Exam guide

1. Paper structure

• Paper 1 is scaled up, so the two papers together give a weighted total of 143. The grade thresholds below use this total. IGCSE grades run from A* to G.
• The structure did not change between 2022 and 2026. Every Paper 2 had five 20-mark questions. Every Paper 1 had 35 items, in syllabus order: fundamentals first, then principles and policies at the end.
• What did change is how Paper 2 looks. From late 2024 the booklets are longer, and each scenario comes in stages, with "REQUIRED" blocks spread over several pages. The "Advise…" part now usually says exactly what to give, e.g. "two advantages and two disadvantages".
• Some threshold documents (June 2022, June 2026) also list a "Component 50" (out of 90), which is a separate route. The June 2026 document also lists a new Paper 1 variant, "Component 17". No question papers for these were in our files, so this report covers only Papers 1 and 2.

2. Topic weights

These are shares of all tagged marks: 9 sessions, with one Paper 1 and one Paper 2 per session, 1215 marks in total. Every topic area came up in all 9 sessions, but some areas get far more marks than others.

Subtopics, from most to least marks:

These figures undercount accruals, prepayments, depreciation and doubtful debts. Those adjustments also appear inside almost every income statement and statement of financial position question, and we counted those marks under the type of business instead.

3. Bankers (examined in almost every session)

• Correction of errors and the suspense account. This is the biggest single area. A Paper 2 question on it appeared in 8 of 9 sessions, and 7 of those were a full 15–20 mark question. The usual sequence is: journal entries for about five errors, then the suspense account, then the corrected profit (sometimes also corrected capital or the corrected bank balance). Paper 1 has 1–4 error items every time, covering types of error and their effect on profit or on the trial balance.
• An "Advise… Justify your answer" part in almost every Paper 2 question. Most questions end with a 5-mark decision. Examples: how to pay for new equipment, whether to offer credit or more cash discount, whether to take on a partner, whether to become a limited company, whether to employ a book-keeper, or how often to reconcile the bank. Across a paper this is worth up to 25 marks.
• A full financial statement in every Paper 2. Every session has at least one of: an income statement, a manufacturing account, an appropriation account, a statement of changes in equity, or a statement of financial position. The type of business rotates between partnership, limited company, manufacturer, sole trader, club and incomplete records.
• A book-keeping question first. In 8 of 9 sessions, Paper 2 Question 1 was one of these:
  • a three-column cash book (2022 MJ, 2023 MJ, 2024 ON, 2025 MJ)
  • petty cash with other adjustments (2024 MJ)
  • a bank reconciliation (2025 ON)
  • books of prime entry and a control account (2023 ON, 2026 MJ)

The exception was 2022 ON, which opened with a sole trader's income statement and had the bank reconciliation as Question 3.

• Ratios. Every Paper 1 has 2–7 analysis items. They cover:
  • margins, ROCE, inventory turnover
  • current and liquid ratios, receivables turnover
  • what caused a ratio to change
  • who uses the accounts

Paper 2 asked for a ratio calculation in 6 of 9 sessions, often as an 11-mark table of ratios.

• Accounting principles. Every Paper 2 has 1–8 marks on naming or explaining a principle: prudence, matching, consistency, going concern, business entity, materiality or realisation. Paper 1 always ends with one or two principle or policy items.
• Every Paper 1 also has items on:
  • depreciation and disposal
  • inventory valuation (the lower of cost and net realisable value)
  • irrecoverable debts or the doubtful-debt provision (every paper except 2025 ON)
  • club subscriptions or the receipts and payments account
  • the manufacturing account (prime cost, work in progress)
  • incomplete records (profit from the change in capital, or missing purchases and sales)

4. Rarely tested

• Accounting policies (comparability, relevance, reliability, understandability, international standards) appear only as the last Paper 1 item, and not in every session. Paper 2 gave them just 1 mark in nine sessions.
• The accounting equation is only ever a Paper 1 item, about one per session. It was never a Paper 2 question.
• Business documents (invoice, credit note, debit note, statement of account, receipt) are almost only in Paper 1. Paper 2 gave them 1 mark in total.
• Preparing a trial balance in Paper 2 happened only once, in 2023 MJ (a corrected trial balance).
• Capital and revenue expenditure got a Paper 2 table only once (2022 MJ). It is still a near-certain Paper 1 item.
• Clubs and societies in Paper 2 came up only twice (2023 MJ and 2024 ON). Every Paper 1, however, has one to three club items.
• Users of accounts and the limits of comparing businesses are worth only a mark or two at a time, almost all in Paper 1.

5. Trends

• Manufacturing accounts are now a regular Paper 2 question. They appeared in 4 of the last 6 sessions (2023 ON, 2024 MJ, 2025 ON, 2026 MJ). These questions often make you split costs between factory and office and use reducing-balance depreciation. In 2026 MJ the same question also asked for gross margin and inventory turnover.
• Incomplete records are also regular. They appeared in 2022 MJ, 2023 ON, 2024 ON, 2025 MJ and 2026 MJ. Typical tasks:
  • rebuild purchases or sales from control-account figures
  • use mark-up or margin to find missing figures
  • prepare a statement of affairs
• Partnerships had a full question in 2022 ON, 2023 MJ, 2024 MJ and 2025 MJ. Since then there has been only a 5-mark "should she take a partner?" part (2026 MJ). A full appropriation and current account question is due.
• Clubs have been missing from Paper 2 since 2024 ON. Control accounts came back in 2026 MJ after appearing in 2022 ON and 2023 ON. Both topics rotate back in.
• Depreciation grew from a Paper 1 topic into Paper 2. It had Paper 2 parts in 2024 MJ and 2025 MJ, a full 15-mark question in 2025 ON, and a 1-mark part in 2026 MJ.
• The advice parts are more structured now. Recent papers ask for a set number of points for and against. The recommendation mark goes only to answers that weigh both sides.
• Paper 1 has fewer analysis items than before. There were 7 in 2022 MJ, but only 2–3 per paper since 2024. Some of that space now goes to book-keeping and verification items.
• Grade boundaries rose after 2022. In 2022 a grade C needed 36/143 (June) and 38/143 (November). From 2023 a C needed 40–48 and an A needed 83–88.

6. Question styles

Command words in Paper 2:

• "Prepare": a ledger account, journal, cash book, income statement, manufacturing account, appropriation or current account, statement of changes in equity, statement of financial position extract, or bank reconciliation statement. Layouts are often printed for you.
• "Calculate": a ratio, a corrected profit, opening or closing capital, a missing purchases or sales figure, a depreciation charge or an inventory value. Ratios are usually asked "to two decimal places".
• "State", "Name" or "Explain": short theory worth 1–2 marks. Examples: a principle, a type of error, a book of prime entry, the meaning of a term such as "accumulated fund", or two reasons or factors.
• "Complete the table" or "Place a tick": grids for overstated or understated, capital or revenue, which book of prime entry, how an item affects the bank reconciliation, and the profit adjustment for each error.
• "Advise… Justify your answer": a balanced 5-mark discussion, with points for and against, that ends in a clear recommendation.

Typical Paper 2 formats:

• Five errors, then a journal, then the suspense account, then the corrected profit or capital.
• A trial balance with extra notes, then the financial statements.
• One month of transactions, then the cash book, then a personal account or control account.
• A bank statement compared with the cash book, then an updated cash book and a reconciliation statement.
• A run of depreciation, disposal and provision accounts.
• A table of ratios, then "explain why the owner should not be fully satisfied".

Paper 1 styles:

• Four-option items. About half need a quick calculation: missing figures, corrected profit, ratios, subscriptions, depreciation.
• Two-column grids that ask which account is debited and which is credited, or whether a figure is overstated or understated.
• "Which statements are correct?" items with numbered options, e.g. "1 and 3".
• Items with "not" in the question (which is "not correct", which would "not appear"). Read these slowly.

7. Common mistakes (from examiner reports)

These are paraphrased from the June 2022, November 2022, June 2023 and June 2025 examiner reports.

• Weak double entry runs through the whole paper. Students reverse entries, leave one side out, or use descriptions instead of account names. Write the name of the other account, e.g. "rates", not "standing order", and "capital", not "money from owner". In 2025 the examiners pointed out that the questions on provision accounts (depreciation and doubtful debts) were the weakest.
• Cash book errors:
  • putting credit purchases in the cash book
  • entering the capital receipt on both sides
  • working out cash discount wrongly (3% or 4% of the invoice)
  • missing the contra entry when cash moves between cash and bank
  • balancing off the discount columns (they are only totalled)

A negative cash balance is impossible, so if you get one there is an error.

• Trade discount recorded in the ledger. Only cash discount is recorded. Many students also could not explain the difference between trade discount and cash discount when advising on suppliers.
• Bank reconciliation confusion. Students put an item in both the updated cash book and the statement, or make a separate adjustment for an unpresented cheque that is already in the cash book. Some also mix up a standing order (a fixed amount) with a direct debit (an amount that can change).
• Using the suspense account for every error. Only errors that make the trial balance disagree go through suspense. The suspense entry should be labelled as the trial balance difference, not "balance b/d".
• Profit and capital adjustments. Students add where they should subtract, include capital introduced in the profit adjustment, or forget that a misposting between two personal accounts may need doubling. For corrected capital, the only changes are the corrected profit, capital introduced and drawings.
• Clubs. Students:
  • put the opening subscriptions in arrears or in advance on the wrong side
  • leave out subscriptions written off
  • use the bank receipts as the income figure
  • call the accumulated fund "capital"
  • mix up the receipts and payments account with the income and expenditure account
• Partnership appropriation. Students charge interest on drawings for the full year instead of only the months the money was out, swap the treatment of interest on capital and interest on drawings, or put capital balances into the appropriation or current account.
• Mark-up and margin mixed up. A 25% mark-up is a 20% margin. Using the wrong one spoils drawings of goods, incomplete-records and inventory calculations. Total receipts are not the same as sales.
• Inventory and ratios. Students leave carriage inwards out of cost, use revenue instead of net revenue (after returns) for the gross margin, or treat an overdraft as an asset in working capital.
• Advice answers. Students write a one-sided or "rehearsed" answer that ignores the scenario. Examples: talking about customers when the question is about a club, or talking about selling shares to the public when the partners will be the only shareholders. An "if they do…, if they don't…" ending is not a recommendation. State a clear yes or no.
• Theory that is too vague, e.g. "to find errors" as the purpose of a bank reconciliation. Also, answers like "stop selling on credit" to avoid bad debts are unrealistic.

8. Grade thresholds

Minimum overall weighted marks (out of 143) for the option that combines Papers 12 and 22:

Component thresholds (raw marks) for the same papers:

Since 2023, an A has needed about 60% of the weighted total and a C about 30%. Paper 2 decides most grades because it carries far more weight. Variant 1 papers (11/21) sometimes have lower thresholds than variant 2.

9. Revision priorities for Oct/Nov 2026 and 2027

1. Errors and the suspense account. Practise full five-error questions until the journal, the suspense account and the corrected profit (and corrected capital) come without thinking. This is the most reliable Paper 2 question.
2. Double entry and posting. Practise posting from the cash book and journals into personal, control and nominal accounts, with correct account names, dates and balances brought down. Include provision accounts for depreciation and doubtful debts, which examiners found weak in 2025.
3. Manufacturing accounts and incomplete records. Both are now regular in Paper 2.
   • Manufacturing: prime cost, factory overheads, work-in-progress adjustments, and splitting costs between factory and office.
   • Incomplete records: rebuilding control accounts, mark-up versus margin, discount received, and the statement of affairs.
4. Partnerships. A full appropriation and current account question is due. Cover interest on capital and on drawings (time-apportioned), salaries, loan interest, sharing the residual profit, and what a debit current account means.
5. Limited companies and clubs.
   • Companies: the statement of changes in equity, the equity section, issued versus called-up capital, and dividends.
   • Clubs: they have been missing from Paper 2 since 2024 ON. Practise the subscriptions account (arrears, advance, amounts written off), café or bar profit, the income and expenditure account and the accumulated fund.
6. The advice part. For every scenario, practise writing two points for and two against that use the facts in the question, then a one-line recommendation. This is worth up to 25 marks per paper.
7. Ratios and interpretation. Learn the exact formulas: margins, ROCE (profit before interest over equity plus long-term loans), current and liquid ratios, inventory turnover in times and days, and receivables and payables turnover. Practise explaining why a ratio moved and how to improve it.
8. Paper 1 quick wins. These take little revision time and come up every session:
   • the principles and policies
   • types of error
   • business documents
   • the imprest system
   • capital versus revenue
   • debit and credit grids
   • the lower of cost and net realisable value rule

Comparison with O Level Accounting (7707)

• The sampled papers are the same as the O Level papers. We compared every 0452 Paper 12 and Paper 22 in this sample with the 7707 paper of the same session and variant. The questions, figures and mark allocations matched; only the cover page and layout were different. The topic weights here are therefore almost identical to the 7707 report. Topic shares agree to within 0.3 percentage points, and the few small differences come from tagging choices on single items, not from different content.
• The grade thresholds are also identical. The 0452 and 7707 weighted thresholds for the 12/22 option were the same in every session from 2022 to 2026. IGCSE also reports grades F and G.
• Our evidence is wider for 0452. The 0452 files include examiner reports for June 2023 and June 2025, which are missing for 7707. The 2023 report adds detail on clubs, partnership loans and trial balances, and the 2025 report adds detail on provision accounts and incomplete records. Those points apply equally to 7707 students.
• In practice: IGCSE and O Level students can revise from each other's past papers and reports in this period without any loss. The same revision plan works for both.