KASNEB ATD common mistakes
KASNEB ATD · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Writes only the final figure for a computation (depreciation, accrual, apportionment) and shows no workings anywhere on the script.
Candidates believe only the correct answer earns marks and that workings waste time, so under exam pressure they compute mentally or on a loose page and transfer a single number.
What to do instead
Train a fixed habit: on reading any computational requirement, draw a boxed 'Workings' section first, write the formula, substitute the figures, then carry only the result into the ledger or statement. Method marks are awarded inside that box.
Records an increase in an expense as a credit and an increase in a liability as a debit when journalising routine transactions.
Double-entry is learned as a set of memorised rules rather than from the accounting equation, so the rules collapse once the transaction is worded unusually.
What to do instead
Write A = Capital + Liabilities at the top of rough work and test each transaction against it before writing the entry; then drill five T-accounts daily until the effect of each transaction type is automatic.
Answers a Business Law question with personal opinion or an argument about fairness, naming no statute section and no case.
Candidates revise law as narrative and never build the link from principle to legal authority, so they write what feels right rather than what the law says.
What to do instead
For each topic prepare a three-column card: principle, statute and section, one case name with a one-line fact summary. In the exam answer in the order principle, authority, application to the facts given.
Gives a textbook definition of an entrepreneurship or communication concept and stops, with no named Kenyan business or applied illustration.
Textbooks are memorised verbatim and candidates do not realise that application marks sit separate from definition marks.
What to do instead
Build a bank of three named Kenyan examples per topic and attach one example plus one sentence of application to every definitional answer, starting with the words 'For example, ...'.
Begins the computation before separating a mixed cost into fixed and variable elements, producing a high-low or CVP answer that is arithmetically neat but conceptually wrong.
Candidates pattern-match to a formula they have seen rather than diagnosing the cost behaviour the question is testing.
What to do instead
Always draw a classification table first (cost item, behaviour, basis of split) and only then apply high-low, scattergraph or regression; state the split in one line above the working.
Applies PAYE bands, personal relief, VAT rate or turnover tax thresholds remembered from an earlier Finance Act.
Candidates revise from old notes or past papers and never update the rates; the arithmetic is right but the rates are stale.
What to do instead
Maintain a single one-page rates sheet for the current Finance Act year, write that year at the top of the answer, and re-test the sheet weekly so the rates are recalled as a block.
Describes what a system, spreadsheet feature or software category is in general terms instead of showing how it is used in the specific business process named in the question.
ICT is revised as definitions and hardware lists, so candidates reproduce descriptions rather than applying the tool to the scenario given.
What to do instead
Use a fixed three-part structure for every ICT answer: process step, system or feature used, output or control benefit. If the answer does not name a business process, it is incomplete.
Misreads the command word, writing full paragraphs where the question says list or state, and a single line where it says discuss or evaluate.
Candidates read for the topic rather than the instruction, and do not connect the mark allocation to the depth required.
What to do instead
Before writing, circle the command word and the marks, then number one distinct point per mark; for list or state write single-line points only, for discuss write point, explanation, implication.
Applies an overhead absorption rate without stating the basis used and finishes without reconciling over- or under-absorbed overhead to the actual figure.
The absorption calculation is learned as a formula to be applied, not as a chain that must be closed off against actual cost.
What to do instead
State the absorption basis in one line before computing, and always end the answer with a reconciliation of overhead absorbed against overhead incurred, labelling the difference as over- or under-absorption.
Writes audit procedures that are not procedures at all, such as 'check the records' or 'verify the assets', with no document, no action and no assertion.
Candidates know the assertion names but not what an auditor physically does, so the answer stays at the level of a slogan.
What to do instead
Write every procedure as verb plus document or record plus assertion tested, for example 'vouch a sample of purchase invoices to goods received notes to test occurrence'. If a sentence has no document named, rewrite it.