Answers and Discussion

  1. What is the text about?
    The role of company budgets in a competitive environment

  2. How much of the second paragraph does Question 50 refer to?
    Most of the paragraph.  Although the answer is mainly rooted in the third sentence, it is necessary to process the text from ‘none of these aspirations are attainable’ in the first sentence to ‘budgets are most commonly used ….to exercise control’ in order to be certain of the correct answer.

  3. Is the answer to Question 51 located solely in the penultimate sentence of the third paragraph?
    No. Although candidates can deduce from the penultimate sentence that budgets focus on past experience, they need to look earlier in the third paragraph (to ‘attempts at organisational change’    and ‘stifling real improvement breakthroughs’) to understand that budgets limit innovative behaviour.

  4. How is the information in the incomplete sentence in Question 52 and correct option B paraphrased in the third paragraph?
    The text says ‘Zero-based budgeting and activity-based budgeting represent valiant efforts to update the process …..Basically, though, budgeting has not changed because (QUESTION:  Why have new budgeting systems not been widely adopted?) it is a part of unchallenged tradition.’ (C: Traditional systems are part of accepted practice).

  5. What is being tested in Question 54?
    This question tests the opinion of accountants as reported in the text.

  6. What are the challenges to students of the Part 6 task?
    The text for this part is particularly dense, and consequently hard to process. The questions require a lot of thought and, often, words from the text are used to ‘distract’ candidates. Candidates must leave themselves adequate time to complete this task.