[Journey to Fate]

Hey everyone,

Im doing great on the MCs but with a few weeks to go, im a little worried on the sims. Outside of the wiley test bank and book, how does everyone best prepare for the sims?

All advice is very appreciated!!!!

BEC- 67, 69

[Anonymous]

You'll notice that a common response around here is “Do more multiple choice questions!”. I felt sufficiently prepared for the audit sims as a result of the thousands of MCQ's that I did. I would highly recommend the Wiley test bank, cpareviewforfree.com, and possibly even Gleim. By my math I did well over 3000 MCQ's, and made sure I understood the logic behind them. Given that I didn't have a strong audit background prior to studying for AUD, I found that reasoning through the logic behind certain problems helped a lot (I actually did this out loud!). For instance, I would literally say out loud, “if the question pertains to completeness, you start at the source documents and work your way back to the accounting records — after all, if you start at the accounting records and work your way back to the source documents, you'll only investigate source documents that are recorded. If a source document wasn't recorded, and subsequently wasn't in the accounting records, then how the hell are you going to know it should be investigated??”

While it may sound like common sense, the authoritative literature tab is a treasure trove of answers for the AUD sims. I was able to conclusively verify several key answers on my sims simply by using the authoritative literature. Also, when searching the authoritative literature, be sure to use common sense. I found that I had a lot of success in isolating key words from the problem in order to run a search where certain words HAD to be in the results — in a certain order — and other words simply had to be present. Running a sentence long search without a high level of specificity will usually yield either no results, or hundreds — neither result is ideal.

[mena je twa]

Rezaking & Journey to fate

FARE & Audit go hand in hand. It will help you immensley if you understand GAAP. I did the same mistake of going for audit without understanding GAAP & FARE…Both of you'll signatures suggest that you have not taken a crack at FARE yet.

The logic is if you dont under GAAP, how will you audit the books. Thats what i was told on one of the blogs. Not saying that it can't be achieved, but it helps if you tackle FARE side by side.

On my Audit i had 3 simulations directly related to FARE…..Analytical procedures/ ratios etc are all connected..

Goodluck

Licensed CPA, Texas - 2012

[Texas27]

The best thing to do to prepare for the sims in my opinion is to learn to utilize the research tab on the actual exam. This will help you tremendously if you leave yourself ample amount of time for the sims to do so. I went into the test with this strategy and knew that I wanted to use 2 full hours to do the sims so I could utilize the research tab. I actually found one entire sim that was word for word on the research tab… I thought it was a joke! In order to do well on the sims anyways you will need to know the material which can be done by doing as many multiple choice questions as possible. Honestly, practicing simulations really will just give you an idea of what format you can expect the sims and it might help you understand the material better but you probably won't see sims on the exam that are similar in materials/answers in the practice sims. Therefore, you have to be prepared to use the research tab and try to squeeze out as many points as possible on the simulations. Even if you have extra time left I would still try to find answers that you are not completely sure about in order to reaffirm your answer or guide you to the correct answer. The biggest mistake that people make is not using the research tab on the sims which can cost you a lot of points.

BEC - Feb 2012: 80
AUD - Feb 2012: 84
FAR - Apr 2012: 78
REG - May 2012: 90

Thanks Becker!

[jenuno01]

^^^ what @Texas27 said! I just want to emphasize that 4 hours is more than enough time to finish AUD!… take your time to review things, because it's very easy to make careless mistakes on the SIMS…also, don't assume that you can answer the SIMS based on what seems “logical” to you..I made this mistake the first time I took it…walked out about 1.5 hours early of the test feeling like I scored a 99 lol… I bombed it… the second time, I took no chances and used the **!&!^% out of the Research Tab…

Class of 2012

[mla1169]

one more vote for what Texas said. Leave plenty of time for the SIMS and absolutely use the authoritative literature on all of them!

FAR- 77
AUD -49, 71, 84
REG -56,75!
BEC -75

Massachusetts CPA (non reporting) since 3/12.

[Author]

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