ACCA SBL 2026: How to Write Presentation Slides With Notes — The Task Everyone Answers Worst

If the requirement says "two slides with accompanying notes", the notes are where the marks live. Repeat your bullet points in the notes and you have written the answer twice and scored it once.

The examiner's verdict: "answered very poorly"

SBL passed at 51% in June 2026 — right on its long-run average. Steady overall, but the slides task is where scripts quietly bleed marks. In the September/December 2025 exam (Levwell, the hotel company), Task 3(b) asked for two presentation slides with accompanying notes for the Chair to use with the board: the benefits of introducing a responsible business committee, and the challenges facing it. Twelve technical marks plus four communication marks — 16 in total, roughly 26 minutes of your exam.

The examining team's summary was blunt: the task was answered very poorly, and the second slide on challenges was answered particularly poorly. Most candidates managed only one or two challenges — usually "lack of experience" and "cost" — and then stopped.

Notes that repeat the slide score nothing

ACCA's own guidance on presenting answers is explicit. Each slide should carry brief bullet points. The notes exist to explain those bullets more fully, and they must link directly back to the points on the slide. They are speaker's notes — someone else, in this case the Chair, has to stand up and deliver them.

The SD25 report says the better candidates produced concise notes that supported their slides. Weaker candidates' notes "largely just repeated the contents of the slides, adding little explanation or insight". That is a script that looks complete and scores half.

Answer the noun in the requirement

The requirement said committee. A large number of candidates ignored that word and wrote about the benefits of Levwell being a responsible business — which it could be without the committee — so they scored poorly. Others ignored responsible and treated it as a general "business committee", discussing occupancy rates and RevPAR. Neither was the question asked.

And when candidates did raise the NEDs' limited ESG knowledge, many stopped at stating it. The corresponding challenge — actually finding suitable NEDs to staff the committee — was rarely made.

Wrong answer vs right answer

What most candidates wrote:

Slide bullet: NEDs have no ESG experience.
Notes: The NEDs do not have experience in ESG matters. This is a challenge for the committee.

That is one point, stated twice. One mark at best, and it drags down the communication marks too.

What scores:

Slide bullet: Recruiting suitably experienced non-executives.
Notes: Our current NEDs have limited exposure to ESG reporting, so the committee will need to recruit additional non-executives with sustainability expertise. Suitable candidates are in short supply and command higher fees, so the committee may not be fully operational for several months — delaying the ESG oversight the board is trying to establish.

Same starting point. The bullet is short enough to project. The notes explain the implication, the cost and the timing consequence. That is a developed point worth two marks, and it reads like something a Chair could actually say out loud.

One more thing: watch your tone

These slides go to the board. Markers flagged candidates who wrote that the NEDs were "incompetent". The concern was legitimate; the phrasing was not. Say "limited experience in this area", not "incompetent". Professionalism is marked, and the audience is sitting in the room.

What to do

1. Count the slides the examiner asked for. Two means two. Not one, not four. Head each slide with a title, and put three or four short bullets underneath — no sentences.

2. Write the notes as the "so what". For every bullet, force yourself to add why it matters to this company and what follows from it. If a note could be deleted without losing meaning, it was a repeat.

3. Fill the weaker half. Where a task splits into two slides — benefits and challenges — candidates load the first and abandon the second. Split your 26 minutes down the middle and give the harder slide the same number of points.

The maths

The examiner spells out how narrow the margin is. On a 14-mark requirement, five relevant technical points gets you 5/10 — a pass on technical. But a generic answer scores 1.33/4 on professional skills, taking you to 6.33/14. A marginal fail, on an answer that felt finished.

The bullets get you noticed. The notes get you the marks.