[jivexturk3y]

With the test now being 50/50 McQ and Sims, 24 questions per testlet and 8 sims, what is everyone’s strategy to adjust for the changes? I was planning on spending an hour and a half on Mcqs and the remaining time on sims so that I could have plenty of time to use the AL to look up information and the annoying calculations for the analytical procedures. What are people’s thoughts on this?

[Anonymous]

What review materials will you be using?

[jivexturk3y]

Mostly Ninja, with review notes from Becker that expired a few months ago.

[Privateye8]

Just gotta say, I wasted a lot of time memorizing the formulas. While they may be needed for MCQ, when it came to the TBS they had a list of all of the formulas in a separate tab.

[Anonymous]

Using Roger. I'm currently on Section 7 out of the 9 or 10 sections (I think part 10 is just a review). I just kind of use the materials in the way most people do, the way Roger suggests it –
watch all the vids, read the book, work the problems. I always take notes while doing the problems.

I'm scheduled to take AUD on April 29th. I have tried to work it out so that I have a month to spend reviewing the materials before taking the exam, although the last time I did that, I found myself not really studying much because I was so sick of looking at it all. That was for FAR though. I'm not in that same position with AUD, I'm not quite so sick of it because there is much less material.

At some point I might buy the Ninja materials for AUD and one or more of the other parts if I end up not passing them. But, I'm not someone who likes spending money on this stuff, especially since it's not a tax write-off. I like to use up all my resources before spending on new ones.

[jivexturk3y]

Is Rogers updated for the changes that are going to be made in Q2? I'm more curious in how you plan on allotting your test time. I guess everyone is different but before the changes, I was spending around 2 hrs on McQ and 2 hrs on Sims and I still felt like it wasn't enough time tbh. With 8 sims now instead of 7, I was planning on trying to leave 2.5 hrs for sims because the analytical procedures can be very time consuming.

[Anonymous]

OP, which formulas are you talking about? You mean like for audit risk and stuff like that? Detection Risk = Audit Risk / Risk of Material Misstatement ? That's the only one I have memorized right now I think…a few for Audit Sampling too but those are easy. Maybe your review course gave more formulas than Roger does. I noticed that when I compared Gleim to Roger…he has many more formulas for stuff than Roger. Or were you talking about the ratios? Those aren't too hard to memorize and some are interrelated. But, I hope the AICPA doesn't expect us to know more than just the basic ones!! I hope I'm not missing any!

[jivexturk3y]

So my story is that AUD is my last test. Sad part is this is my 5th time taking it. I was able to pass FAR and REG on my first try and BEC on my 2nd so I'm somewhat confident I'm not completely retarded. Anyways, each time there was a sim where you they give you a company's financial statements and you have to process the information. Ninja has a few of these, I don't know if Rogers does.

[Anonymous]

@jive – you are in good company as far as having one exam that has given you far more trouble than the rest. You're not retarded of course – you probably just get stuck with harder forms of the exam than some other people do. Half of these exams are about luck. One of my best friends is a CPA. I hate to say this but he doesn't know hardly anything LOL. He's not good with tax. He's not good with Advanced Accounting-type topics. He's *great* at audit stuff because that's what he does for a living. But, he has asked *me* for help with things in the past and I haven't yet passed even one section of the CPA exam. I know more than he does about certain areas of accounting. And yet, at one time, he managed to pass all four. It was still a paper-pencil test at that time, not that that is the reason why he passed but these goofy games that the AICPA plays nowadays with the exam were not being played when he took it in the earlier 2000s.

Those financial statement questions are wicked. They expect you to read them in 2 minutes and fully understand everything about them in another 3 minutes, and be able to answer all the questions in the world about them within the next 10 minutes…hence, the 15 minute average time for a TBS. IGHHHHHHH. I've said before many times and will say again that these exams have almost no connection to reality.

[Anonymous]

The one constant in all of this, is that the Audit material is still the same Audit material from last year and from the year prior.
Baffles me why everyone's making such a big deal of the new “format”

[shawn in VA]

could someone who has PASSED AUDIT please tell me what materials they used to pass. I got a 64, then a 69. I used Roger and Wiley Test Bank. The SIMS is what screws me up on the actual exam.

Can someone reccommed a program that the SIMS are close to the actual exam. Becker does NOT count, I dont have the money for that. thanks

[shawn in VA]

i also used ninja NOTES. i have ZERO audit expereince and my college class for Audit was a joke. exams were identical from questions in the homework book

[jivexturk3y]

From what I read here, Gleim seems to be really effective for the AUD exam but I'd say none of them can really prepare you for the SIMS. It really does seem like a crap shoot. I've had some where you just pick the correct answer 5x on a droplist and then I'd have some that were just ridiculous where you're spending 20 mins flipping through the questions and the financial statements doing ratio analysis.

[shawn in VA]

for my SIMS on AUD i get stuck with at least 2 JEs that seem more FAR related and I have not taken FAR. I also got screwed last time with 2 DRS SIMS. complete garbage.

Gleim Test Bank is $200 ?

Can someone tell me if the NINJA MCQ and SIMS is close to exam? For $47 its a decent price.

[Anonymous]

@shawn – That's wicked that they'd give you FAR material on AUD. I didn't think they actually did that, but I guess it's true. Somebody told me long ago “Get FAR out of the way first, and if you do, the other three will be easier for you.” I did take it first, although did not quite pass. If I were you, I'd actually think about taking FAR before going back and doing BEC and AUD again.
And yes, those DRS questions are evil. I posted on another thread that the people who invented those should be punished!! They take way too long to do and with as many as 8 possible answers (including DELETE TEXT), well….not fun.

My college audit classes were exactly the same, a joke, and the questions were all from the book. Read the book, study the multiple choice questions and know the answers, and get an ‘A' in the course. I'm learning way more now in my studies for AUD (Roger 100%, no Ninja yet). I'd recommend Gleim. I have all of Gleim's textbooks. They're better than Roger's. I'd spend $200 for Gleim test bank if all else was failing.

@jive – I can't make a call on allocating a certain number of minutes to MCQ and SIMs. On FAR, I gave myself 1 hr 45 min for the 7 SIMs. I made sure I had that much time left while working the MCQ. I finished the exam with less than 3 minutes on the clock. This is all changing completely starting next month with the new format so I'd just go by that. Give yourself at least the recommended time of 15 min for each SIM and the rest of the time should be on MCQ. I think the time spent on each portion of the exam differs substantially from person to person. If you do audit for a living, AUD will be a cinch. If you're like me and you don't do audits for a living and know the stuff only from a textbook standpoint and not a practical one, and are NOT a very good test taker in general, then you have to just make a judgement call about how much time it's gonna take you to make your way thru the questions.

[jivexturk3y]

One of those DRSs had to be a test Sim. Putting 2 in one test is just cruel.

[Author]

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