Whilst the 4 exam sittings offer more flexibility, we understand they can be a little confusing as you now have much more choice. Read our blog on how to plan your studies and decide on the best route for you.
When planning your studies, it’s important to consider other factors such as your workload - do any of the exam sittings clash with busy periods at work, your personal life - do any of them clash with holidays or events and what best suits your approach to learning?
Depending on when you want to study, these are your options:
- Traditional; twice a year
Studying two subjects in two core sittings (either June & December, or March & September) will give you 12 to 16 weeks to prepare for your exams and still allow you to know the results from your previous exam sitting before moving onto the next. You can really focus on your new subjects without having to worry about waiting for exam results. Plus, you can still use the other 2 sittings to resit any papers and keep your studies on track.
- Intensive; every quarter
Studying 1 paper every 3 months allows you to focus on one subject at a time which you may find beneficial as you progress to the higher level papers. This is because some of the subjects in the higher level are harder, or have a larger syllabus to cover. However, this might mean that you have to start studying for your next paper before you have the results of your most recent exam if you want to have the optimum amount of time to prepare. If you want to wait until you receive your exam results before starting your studies for your next paper, this would mean studying over an intense period of 7 weeks.
- A combination
This approach is ideal if you want to have more flexibility throughout the year and vary the number of papers you take at each sitting; to allow for peak times in work or important events in your personal life.
For example, you could sit one subject in March, two in June and another in December. This would mean you are still sitting four exams in a year, but you have time for a summer holiday.
We asked our tutors how their students are benefiting from the move to 4 sittings. Here is a selection of their comments:
"The 4 sittings give added flexibility as students can either concentrate on one exam per sitting and progress through the qualification quickly or have a sitting on and a sitting off dependent on what is going on in their personal lives."
"Students can now progress through the qualification quickly as they no longer have to wait 6 months to resit."
"My students were all first timers. They had chosen to sit an exam in September as they wanted to get through their ACCA qualification much quicker."
Kaplan offer courses for all 4 exam sittings to allow you to plan your year and study when it suits you. Find out more about our ACCA courses.