Joseph KK Ho's work diary

When I need to sleep, that's day-time; when I need to watch movies, that's night-time. Unlike most people, I really enjoy reading academic articles; like most people, I need to make a living.

Over the years, I have met lots of students. In my view, good students are not necessarily those who are intelligent and capable. The defining characteristics of good students are: Polite Appreciate the teaching efforts of teachers and show gratitude to teachers Responsive Willing to learn Show respect to teachers and the education system Many of the good students I have come across are not quite academic nor highly intellectual. Many of them are not rich; nor have they got a favourable environment to study. For example, they can be busy housewives with full-time jobs.. in short, good students, very often, need a lot of help from teachers. Bad students have the opposite characteristics of good students. For example, they never say "thank you" on receiving resources and help from teachers; they will not even order drinks when meeting teachers at restaurants; they do not reply to teachers' emails; and they never take the initiative to contact their teachers when...

I have got this question from my Accounting student: How to prepare for ACCA exam. My advice is as follows: quickly browse through the syllabus, past papers and answers, and acca articles for the papers; then do some reading on textbook and academic articles to develop a deeper understanding for the subject.. about 3 weeks before exam, just focus on acca articles and exam papers; useful to write down some notes and key words all along to help memorizing. There are some lectures on youtube - useful to take a look if you have time. In short, if you have 4 months, first 3 months focus on long-term memory; last 1 month on short-term memory will be sufficient. 2 days before exam - ensure you sleep well till exam date.

The following information is on Advanced Performance Management : Syllabus (ACCA p5): http://www.accaglobal.com/en/student/acca-qual-student-journey/qual-resource/acca-qualification/p5.html Technical articles: http://www.accaglobal.com/en/student/acca-qual-student-journey/qual-resource/acca-qualification/f5/technical-articles.html Topics: Strategic planning and control External influence on organizational performance Performance measurement systems and design Strategic performance measurement Performance evaluation and corporate failure Current development and emerging issues in performance Related youtube resources: exam techniques: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHXsunPFjCs Performance evaluation model: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEBlQpDFHBo

The following resources are related to Hong Kong Taxation : Study guide (p6- acca): http://www.accaglobal.com/content/dam/acca/global/PDF-students/acca/p6/studyguides/p6-hkg-sg-2013.pdf Past exam papers: http://www.accaglobal.com/en/student/acca-qual-student-journey/qual-resource/acca-qualification/p6/past-exam-papers/hong-kong.html Related videos - general info An introduction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwoalukvCM0 Choose p6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FStwOsV9tOk Past paper analysis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m42RkKLiqoI References on HK Taxation : Link 1: http://www.lowtax.net/lowtax/html/hongkong/jhktax.html The Taxation Institute (HK): http://www.tihk.org.hk/v2/links

The following are some of the observations on marking Independent Study assignments - 2013: No abstract provided; Some of the abstracts do not have required information - i.e., they are not properly written. Variable X becomes variable Y, and variable Y becomes variable X in regression analysis;  S ome of the IS reports produced multiple regression reports (from Excel), attached them in appendix of the reports and did not actually interpret the Excel reports in the "findings and analysis" section. Quite a lot of grammatical errors are found in some of the IS reports Some reports do not use outlining Literature review reads like detailed lecture notes; the literature review skill remains weak for some of the reports. Referencing is sometimes not provided in some reports; a few students use footnotes for referencing - which is not a proper practice. Some students use too many quotations in their reports and some students write in paragraphs...