A Recap of the CII’s R06 Exam (Oct 2014)

Want to know how our R06 Case Study Analysis did in preparing candidates for the CII’s most recent R06 exam? Read on – this will be of particular interest to you if you are planning to sit the CII R06 exam in 2015.

Are you sitting the R06 exam in January?

If so you might be interested to know how we did with our analysis of the case studies in the October 2014 exam.  We work hard at each exam sitting producing case study analysis for R06 to help students approach the exam with confidence. We also offer email support just before the exam for any last-minute queries.

R06 Case Study 1: John and Sue

The first case study was Jon and Sue, both in their early 60’s and approaching retirement.

The first question in the exam was ‘what additional information would you need to prepare a full review of their pension arrangements’.  The first question in our analysis was ‘what further information would you need before you could advise Jon and Sue in this area (pensions)’.  The next question was on LTA and we had that covered too. Question 3 asked about the tax advantages of a VCT and the drawbacks for Jon investing in one – our question was ‘explain what a VCT is, underlying investments and the tax advantages’ we then had bullet points commenting on the suitability of investing in them for Jon which were basically all drawbacks!
Anyone using our analysis should have been pretty happy so far bagging the majority of the marks on offer.

11 marks were then available for the options Sue has for her State pension.  We had some information on what she would be entitled to at State pension age which would have helped pick up some of the marks but perhaps not a full house on that one.  The next question was around Sue buying a car and how she could do this tax efficiently – we might not have had the exact question worded in this way, but taxation of their bond was covered and would just have needed a bit of clever adjustment to use that information to answer this question.

There’s usually a ‘recommend and justify question’ and for Jon and Sue it was about generating a tax efficient income in retirement from their investment portfolio, and again we had this one covered to the extent that maximum marks could have been achieved and considering there were 14 on offer here it should have meant students were well on track to have picked up at least 65% of the marks available for the first case study.

R06 Case Study 2: Tom and Lucy

The next case study involved Tom and Lucy – a younger couple with different needs.  This is where the CII threw their curve ball; 8 marks on stochastic modelling.  This would have caused a few people to sink lower in their chairs; stochastic modelling is explained in R02 but probably wasn’t studied by many before going into the exam room.  However, 8 marks should not have meant a fail as if the other areas had been well covered a student should have come away with a mark of at least 63% for case study 2.

The pass mark for R06 is 55% – any student using our analysis in their own thorough preparation of these two couples should have easily exceeded this mark.

If you’d like help with your forthcoming R06 exam click on this link:

https://brandft.co.uk/cii-r06-ro6-financial-planning-practice-analysis/#Overview