Nowadays, you can find all the answers to your questions on Google. Likewise, you can also find all the answers to your educational questions with us, InstanTuition!
If one of the questions that you would like to google is about the topics / chapters to be tested for POA O Level, you are at the right place!
1. Financial statements
This is the most important question to be tested in O level because it is the heaviest weightage question – 20 marks in Paper 2, which will take up 20% of your overall POA grade. In other words, if you could achieve full marks for this question, it is equivalent to scoring almost a quarter of your POA grade!
In this question, you will be tested on double entries, adjustments to respective ledger account and classifications to the correct accounting elements.
If you learn the right tips and hacks to reduce your careless mistakes, this could be one of the easiest 20 marks in your life. I mean, which subject offers such a big giveaway of marks in exam? Only this question in POA!
Your ultimate goal of doing this question is to balance the Balance Sheet accurately.
Some common careless mistakes to take note:
In other words, make sure you have at least 2 adjustments per transaction (double entry)
Copy the numbers correctly (from the question or from your calculator). Many students make mistakes like writing 85400 as 84500, or writing one more or one less 0. Eg. Writing 82000 as 8200
Take note of any parallax error
Common topics / double entries tested in this question:
- Prepayment and accrual
- Impairment loss on trade receivables
- Depreciation of non-current assets
- Correction of errors
- Limited company
2. Accounting Information System
For this topic, you will be commonly asked to classify the transaction into the respective journals or ledgers, otherwise will be asked to state the relevant source document to support that the transaction has occurred.
Below are some examples of such questions [source: O Level TYS]
Example 1: TYS 2019 Paper 2 Q4
Name the journal where a business records a cash sale.
ANS: Cash Book
Example 2: TYS 2017 Paper 1 Q3
(a) Name the ledger in which the total trade receivables account (trade receivables control account) is found.
(b) State the account in which the individual credit note on 3 August is posted.
(c) Name the ledger in which the account from (c) is maintained.
ANS: (a) General ledger; (b) Trade receivables – Rachel Tan account; (c) Sales ledger
3. Limited Company
Whether it is a standalone question or incorporated into the iconic Financial Statements question (point 1 above), this is the question that also never fail to be tested in ALL exams. Make sure you know the double entries for the following transactions:
issuance of shares
declaration of dividends and always remember to close dividends account to retained earnings account
closing profit and loss to retained earning account
REMEMBER!:
If there is any dividends payable, remember to reflect it in the current liabilities section of the balance sheet.
When calculating the dividends declared, remember to multiply the dividends per share by the TOTAL number of shares issued to date! So many students forget this! A way to make sense of it is to remember that you don't only want to reward your new shareholders, you have to take care of your existing shareholders too!
So far, the trend of this questions is that every alternate year, it will be tested as a stand-alone 12-15 marks question and in the next year, it will be incorporated in the financial statements question.
Based on 2019 paper, it was tested as a 12 mark stand-alone question. Likely that this year (2020), it will be incorporated in the financial statements question. BUT let’s not put our guard down, practise on both types of question and not be complacent!
4. Theory
It must be so tedious and difficult to memorise all the theories in your school textbook or school notes. Fret not, we have a “secret material” that have helped our students and also can help anyone of you who are interested to score for your POA! We are not able to share this secret with you here but you know where to find us!
Topics likely to be tested in O Level POA 2020:
- cash book, petty cash book
- incomplete records
as the above topics will be removed in the POA 2021 syllabus, this may be the last chance that these topics will be tested. You may consider do more practices on these topics.
NOTE:
The topic on “Financial Analysis” has been removed for 2020 O level syllabus due to Covid-19. As a result, nothing from this topic will be tested, including formula calculations
Since “Financial Analysis” will not be tested, when sitting for POA O Level exam, please check if Section B still include the optional question. If not, PLEASE REMEMBER TO ATTEMPT ALL QUESTIONS!!!
Please only take this EduBlog post as reference, it does not represent the SEAB or Cambridge. Do practise equally on all the other topics not mentioned here.
Now that you know which topics you should focus on, you know where to start your revision! Of course, you should not neglect the rest of the topics but at least you know what are the topics that WILL be tested for your upcoming O Level!
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