health issues.  Worst of them all is that my stomach would emit an embarrassing sound (bowel movements) but so loud people think its fart hahaha. 

Tired of all this shit, I began researching ways to cure myself and almost 3 years of trial & error (mostly fail attempts) 

Fail attempts - Juice diet, Antibiotic medication for bacterial overgrowth, Vegan diet & others. 

Juice diet - too much fructose, Sugar. BAD

Antibiotic medication - WORST. Kills off good bacteria and made my brain felt like shit.

Vegan diet - Vegetables are better than fruits but lack of protein isnt healthy either. You need protein and Omega 3 fatty acids.  

(Next PART 2, will discuss the best way at the moment to address the issue)

To be continue..........

Please visit  http://bnaryrojak.blogspot.my/    for the health article, thank you. Gonna keep this blog purely for ACCA Study tips.

Preparation tips, Study tips and Exam tips - Chapter 2

Good morning,


2.1 Preparation Tips

Except for core papers, research the optional papers before deciding. Now, people normally would decide papers based on their job specialization. For example, if you are doing accounting & tax, you would take P6.  I don't actually recommend this practice because be reminded the new ruling is 7 years to complete P papers, it might seem to be enough but I have seen people failing P-level paper (single) for numerous times, including myself   : ) . So, just pick the option papers that you are confident with. Also, dont be afraid to switch papers but this need to be use with EXTREME CAUTION, I dont want to be held responsible. So, dont quote me on that.

After deciding what to sit, prepare your resources.The most critical resources are listed below:

1. Study text (backbone of your study material) - BPP (highly recommended), Kaplan and GTG also not  bad. But it seems like GTG is shrinking, I used to like their P3 and P7 books.

2. Revision Kit (A must for practice) - BPP (highly recommended). I have never used other publisher. So, cant comment.

3. Your own personalized notes - depends on your style, I like to do my own summarized notes based on study text because I dont want to freak myself out during exam by seeing the wall of text.





Another important preparation is to know the examiner, you need to know your enemy before going into battle. Few ways to know your examiner, read examiner comments which can be found in ACCA web, read all the technical articles, surf opentuition.com (some top students will post tips there)  and discuss with friends who have pass their papers recently.




2.2 Study tips



Consistency, study with consistency. I can say this, last minute study in ACCA will not work. Consistency here means, every week, you must be putting some input into your brain.

Usually, my plan is to familiarize a subject in the 1st - 3rd month. Then, 4th and 5th is usually practice and fixing weaknesses and loopholes.

Create your own personalized notes, making use of abbreviation, mnemonics, mind mapping and other study techniques you are comfortable.

After familiarizing, make sure you practice past year questions and ample practice via revision kit (at least 70% of the total questions).

Besides practice, you need to recall your subjects regularly. That's why you need a summary notes because P-level is very memory, fact-driven and theory intensive. Just like P5 examiner said, equivalent to a Master's degree with the exception you are writing your thesis in the exam hall with a time constraint of 3 hours 15 minutes. So, your research and inputs must be stored in your brain before exam : )  .




2.3 Exam tips

Exam tips is more towards health.

1. One week before exam, relax, exercise, go for movies. Dont let issues affect your emotional state. If you are in a relationship, tell your gf/bf to gtfo for the week or two until exam is done. Healthy mind, physical and emotion are important.

2. Before exam, I highly recommend avoiding caffeinated drinks because you are going to feel exhausted after 2 hours consuming caffeine. Highly recommend drinking FRESH FRUIT JUICES, good energy booster especially when you need to write a lot to increase your chance of passing.

3. Please go to web and research food to avoid before exam, oily & fatty foods for instance.

4. Attempt all questions. You need to try your best to attempt all questions even if you aren't confident. Markers can't award marks if answer scripts are blank.


These are mostly the tips I used to employ. So, if i recall anything, I would update again. Thanks for reading and Good Luck to you. Please share if you find this helpful.

Introduction & Thoughts - Chapter 1

 (This is a brief story on my ACCA Journey)

Good Morning,

First of all, thank you for showing interest in reading this blog. Recently, I managed to pass my last ACCA paper and now I am an affiliate. Not an easy feat at all, especially for someone like me who doesn't have good academic affinity. I believe everyone share the same intelligence, so it is no excuse to say someone does well because he is a genius and whatnot. The person who does well in academic, is due to his/her passion. The passion is the drive to work harder than normal people hence resulting in exceptional result, a cut above the rest.

I have seen many people in my life, as an auditor-in-training and a part-time lecturer, I realize everyone has almost similar intelligence but what separates the good scorers and the poor performers is the level of interest towards study. For my case, the only proud academic achievement I could remember is scoring 6As and 1B in PMR but did terrible in my SPM. In ACCA, I pass most papers on my first attempt except for 3 (P7 - 2nd attempt, P6 - Never, last attempt was 49% and P5 - 2nd attempt).

Having pass most papers in the first attempt, brought along positive and negative traits. Well, of course I took full-time study for paper F7, F9, P1, P2 & P3. Becoming very confident and enhance self-esteem, I continue to get rid of P7 with a pass despite having to self-study part-time (working as an audit assistant during that session) and also one of the lowest pass rate at the time of my passing. With the new found confidence, I decided to stop taking exam for a year to partake in part-time lecturing for new challenges. Ok, here is some advice to readers ------ DO NOT POSTPONE OR DELAY YOUR STUDIES------ Because you have a time limit, old rule is 10 years but with new ruling, you have 7 years to complete all your P-level papers commencing from the first P-level paper you pass. If you exceed 7 years, you need to retake the whole P-level course despite you may have pass some papers before. Please do not underestimate the P-level papers because it took me years to complete just 1 final paper.

Having pass my P7, I decided to take up P6 (MYS) with confident. During the time, I was working for Dayang Enterprise Holdings Berhad as an Internal Audit Assistant. I couldnt exactly remember how many sittings but I guess it was around 2 years with most attempt scoring around 40ish. The last straw I have for this paper was when I decided to go for a 3 months full-time course in KL, leaving the exam hall with high confidence that I would definite pass with ease because most topics examined were within expectation ( I do some spotting just for thrill, do not rely solely on topic spotting).  2 months passed, open email and result read 49%, it was one of the worst day of my life. My heart skipped a beat literally.  That was probably the turning point where my self-confidence and self-esteem was completely shattered. You wont believe how much hatred I have for the P6 (MYS) examiner, cursing and all that : P (we are human after all). 

Now, for people who decide to take up P6. Be reminded, do not look at the ACCA pass rate for P6 because P6 Advanced Taxation is localized, meaning there are various stream (UK, MYS, SG...etc) the pass rate would then be aggregated and will not reflect the pass rate for the Malaysian stream. Few points I would like to share regarding P6 (MYS) is that, I believe the marking is under the purview of MIA because the last examiner (I couldn't remember her name) is working for MIA. Another point, the pass rate in Malaysia is super low that Sunway College removed Ms.Lee in one semester to be replaced by Choong Kwai Fatt (but Ms. Lee remained as the tax lecturer after that) and Sunway College actually did plan to introduce P6 (UK) because the (MYS) stream is just not realistic maybe MIA wanted a quota, who knows ? I understand they want quality accountants but if markings are deliberately distorted to fail students, where is the ethical value and professionalism in that ? So, keep that in mind. If calculation is your thing, try P4.  

Normally, people who scored 49% will try to reattempt the same subject like most others would advise you because its just too close, only 1% to a pass but for my case, it was an exceptional case. That session, I believe I did not deserve to fail since I managed to answer all questions and for the most part with good amount of content written. It felt like the examiner was pulling my leg and laughing at my effort, sweat and money spent on this bloody paper. So, I took the most extreme path which is to abandon P6 (MYS) and take up P5. P5 used to be a decent paper with good pass rate if not the best under examiner Nick Ryan, most of the time is around 35 - 42% pass rate. However, examiner change under certain intervals (5 years i think) and so does the pass rate and difficulty of those papers. P5 under the current examiner is one of the toughest paper with an average pass rate of not more than 35% and at the time of my failing (1st attempt) was 29% pass rate. However, thank God, the Divine, Family members (awesome support), Friends..etc managed to pass the December 2014 session and now an affiliate. 

Imagine, 6 months to prepare for an exam, 2 months wait for results. That is a total of 8 months of effort and waiting game, ACCA is not solely academic but a mental & psychological challenge especially for people who aren't fond of academic exams. 

P/S; I am not trying to brag or anything because there are people who scored better than me and also completed earlier than me. The purpose I did this sharing was because when I was lost, trying to pass ACCA. I was searching up and down for resources, personal tips and etc. So, I said to myself if I pass my final paper I will share my experience as well as tips. Thank You.

Please proceed or skip to Chapter 2 for the study and exam tips