hi i think your problem is in practical papers. Working out problems will surely help.
1. Set yourself a thumb rule - you will write 5 marks question in 8 minutes, 10 marks question in 16 minutes, 16 marks question in 24 minutes. If you have not completed, then you will drop the question and proceed to the next. DO NOT CUT OFF anything you have written
2. As far as possible, don' t overwrite theory. Write what comes to your mind. Spend at the most half and hour, because theory may be just 20 marks. Write in points, not more than 2 points for one mark.
3. Dont get tense. All the information is already with you. You just have to reproduce it. If you dont know the answer to one question, dont think about it again - leave it.
4. Try to see a pattern in which you can answer questions from some lessons. For eg, in amalgamation, you know that first thing will be a statement of purchase consideration, computation of goodwill or capital reserve, and other subsequent steps.
Similarly in process costing you will have to make a statement of input output reconciliation,statement of equivalent production, and other subsequent steps.
So try to make a picture in your mind that as soon as you see a problem from this lesson, this will be your steps....
A pre-imagined format will give you better time management capability and at the same time, you will not miss out any information in the question.
I suggest you to get the May 2010 exams suggested answers and write a mock test based on that.