2016’s Bafs DSE throws new and unexpected questions at students
Both teachers and students said candidates needed more time to understand the questions in the Business, Accounting and Financial Studies exam
There were a number of new, unexpected questions in today’s HKDSE Elective Business, Accounting and Financial Studies (Bafs). Both teachers and students said candidates needed more time to understand these questions.
Kiangsu Chekiang College’s Bafs teacher Desmond Lam Kwong-yip said this year’s Paper One was tougher than last year’s.
“For questions 4 and 5, students had to handle both an Income Statement and a financial position. These were tested in two separate questions last year. So this year, students were unable to skip one of these topics,” he said.
Lam added Paper One focused more on business management which carried 43 marks out of 90, whereas accounting and financial studies only carried 28 and 19 marks respectively.
But Modern Education Bafs tutor Sharon Chan said questions in this year’s Paper One were simpler overall, apart from the odd tricky question.
“In the multiple choice section, Q25 asked if a self-employed fashion designer knows their right of enrolment, voluntary contribution, and withdrawing their accrued benefits from the MPF scheme before the age of 65 if they decide to settle in another country. In reality, only the MPF agents would understand these rights,” she said.
Diocesan Boys’ School candidate Caron Tsun Kam-kwan said this year’s Paper One was more straightforward than he was expecting.
“Paper One wasn’t very hard. For example, Q5 (c) (ii) in Paper One Section B just directly asked students to list the steps in the controlling process. This question was obvious and anyone should have been able to answer it if they had studied the steps,” he said.
Lam said there were a number of new questions in Paper 2A (Acconting Module). “There wasn’t anything like Q2 and Q4 in the DSE past papers. In Q2, students might have been surprised and not prepared to handle both accounts and ledgers.
“Q4 was new, too. Students were given three different percentages of estimated doubtful debts based on the age of accounts receivable, but previous papers only gave one percentage,” said Lam. “This meant students had to understand a lot more information before making their final calculations.”
CCC Kwei Wah Shan College’s candidate Koo Ka-kui said this year’s 2A paper was very different from last year’s.
“Q2 was especially tough because it asked students to answer more than 20 items which weren’t worth many marks. We had to spend way too long on this question,” he said.