BCTA TAX Blueprint Test 1 schedule

BCTA Taxation Test 1 Strategic Blueprint & Study Pack — Your build-up plan to 17 August

The foundation of the Test 1 study build: what to focus on, in what order, and how to spend every week from the 15 July start to exam day.

What the Blueprint is

A prediction document, not a summary — built on all six Test 1 sittings on record (B21F, B21S, B22F, B23F, B23S and the most recent, B25S), each read line by line from its original requirement document and reconciled to 50 marks. Marker criticisms are drawn from the two cohorts with published feedback, B23S and B25S. It's the analytical foundation every topic guide and mock in this pack is built on.

Why is Test 1 predictable?

Test 1 owns Unit 1: tax framework and residency, gross income, capital vs revenue, deductions, and CGT. No fringe benefits, no PAYE, no VAT, no company tax — all of that lives in Units 2 and 3 and has never once appeared in a Test 1. The examiner builds every paper from the same blocks: a gross-income-and-capital-vs-revenue opener, the general deduction formula, repairs under s11(d), a residency discussion, and a non-resident taxable income calculation. The Blueprint ranks every topic by how likely it is to appear — from the taxable income calculation and gross income (in all six papers), through the general deduction formula, to residency, which appears in five of six sittings averaging almost 20 marks and is the single most under-rated topic in the module because it sits in Week 1 and looks like introductory framing.

The two paper shapes

Test 1 comes in two forms, both reconciling to 50 marks: Shape A is a single taxpayer with one large calculation — gross income, deductions and repairs (B25S, 1 of 6); Shape B is two taxpayers, a trading entity plus an individual with a residency or source question, and a non-resident taxable income calculation (5 of 6, the historical norm). You get the honest mark-band math on each, and why the swing between them — roughly 7 marks of repairs under Shape A, roughly 10 marks of residency under Shape B — is the whole gamble the pack is built to remove.

The build-up plan

Sequenced by predicted mark value, not the module content-release schedule — the four topics common to both shapes come first, then the swing topics, then integration. You cross 75% of the paper by 6 August and reach 84% coverage — 42 of the 50 marks, under either shape — by the end of Week 4, eleven days before you sit. Week 1 gross income and capital vs revenue, Week 2 deductions, Week 3 residency and source, Week 4 repairs and CGT, then a run-in built on two full timed papers: the 50-mark Shape B mock on 13 August and the complete B25S Shape A paper on 15 August, so whichever shape you're handed on the 17th, you'll have written it within the preceding week.

What comes with each week?

A study guide, a mock question, and a challenger — a harder variant with a built-in trap that flips the answer — each mock and challenger with its own full suggested solution and per-part mark plan, plus a verification log recording every case and citation checked against source. The pack also ships the flagship 50-mark Shape B mock (Zwelethu Trading and Marcus Bekker) with a suggested solution and an Excel mark plan that reconciles to 50, with the Word solution generated from the same source as the Excel so the two cannot drift.

One trap flagged throughout: Test 1 examines the 2026 year of assessment, but Budget 2026 introduced new figures that apply to 2027 — the primary residence exclusion, the CGT annual exclusion and the rebates all changed. Every website you search today shows the wrong numbers. The pack carries a USE THIS / NOT THIS table for exactly this reason.

Prepared by David Du Preez, CTA Thrive Coach. Independent — not affiliated with Milpark Education.