ACCA APM September 2026: Evaluate the Report, Not the Performance (The 14-Mark Trap)
The 14-mark question in APM Q1 asks you to evaluate the performance report. Most candidates evaluate the company instead — and score almost nothing.
The examining team have now flagged this in report after report. In September/December 2025 they said it outright: it was "disappointing that several candidates attempted to evaluate the performance of Neaty as opposed to evaluating the performance report", and that "this issue has been discussed several times in previous examiner's reports."
What the SD25 report actually says
Q1 was Neaty Manufacturing, a listed paint manufacturer facing cheap foreign competition. Part (i) was worth 19 marks — five for calculations, fourteen for evaluating the existing reporting system. The requirement explicitly told candidates not to suggest new performance measures. Many did anyway.
The five calculation marks were the easiest on the paper and a lot of candidates left them on the table. ROCE was repeatedly computed on net assets rather than capital employed, and on year-end figures instead of opening or average. Some couldn't produce dividend per share despite the total dividend and the share count both sitting in the appendix. The examiners' note is blunt: poor ROCE performance "has been highlighted in previous examiner's reports."
The same failure ran through part (ii). Given a draft balanced scorecard, candidates were asked whether the suggested measures belonged under the customer and innovation & learning perspectives. Instead they explained how Neaty could increase market share — a strategic recommendation nobody asked for. And in Q3 (Barscobe, building block model) the team added a second warning: "an improvement cannot be a long list of new measures."
Wrong answer vs right answer
Wrong: "Revenue has grown 6% but operating margin has fallen from 14% to 11%, showing that cheaper foreign competition is eroding profitability. Neaty should consider a cost reduction programme."
That is a perfectly good sentence. It scores zero. It evaluates the business, not the report, and then bolts on a recommendation the requirement excluded.
Right: "Neaty's stated objective is to maintain margins against cheaper foreign entrants, yet the report contains no measure of relative price position or competitor pricing. The board therefore cannot tell whether the margin decline is driven by input costs or by discounting to defend volume. The report is also purely financial and annual, so it gives no early warning on an objective that moves month to month."
Same scenario. Same numbers. One is about the company; one is about whether the report is fit for purpose. Only the second is APM.
What to do before September
1. Start every reporting-system question with the objectives. Write them out from the scenario first. Then take each one and ask: does the report contain relevant and sufficient information for the board to judge it? That single structure is what the examiners describe as the approach that scored well — and it drops straight into the analysis and evaluation professional marks.
2. Underline the verb and the prohibition. "Evaluate the report" is not "evaluate performance". "Assess whether these measures are appropriate" is not "how to improve them". If the requirement says no new measures, adding them costs you time and earns nothing.
3. Drill ROCE, RI and the basic ratios until they're automatic. Capital employed, not net assets. Opening or average, not closing. These are underpinning-exam skills the examiners expect you to still have — and they are the cheapest marks on a 50-mark question.
The bottom line
APM ran at 40% in March 2026, the lowest of the Strategic Professional options. The examiners are clear that the gap is not knowledge — "many candidates appeared to be very competent in this area but unfortunately did not answer the question asked."
You are not being marked on what you know about Neaty. You are being marked on whether you did what the requirement said.