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How to Succeed in SBL: Key Insights from the March/June 2025 Examiner’s Report

Georgina Roberts

What Was the Exam About?

The June 2025 exam was based on a case study involving a fictional charity, Historic Places (HP), and included:

*3 main tasks
*Pre-seen material available in advance
*4 exhibits provided on exam day

80 technical marks + 20 professional skills marks were available.

Candidates had to assume the role of senior consultant advising the CEO on various strategic matters.

REMINDER: SBL success rest and falls on your ability to absorb yourself into the scenario and offer practical, feasible assessments and recommendations.

Breakdown By Task

Task 1

  1. 1a) Contextual Features for Change
    Should be based on the Balogun and Hope Hailey model.
    Strong answers considered internal factors like employee readiness, financial resources, and stakeholder power.
    Weak answers ignored the context and focused on change theories like Lewin’s (not relevant here!).

  2. 1b) Executive Remuneration
    Candidates needed to assess the CEO’s proposals with scepticism.
    Strong answers questioned the logic of commercial-level pay in a charity.
    Poor answers lacked development or made blunt, unprofessional criticisms

  3. 1c) Leadership Qualities
    This asked for a slide with supporting notes — many candidates skipped this!
    Strong answers linked leadership qualities (e.g., communication, flexibility) directly to HP’s change programme.
    Weak answers confused leadership with management or gave generic theory.

Task 2

  1. 2a) Comparing Two Sites
    The best answers linked figures (visitors, income, satisfaction) to operational causes and consequences.
    Weaker answers just described figures or forgot to compare both sites.

  2. 2b) Shop Operations Risks
    Required candidates to identify real risks from the exhibit (e.g., theft, poor inventory control) and recommend solutions.
    High-scoring answers clearly defined each risk and linked it to a specific control.

Task 3

  1. 3a) E-Marketing & Ethical Fundraising
    Candidates did well discussing social media, personalisation, and SEO.
    But many failed to address the ethical concerns raised in the blog (e.g., aggressive fundraising, third-party fundraisers).
    Common mistake: recommending actions for problems not even mentioned in the blog!

Why Some Students Failed

Here's what the examiners highlighted from the thousands of exams marked.

  1. Misinterpreting task requirements

  2. Weak application to the HP case

  3. Shallow analysis and underdeveloped points

  4. Copy-pasting from the scenario with no added value

  5. Ignoring professional tone and format required

Time Management Tips

Here's how the examiners advise you to split your time. The exam was 3 hours 15 minutes long.

  • Spend the first 30 minutes reading and planning.

  • Use the remaining 2 hr 45 min proportionally based on marks.

  • Avoid writing long-winded plans that steal time from writing full answers.

The Key to Passing SBL is simple: APPLY your knowledge to the scenario; PLAN your time; DEVELOP your points.
Act like you're a business leader and make sure you've read and absorbed the nuances of the PRE-SEEN material, released by ACCA 2 weeks before the exam

As usual, we'll have our full analysis of the Pre-Seen linked to the whole SBL syllabus in the SBL aCOWtancy Classroom PLUS available as a separate purchase option for non Premium students, ready for you to use and learn from, just as soon as the material is released :)