[Anonymous]

I posted something earlier about BEC, which I took today. But, I don’t think the post went thru so if it did, please forgive the redundant post.

Has anyone gotten a bunch of AUD questions on BEC? I got quite a few today. Also got 3-4 FAR questions.

The SIMs I got were freaking hard – 4 were DRS’s, and two of them were on the same topic…a topic that I did not study much. I think the only easy part of the test were the WC’s.

I’d be surprised if BEC continues to have a typical pass rate of like 56%, now that it has SIMs. I don’t think it will stay that high in the future. I’m thinking they want to curb the number of new CPAs. Ighhh, the battle continues.

[shawn in VA]

I have taken it twice already- and I never got any AUD or FAR MCQ's. But I did get AUD and FAR WC's.

Your the first person to say the SIMS were hard and the WC were easy this window. Everyone else says the opposite at least for this window. Best of luck though!

I agree with your last sentence. They are definitely trying to curb new CPAs. I have heard horror stories on this very forum about the new REG SIMS. They were hard enough when I passed under the old format. I think to many people are taking the CPA exam these days and only so many are allowed to pass to keep the rates consistent. I have personally met a lot of NOT so bright people who passed back in 2009-2012. Coincidentally it was recession as well during that period.

[Anonymous]

@shawn in VA – yes, I think they are raising the bar higher than it's ever been before. I felt like such a dumbass today, far more than I did when I took FAR and AUD earlier this year.
I was thinking to myself, “Do I know anything about Accounting? I have a job as an accountant, I have a degree in it, but why the **** do I not know how to answer some of these questions?”

The WC's were very easy. I knocked all three out in about 30-35 minutes. I wish they'd been on the third testlet and not the fifth…I could've spent more time on the difficult SIMs.
I don't like the new format, as far as the way they split up the testlets and the abundance of DRS's. Toggling back and forth between the DRS documents is a pain in the ass. Again…raising the bar and weeding out those who can't do it – or so they think. Of course, in the real world you'd have a lot more time to work on it. I think the difficulty of *any* of these tests is based a lot on just when you take it. If you take it one day, the set of questions you get might be much more tame than on another day. When I took FAR (Jan 2017, last window of the old version of the test), 2 of the 7 SIMs were absolutely impossible. I would've needed an hour to do each one, they had like 20 blanks to fill in. And, of the remaining 5, the research question was the only one that was “easy”. And yet people were reporting that FAR was easy in that testing window. Well, maybe for them!

I am gonna have to find a new way to study for these tests because what I've done has not worked. Actually, for BEC I did not use Roger (I purchased full course package last year.) He is not good for BEC so I used Gleim – but only the textbook, I didn't purchase the software. I did only about 600 MCQ and no practice SIMs, mainly due to lack of time. So that was a huge strike against me. Next time around, I will be using Ninja I think.

[shawn in VA]

Roger is terrible for BEC. I have Roger and Wiley CPA excel.

Roger- Skips over so much material compared to the exam. He talks so fast you can barely keep up. The books are watered down big time. The MCQ are very easy compared to the exam. This is his rating for BEC only.

Wiley CPA excel–very very through. Lots of detailed lectures, books are detailed, and questions really make you think which is good. Although very time consuming if you want to go through everything. At least 2 months if you put in 3 hours a day everyday to go through BEC in Wiley. I work FT, If I did not I could see going through it in 5 weeks.

How many documents did you get in the DRS? The SIMS on the AICPA website for BEC are reasonable.

FYI- if you did not pass next time try cpareviewforfree.com. At least 500 MCQs and very challenging. As the name says its free!

I agree –I have been in public for 8 years and have accounting degree. There are moments during the exam I ask myself is this really for me b/c some questions are insanely difficult. I never struggled at school and did really well on exams and my accounting courses.

[Anonymous]

@shawn thanks for the advice, I will look at cpareviewforfree. I'm not wild about Roger. He's overrated. I have to use it for REG though, which is my next test – I paid $2,000 for it so may as well use it for 3 of the 4 sections. For FAR, I spent tons of time listening
to his hundreds of lectures and didn't get much out of them. I thought he was better for AUD. I already know that I have to retake FAR so if Wiley isn't too expensive, for just one part, I might see about using it for that. I have always sucked on MCQ. I always fall into the trap wrong answers….unless I know the material so incredibly well, which is not the case for these CPA exams. In school I had A's in all but one accounting/business course…yet I'm struggling to get a pass on the CPA exams. If I was 22 years old and not working full time, I'm sure the story would be different. Actually, a lot of us are in that situation. You probably need the CPA more than I do since you're in public.

Of the four DRS's, two of them had 5 documents or more, each. I only had one easy SIM, which at the same time was a really lame question. The rest were ridiculously hard.

I wasn't well prepared for BEC though. My NTS expired today and I had to take it, regardless.

[Anonymous]

@shawn – just looked at cpareviewforfree – it says the questions were written by Professor Joe Hoyle – I wonder if that's the same one who was the lead author of “Advanced Accounting” textbook, which I have – that textbook is crazy hard (to read) but the problems in it are really good and very in-depth. Thanks for recommending. I think my downfall has been not working enough MCQ's…well, hard ones. Roger's MCQ's are not always the best. Gleim's are better. Maybe Hoyle's are better than both of them.

[Scared-cpa]

I haven't read all the posts so forgive me if I am repeating anything. However, I feel like AUD does overlap somewhat into REG and BEC both. I'm glad I took it as my second section because I think the understanding of it helped with the business law portion of REG and the internal control portion of BEC. I've experienced this overlap in studying (Wiley and Ninja) as well as on the actual exam.

[Anonymous]

Yes, a certain amount of overlap is expected but come on, getting straight-out questions that belong on the other exams is not something that candidates are expecting.
All part of the AICPA's charm, I suppose……..

[Author]

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