Steve Chen explains how you can maximise your SBL marks from the exhibit information.
The SBL exam is all about application; that is, it’s not about telling stories or trying your best to refer to real-life cases in your answers to pass this paper. Passing the SBL paper is all about linking the SBL knowledge to the exhibit information. To put it simply, most marks are hidden in the exhibit.
The key to improving answer quality: Therefore, I always teach my students to ‘adapt’ the exhibit information, in a way that falls into the marking scheme, so that they can pass this paper easily.
Past exam question walkthrough: Let’s look at an example from June 2024 PVS case – the PVS company is a pet care service company. Question 1 from the actual exam: ‘(a) Prepare briefing notes for the BD director which assess the impact of the joint venture on the PVS brand…… (14 marks)’.
Students are then given the exhibit information: ‘My suggestion is for a joint venture with Best4Pets (B4P) to establish PVS clinics in some of their stores… B4P is the largest of Arland’s two pet superstores, with stores outside town centres in the north and east of Arland…’
Poor and good answers
Poor answers focused on textbook knowledge about the joint venture; i.e. pros and cons, without addressing the requirement which requires students to assess the impact on the ‘BRAND’.
Good answers will mix the joint venture pros and cons, together with answering the requirement about the impact on ‘BRAND’.
Our answer would be structured as follows to gain two marks:
‘The JV can help increase our revenue because we are working with B4P which is the largest of Arland’s two pet superstores, this means that we can save lots of marketing expenses and more customers will know our brand. PVS only has 85% clinics inside town centres, this means by working with B4P, we can increase our brand awareness in the north and east of Arland to better increase our revenue from there.’
Analysis of our answer
The above answer mixes the key information from the exhibit, including ‘B4P is the largest…’; ‘stores outside town centres in the north and east of Arland…’; and the SBL knowledge ‘scale up operations by using Joint Venture way to grow the business’; i.e. increase brand awareness and revenue.
How many points should be raised?
According to the marking scheme, it is two marks per point, therefore, for a 14-mark question, I would expect students to give seven points. Try to focus on ‘quality’ rather than ‘quantity’, i.e. focusing on the exhibit information is what I mean by application and quality, in this exam.
Professional marks
To earn professional marks, there are some good practices to follow:
- Always answer ALL the sub-requirements, and never miss any small ones.
- Always make sure each point has links with the exhibit information, if not, to the pre seen information.
- Always answer what the requirement asks, position yourself in the management role, to analyse the requirement.
For this question, the professional marks are assessed per the following four boxes:
4. Not at all (0 marks) – The answer contains theory only, does not relate to the exhibit, does not answer the requirement, no evaluation skills (not shwoing the ‘storytelling’ process/thinking process in the answer).
5. Not so well (1/1/3 marks) – The answer demonstrates some evaluation skills (showing ‘thinking process in a logical way’); hoever, students not answering all the sub-requirements.
6. Quite well (2/2/3 marks) – The answer answers all the sub-requirements, and in the correct format, with good evaluation skills; however, in terms of linking the answer to the exhibit information, still not being perfect.
7. Very well (4 marks) – The answer covers all the sub-requirements by linking closely with exhibit information/pre seen information (full assessments), with correct format and strong evaluation skills.
As you can see, the professional marks are quite subjective; however, given the high-quality marking process at ACCA, this should not be varied among different markers, as the rule is simple: always refer to the exhibit information, if not, the pre seen information, and answer the question per the requirement, demonstrating ‘thinking process’ in the answer (not to jump to the conclusion directly). This approach helps you pass the paper very easily.
- Steve Chen is an SBL and AFM tutor at GlobalAPC
