[Anonymous]

I took the audit exam today (8/31), I thought I was going to blow through it. I have been an auditor for several years so the Becker material seemed so easy to me. I went through all the lectures, homework questions (most of them multiple times), read through the book two times, took the practice exams, not bad at all. So I go into the exam today, the first testlet was a breeze, multiple questions seemed word for word from Becker, I finished in about 20 minutes. From here on out things went down hill.

The second testlet was so hard. It seemed like I’ve never seen/heard of half of it. Could narrow most down to two answers but had a lot of trouble picking one definitive answer.

The third was pretty similar to the second.

I know we can’t discuss the sims here, so half were pretty easy to answer and the other half was stuff that I know was not in the Becker material. BOTH of my communications were on the same area/law/regulation, each asked me to write about a specific topic within that area, which I knew nothing about. I tried to look it up in the research tab but this area/law/regulation is not discussed at all.

I couldn’t believe how hard this exam was, especially since I had such an easy time with the Becker material.

This only adds insult to injury, I took FAR on 7/20 and still haven’t got this grade back. Unfortunately I feel like I did worse on Audit than FAR and I didn’t feel great leaving Audit. It could be a bad week when I get these scores 🙁

[xcing1030]

If your testlets got harder its a really good thing, if i had to guess you do fine. The testlets are adaptive, if yuo do well, you will get harder material

Best of luck!

FAR 77, AUD 78, REG 75, BEC 76

[Anonymous]

Auditor

You may have done better than you think. The testlets did get harder!

Had an Accounting Prof in cpollege who failed audit hs first try. He said on his WC he did not use buzz words. This guy was good – had a natual abilty to test well. He claimed to been challenged once and the prize was a bottle of his favorite adult beverage that he could pass a test. His friend challenged him to take the CMA exam cold – he did and passed. He had many letters behind his PhD, CPA, CMA, etc. I always thought of his as alphebet guy lol

Part of any test is a little luck – that they test what you know!

[Anonymous]

I sure hope so.

What worries me is the fact that I felt that I have never seen the material. The Becker practice tests only took me about 1 hour 45 minutes each but I did not do the written communications. The exam today took me 4 hours 29 minutes and 45 seconds!

I know people say that the content of the written communication does not matter but I got both on things not included in Becker, no located in the research area and so specific that probably less than one percent of test takers would know. I had to basically make something up.

[Anonymous]

many people BS through the WC – I was a bit presssed for time and wrote something that could be printed on a gum wrapper lol almost

Hope you get double good news in Sept – the two exams that will change the most down !!!!!!

[Anonymous]

@Auditor

Try not to think about it now, people who receive harder exams tend to pass often. I also took FAR 7/23 and didn't receive my grade in wave 1 but that just means you got a new simulation! I've heard about this simulation (this whole confidentiality stuff doesn't work much w friends) and almost no one knew how to approach the regulation WC. Don't worry, really.

[Anonymous]

Also, on WC you get 5/10 points for using proper english even if your answer is completely wrong. That what my Becker instructor told us.

[mmp]

@auditor. I took my AUD today – 8/31/10. I used same review materials as you did – Becker 2010. My study method was lec, review/skim text, HW, read the whole text, and HW again with total around 100-120 hrs.

regarding my exam – testlet 1 easy, testlet – 2 difficult, testlet -3 easy. My sims were overall hard with couple easy ones and WC topics were not bad.

From what I know from AICPA website, the more correct answers you get on the testlets, the more difficult the next testlet or sims is. If you studied hard and were familiar with the overall auditing concepts, then it is most likely that you did pretty good on test. Remember, level of difficulty is also a major factor on a test score.

[potatogun]

Sims are not adaptive from the other testlets as far as I know.

FAR 92 - AUD 91 - REG 94 - BEC 86

[Anonymous]

I am sure you did fine. Sometimes it is easy to lose perspective when taking a CPA exam and think you are doing horribly, but really you are just being hard on yourself. As others said, if the MC got harder chances are you were doing well. And remember some MC and some simulation questions are test questions which will not count towards your score. These usually make up some of the questions that you feel like you had never seen before.

[Anonymous]

Recent example. I just received my reg scores and received an 83 after thinking for sure I failed because I left an entire sim blank (literally every tab as I just ran out of time). Each mc testlet got harder and I felt as if I was guessing. You may have a very satisfying surprise when wave two score are released. Just took audit and like you I finished with about 20 seconds left but at least this time I finished. I too received mc testlets much like yours (easy, harder, harder) and often felt as if I was guessing. If you continue to meet that threshold however and even score 6,7,8 points on your wc, grab your 5 from research, realize all of those other tabs only make up 15 points, your 75 is not all that far away. You don't need to get 75% of the material correct. Let's just hope we both guesssed right a few more tomes than not on those questions we narrowed down to 2 choices. Here's to a beer when wave two comes out and 4 hours of refreshing the NASBA page

[Anonymous]

So I haven't posted in this thread in awhile but the auditor ended up failing audit with a flippin' 74!

So I retook the exam tonight:

M/C

Testlet 1 – easy, possibly got them all right

Testlet 2 – hard, probably half of them I was confident with, other half were 50/50

Testlet 3 – harder than first, not as hard as first

Thought: 28/30, 20/30, 22/30 = 77.7% (54 points)

SIMS

Last time I thought I did well (confirmed when I scored higher than passing candidate on sims) but I thought I did well because of my job experience. Well this time my job experience couldn't help me as much. Nothing had a straight forward answer. I wouldnt say I was guessing but I wasn't confident either. Ugh, so aggravated with these.

Thought: 13/18 (13 points)

WC

So much easier than last time! They actually applied to auditing instead of the nonsense I got last time! First one I knocked out of the park, second I was running low on time and the subject wasn't something I could right much about. I think I was solid in either case.

Thought: 8/10 (8 points)

RESEARCH

I know one was right, pretty sure the other was right.

Thought: 1/2 (1 point)

My guess is I passed with a 76…let's hope I'm right!

[Anonymous]

Ok so now that I wrote about how I thought I did, I'm going to talk about the exam in general…

IT'S HARD!

I felt great going into this test the first time, felt awful coming out, ended up with a 74. I felt like I had a decent grasp on the material so I gave myself a week to refresh. I read through each chapter of Becker, and answered all multiple choice questions, anything I got wrong I went through a second time. I took about 5 of the 100 question progress tests, scoring in the high 80's each time. Most of the questions I got wrong on progress tests were due to misreading.

I feel like I don't see any of this material on the test. I don't know what is going on but a lot of people tell me Becker is harder than the actual exam…in my case I feel like the Becker material has nothing to do with the exam. I know every test is different and I know a lot of others who said their tests were straight from Becker. I'm just not that lucky I guess. I pretty much have Becker memorized. Luckily I do this for a living and that gives me the chance to pass.

All I can do now is cross my fingers.

[Anonymous]

You know.. Where I work, there is someone that keeps “winging” this entire exam. She has failed all parts but refuses to open a book. She works in Auditing and truly believes that because she “does this for a living” she should be able to pass this exam without opening a book .. WHAT?? She works at a corporate office in Auditing.. how can that be close to being a real auditor in a firm? I looked at her book before deciding to purchase Becker and her book was blank.. which means no studying and she was telling the truth. At least you opened the book! haha.

She is going to take the exam again and still refuses to open the book.

I really think this book is not comparable to the job of being an auditor. I mean the basics, yeah. But the memorization and the word tricks are not something you learn from experience, you think?

I take this exam in 1 week.. I'm memorizing and understanding all concepts in hopes to get a 75!!

[Anonymous]

I went through all of the lectures and did the homeworks several times the first time around.

This time I did about 2000-2500 of the homework questions over the past week.

What I'm saying is I feel like this did not help as much as it should have and the only reason I got a 74 the first time and am hopeful I passed this time is because of my real life work experience.

I don't know if it is the tests I'm getting but the exam I'm taking does not feel like it is the exam Becker is teaching. With BEC and FAR it was the opposite, those tests seemed straight from Becker!

[16sTrophy]

I like your mnemonic BARF. Never saw anyone post their scores this way. Good luck!

B – July 75

A – Oct waiting anxiously

R – May 75

F – Feb 64, Aug 85

Lisa

FAR 01/10 Fail
REG 04/10 Pass
BEC 07/10 Pass
FAR 08/10 Pass
AUD 10/10 Pass

CPA license received 01/2011 EPIC!

[Author]

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