ACCA APM Section A: 4 Mistakes Costing You Marks in June 2026

APM is the hardest paper in ACCA right now. March 2026 pass rate: 40% — the lowest in the whole qualification. Section A is where the marks haemorrhage, and the Sept/Dec 2025 examiner report shows it's the same four mistakes every sitting.

1. You're evaluating the company, not the report

Q1 (Neaty) asked candidates to evaluate Neaty's current performance reporting system. The examiner is blunt: several candidates evaluated Neaty's performance instead — discussing whether revenue and profits had risen or fallen. This same issue has been flagged in multiple previous reports.

The verb matters. "Evaluate the report" means: does the report tell the board what they need to know to judge performance against objectives? It does not mean: is the company doing well?

2. You're suggesting new measures when told not to

The same Q1 specifically said do NOT suggest new performance measures. The examiner notes that candidates frequently suggested alternative measures anyway, despite the instruction being explicit.

Read every requirement twice. Underline the prohibitions. In APM, the markers reward what you were asked for — not what you'd like to write about.

3. You're improving the measure instead of judging it

In the balanced scorecard part of Q1, candidates were asked to evaluate whether proposed measures — like market share — were appropriate for the customer perspective. Common error: candidates wrote about how Neaty could push market share up, instead of judging whether market share was the right thing to measure in the first place.

"Should we measure this?" is a different question from "How do we make this number bigger?" APM tests the first one.

4. Your PM calculations are leaking marks

Five basic ratios in Q1 — inventory days, ROCE, residual income, dividend per share, current ratio. Many candidates didn't attempt all five. The examiner flagged that ROCE was repeatedly calculated using net assets rather than capital employed, and using year-end figures instead of averages. Worse, several candidates couldn't produce dividend per share even with the total dividend and share count handed to them in the appendix.

The examiner has flagged this in previous reports too. APM assumes you can still do PM.

Worked example: ROCE the wrong way vs the right way

Wrong: Operating Profit ÷ Net Assets (year-end). That's not ROCE, and it doesn't reconcile to anything useful.

Right: Operating Profit ÷ Capital Employed, where Capital Employed = Equity + Long-term debt (or Total Assets − Current Liabilities). Use the average of opening and closing figures where the question gives them. The examiner specifically calls out year-end-only as wrong.

One ratio. Two minutes. Five professional skills marks downstream depend on getting it right because the evaluation builds on these numbers.

What to do before June 2026

Underline the verb in every requirement. "Evaluate the report" ≠ "evaluate the company." "Assess whether to use this measure" ≠ "explain how to improve this measure." That single read is worth marks every single sitting.

Re-do PM ROCE, RI, EPS and DPS from cold before you sit APM. The examiner has said it for years. You will lose easy calculation marks if you don't.

For every BSC or building block measure given, ask one question: Does this measure tell us whether the company is meeting its stated objective? If yes, say so and apply to the scenario. If no, say why. Never default to "and here's how to improve it."

Bottom line

APM pass rate has sat in the 30-40% band for years. The mistakes haven't changed — which means the fix hasn't either. Read the requirement. Answer it. Apply, don't describe.