Should I get my ACCA exams rechecked?

Should you get your ACCA exams rechecked? Read on to find out whether an ACCA exam recheck makes sense for you and how to submit a recheck.

If your results weren’t quite what you expected, your first thought is probably to get your ACCA exams rechecked. Especially if you’re one of those students sitting on a 47, 48, or 49. That’s an awful feeling, and getting your results rechecked can feel like another roll of the dice.

But is it really worth getting your ACCA exams rechecked? How likely are the examining team to have made a mistake – especially one that will change your grade from a fail to a pass?

Getting ACCA exams rechecked: yay, or nay?

To understand whether getting your ACCA exams rechecked is worth it, you need to understand the process behind marking your paper. This isn’t a haphazard thing – the ACCA have extensive checks and controls to make sure your ACCA results are accurate.

• Before marking starts: All markers attend a meeting with the examiner to discuss the paper, and agree a detailed marking scheme. This ensures all markers are on exactly the same page – it makes the process objective and consistent.
• During marking: Each paper has an examining team, who moderate the marking process clearly to make sure there are no mistakes. They conduct a series of independent checks to verify markers are following the marketing scheme correctly. Marking software also checks the markers haven’t missed any questions, added up incorrectly or made other administrative errors.
• After marking: Any marginal scripts (those 47, 48, 49 ACCA results) are double-checked with special attention, to make sure nothing has been missed. Any discrepancies found during this process are investigated and resolved before you get the results.

What the above means is this: the ACCA work really hard to stop any mistakes from happening. BUT that doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t get your ACCA exams rechecked.

If you’re right on the border of a pass, you might decide it’s worth it purely for the peace of mind. So here’s how you go about getting your ACCA exams rechecked.

Getting ACCA exams rechecked: What to do

If you do want your results rechecked, you need to apply for administrative review. This is how you appeal to the ACCA, saying you believe your exams results don’t reflect your performance.

This administrative review checks that all stages of the marking and results release process have been strictly followed.

For Professional exams you’ll get an email that also includes a Pass or Fail status for every question, so you can see which questions you struggled with. For exams F5 to F9, you’ll get syllabus feedback, which gives a rating for your performance by syllabus area.

Even if your mark doesn’t change after being rechecked, this can be very valuable as it tells you which areas you need to focus on next time.

Do note though, you won’t get your actual exam responses back. These remain the ACCA’s property, as detailed on your exam docket.

• What happens if your mark changes? If having your ACCA exams rechecked leads to a change in result, you’ll get a refund of your fee. However, be aware that marks can go down, as well as up!
• What happens if your mark doesn’t change? This is the most common outcome of an administrative review, thanks to all the checks we outlined above. If you’re still unhappy, you can further appeal this process to the examination’s committee for an additional cost. It’s massively unlikely the ACCA would make a mistake on your initial mark AND subsequently on your remark though.

Overall…

Unless you feel really strongly that you got an unfair result, we recommend you don’t get your ACCA exams rechecked. It’s usually an unnecessary cost and it’s very rare for the ACCA to make mistakes.

Although your disappointment about your result is totally understandable, you’d usually be better off funneling that emotion into studying harder for your resit.