The team here at www.TonySurridge.co.uk have worked hard to get this much needed ACCA F9 practice paper ready and published in good time before the ACCA exams in December 2010. Following hot on the heels of our recent E-book launch for our ACCA F5 Diagnostic Tests title, this similarly styled F9 E-book should prove equally popular amongst ACCA students, especially with the exam date looking in the foreground.
Different from both the “Exam- Style” and “CBE-Style (computer based exams)” questions and answers E-books that Tony Surridge has also written for other ACCA subjects, his new range of “Diagnostic Tests” E-books focuses more on DRILLING the key topics into the minds of the ACCA students, helping them to practice the individual parts that make up the whole. The goal is to constantly reiterate the small parts, to make the learning process less daunting, easier to digest, and therefore become second nature when answering in their ACCA exams. Always remember...“A whole is made up from the sum of its parts.”
This particular ACCA F9 Diagnostic Tests Q&A E-book from accountancy publishers www.TonySurridge.co.uk contains over 400 practice questions with full detailed answers, and is the ideal accompaniment to our corresponding ACCA Revision Mnemonics and ACCA Exam Study Text for F9. Covering 11 topics in total, this F9 Diagnostic Tests E-book is bound to help any struggling student with their ACCA studies, or for those who just need further ACCA revision alongside their existing ACCA course.
And best yet... the price is still only £3 (only whilst discount and promotional price lasts)
Click here for further information about this new F9 Diagnostic Tests E-book product, or here for the full range of ACCA study materials, as authored and published by www.TonySurridge.co.uk
Wednesday 27 October 2010
Wednesday 20 October 2010
A Soft Skill You Must Be Aware Of - Part II
“Build your credibility fast with your audience by showing confidence and that you are in control of your subject presentation”, says Mr. Sadaqat, a local manager of a screening company.
The following presentation techniques gathered from various training seminars could help:
* Understand the audience’s background and their motivation to attend
* Use the most effective audio and visual aids – but don’t overdo it!
* Define the objectives of your presentation
* Organize the data to be presented in a clear sequence that is persuasive
* Show confidence while presenting to the audience
* Control your body language in its movements, gestures and other non-verbal elements of communication
* Handle questions and its responses in a professional manner
* Grab the attention of the audience by delivering a unique presentation “opener” such as a joke, interesting examples and anecdotes, etc.
The Presentation Design
Your design, and method will help you deliver an excellent presentation with great confidence.
Have a look at these step by step presentation suggestions:
Make a Creative Opening to your Presentation
You can always make your presentation opening unique and memorable. A good example sits with the presenter who was addressing the CEO of major airlines in the US. He was called upon by the organizer to take the floor. He did not. For 10 minutes or so all these CEOs and executives awaited his appearance. When they started to leave their seats, he suddenly shows up and made his opening speech: “Ladies and Gentlemen, sorry for being late – but this is how your airline passengers feel when your planes are late in departure”.
Begin with making sure that your audience is ready to receive the message. This is a milestone in your presentation design.
Then communicate the message. Make sure that the audience listens, receives and understand the message.
* Analogies related to the subject
* A strong quote
* Get the audience to do something – interactivity
* Ask a Question – interactivity again
* Use an imaginary situation
* Use humor
* Use a controversial opening and quickly qualify it
Introductory Opening Remarks about the Subject
Your introductory opening is very important in the presentation design phase. Here are few advices from some experts we talked with:
* Welcome the people attending and introduce them if it’s a meeting
* Indicate the time schedule and planned breaks
* Go through any health and safety routines, such as fire alarm procedures
* Check that everyone can see the visual aids
* Acknowledge the start of presentation
To see our Full article for free, click here
TonySurridge.co.uk - We offer everything you need including ACCA course, ACCA exam, ACCA study, ACCA books, ACCA revision, ACCA study books, ACCA revision course & ACCA courses online in UK.
I Would Recommend You Panic
The Banking crisis in Europe is not a secret anymore. For months the top leaders of the European Union resisted the idea of a bailout for Greece, wringing their hands over the estimated $61 billion cost.* While the jawboning continued, the infection took hold. Bond vigilantes drove the Greeks' borrowing costs into the double digits.
According to IMSF **, Germany issued a blanket guarantee of all its consumer bank deposits, or €568 billion, together with a second, bigger bailout plan for failed Hypo Real Estate Holding (€400 billion in assets).
According to BusinessWeek***, Belgian-Dutch insurer Fortis, for example, holds $5.4 billion in Greek government debt—and $4.1 billion of Portuguese government debt, according to bank statements and public documents.
In my opinion, the riskiness of these eastern European loans is now coming to light as the global economic recession in both east and west Europe is forcing western banks to pull back, refusing to renew loans or ‘rollover’ the credits, leaving thousands of borrowers with unpayable loan debts. The dimension of the eastern European emerging loan crisis pales anything yet realized. It will force a radical new look at the entire question of bank nationalizations in coming weeks regardless what nice hopes politicians in any party entertain.
The last night, I was watching a video on Youtube* where Gillian Tett, assistant editor at Financial Times said, “We are not in the banking crises yet but the atmosphere is getting very nervous in market”. And in the same video all the guests agree on one single point that yes, the markets are in panic. Hugh Hendry from Ecletica Asset Management when talking about panic even said, “I would recommend you Panic. The European banking system is in crisis”.
Mr. Riaz Akhtar, a constructor working in Asia and Europe agrees with the current budget of UK government. “It is better to adjust your expenses for the sake of larger and longer term sustainability”, he said.
“Debt is better for profitability but it should be used carefully – in areas where it will bring more revenues – but we started to (we includes private and public sectors) use it as our finances are dependent on it”. He added. “don’t we all know that if Greece could handle its tax evasion practices then they might never need the bailout package from EU?”
To see our Full article for free, click here
TonySurridge.co.uk - We offer everything you need including ACCA course, ACCA exam, ACCA study, ACCA books, ACCA revision, ACCA study books, ACCA revision course & ACCA courses online in UK.
Going Green Could Help You
The time is not very far when the World’s oil reserves will be consumed completely and a country’s growth, prestige, and policies will rotate around new sustainable energy sources. It’s even more evident with the oil politics we see now.
And there is no ambiguity that the country with the most efficient methods and more resources of energy will survive and thrive in future.
How It Could Effect Accountants
As an accountant, and/or accountancy student, mapping the future possibilities should be our priority. Future accounting services and future jobs for accountants depends on how the businesses, especially the energy business – the most profitable and most influential - are growing and how they are setting new standards and shapes for others to follow.
According to Energy saving Trust*, the market for solar photovoltaics is expected to increase dramatically. And so will the jobs surrounding it. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before this industry fully takes off mainstream.
It is believed that the solar technology will be substituting nuclear and coal fuels by 2025, maybe before. Why maybe before? Because scientists believe that due to green house gas effects, polar ice will be starting to melt, but there is possibility that the ice is melting at a rate above their expectations.
So we might have no choice but to implement the solar technology. So if you are planning to specialize in any field after completing your ACCA, then I don’t see any reason to neglect this business field as a potential career move.
I talked with Mr. Shafiq Iqbal, a renowned scientist and a personal friend. Although normally I discuss with him the benefits of different/alternative energy solutions, this time I asked him the benefits from a job market perspective.
“Forgetting the environmental benefits for a second, and discussing other aspects, then I can still say yes, there are benefits to the job market. Yes, you see, there are now pacts between countries to reduce or control their emission levels. And who knows, perhaps there will be more pacts between companies and new auditors who come into business – auditing the emission levels – though there are already regulatory bodies doing the same job – but I can see the private sector coming over to this side”, he said. “This will be a snow ball effect”.
Whatever the policy government use, they cannot avoid the fact that the World needs an alternative sustainable and moreover, Green energy solutions. So as an accountant, Part Qualified or as a business development manager, you cannot neglect the importance of this industry. After all, we have been observing changes in our syllabus which now include Sustainable Reporting and other related issues.
To see our Full article for free, click here
TonySurridge.co.uk - We offer everything you need including ACCA course, ACCA exam, ACCA study, ACCA books, ACCA revision, ACCA study books, ACCA revision course & ACCA courses online in UK.
Tuesday 19 October 2010
The Truth about Multitasking... and will it help for your ACCA studies?
For decades, multitasking was used to describe the parallel processing of computers. According to wikipedia* definition, “In computing, multitasking is a method by which multiple tasks; also known processes, share common processing resources such as CPU. In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively executing instructions for that task. Multitasking solves the problem by scheduling which task may be the one running at any given time, and when another waiting task gets a turn. The act of reassigning a CPU from one task to another one is called a context switch. When context switches occur frequently enough the illusion of parallelism is achieved. Even on computers with more than one CPU, multitasking allows many more tasks to be run than there are CPUs.”
However, of late, it entered our lexicon as the human ability to accomplish more than one task simultaneously. There is a lot of controversy about multitasking and whether it increases or decreases productivity. Is it a positive attribute to boast about on resumes, or is it a negative trait that can be associated with attention issues.
In essence, when we talk about multitasking, we are really talking about attention: the art of paying attention, and, more significantly, to exercise judgment about what is worthy of our attention.
So the ‘million dollar’ question is: is it better to concentrate on a task giving it complete focus and undivided attention, or is it more productive to give in to the demands of the times and attempt to accomplish several things simultaneously, using as many technologies as possible?
The fact of the matter is that there are pros and cons of multitasking. Talking about the positive aspects, the ability to shift back and forth between projects allows progress on multiple tasks and enables us to move several projects toward a single deadline. It also prevents boredom and keeps us inspired & creative in our work and, most of all, it lets us use our downtime productively. Lastly, the ability to multitask will help us cope with interruptions and changing priorities.
We all do a certain amount of multitasking anyway. We rarely, if ever, have the luxury of focusing totally on one task for its entire duration. We constantly get interrupted, and, depending on the nature of the interruption, our priorities may change. For instance, you may scan the newspaper while drinking your morning coffee, or listen to radio while driving to work. Most of these tasks are mechanical.
New research shows that humans don’t do lots of things simultaneously. Instead, we switch our attention from task to task extremely quickly. Switching from task to task or thought to thought is referred to as ‘context switching’ and while it is recognized that context switching introduces a certain element of inefficiency, it is also necessary under certain condition that may demand immediate attention. People who wear ‘multiple hats’ and have several responsibilities need to multitask.
Unfortunately, these benefits do not come without drawbacks. Multitasking divides our attention which often means that the quality of wok on any given task is lower when multitasking than if we had approached the task with a singularity of focus. Additionally, we may lose time moving back and forth between tasks because we need to remind ourselves of where we were when we left off. These ‘time costs’ increase with the complexity of the chores.
In fact, studies show that by doing less, you can actually get more done. However, the answer isn’t single-tasking either. Single-tasking is far too slow to help you succeed in today’s’ fast-paced world.
Instead, the key difference to effectiveness is to identify the tasks that will create the most value and focus on those. By prioritizing value over volume and sharpening your focus, on the things that truly matter, you will increase the quality of your work, and ultimately, the value you provide.
Think about this during your ACCA study. The next time you sit down for your ACCA revision, think about the value and prioritise your time accordingly. In the ideal world, you would have an infinite amount of time to prepare for your ACCA exams, but sadly that is not always the case.
TonySurridge.co.uk - We offer everything you need including ACCA course, ACCA exam, ACCA study, ACCA books, ACCA revision, ACCA study books, ACCA revision course & ACCA courses online in UK.
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