[jeff]

We have a lot of “I took __ today threads” so to consolidate, here is the official thread.

Please – Not even a hint of exam disclosure per AICPA rules.

Links to other Exam Experience Threads:

AUD

REG

FAR

[NeedsA75]

^^Believe it or not that helps because that's how I felt for a large number of questions as well.

I will say that on my third testlet at least 30% of the testlet had questions that were literally a paragraph long. Some required two to three steps of computation.

I did have a bunch of tricky one line questions in there as well.

[ImmoKnight]

Was it Testlet 2?

If so, how did you feel about Testlet 3?

Alrighty then. That hurts a little. My 3rd testlet wasn't nearly as difficult as yours which means I didn't do well on that 2nd Testlet.

AUD: 85 (3/8/16)
FAR: 77 (6/7/16)
BEC: ??? (9/7/16)
REG: ???

[NeedsA75]

I thought testlet 3 was my hardest testlet given the wordiness of the questions. It caused me to run short on time for the WC.

I thought testlet two was marginally more difficult than testlet 1

[Ne’O]

I took the exam Dec 10th.

I'm writing here partially to thank those who said there were more COSO and IT questions. I gave those sections an extra pass during my review phase. Some of the IT stuff is really outdated, but I wanted to try and know it the way they might ask it on an exam. It might have helped with one or two questions.
However, I definitely got a COSO question that was a far cry from the books or practice questions I had done. That one ended up being ‘narrow it down to 2 choices' and pick one.

I also got an IT question where I was- “Huh?”
I'm like 2nd-dan in IT with a group of engineering friends who are all grandmasters of nerdiness from Commodore 64 to present. Our ringtones make dial-up handshake noises when we get a call.
I understood the question perfectly well, but none of the answers were actually correct. One was mostly correct in certain situations, but the other answer was correct under other circumstances.
Neither was really correct.
For most people, that question would be difficult and probably be a random guess. I felt it was a bit cruel and half baked.

Calc based questions seemed easier than I anticipated, but many of the simpler non-calc questions were almost too minimalist. Either I knew them or I didn't, but wished a few were a bit more wordy to influence or confirm my choice between two answers.

Thank you for the heads up about COSO and IT. Who knows if the exams will have that same distortion in Q1 2017, but I appreciated it.
If I need take BEC again, it will be early in Q1 2017. I'll be sure to return the favor and post my opinion of that qtr's exam.

Newbie CPA Candidate

[NeedsA75]

What pissed me off is I knew COSO would be tested heavily and I studied the hell out of that section and I STILL found those questions to be among the most difficult and tricky

[Megan]

Very similar experience to all others who have posted. Friday was my second attempt at BEC and it still kicked my butt. Took all weekend to get over it.

First and second testlets were hell, same as they were on my first attempt. The third testlet I felt much better about…..the CPA demons must have sensed that I was about to totally give up and they finally had some mercy on me. Yikes, I had to guess on so many questions in the first and second testlets, it'll be a miracle from two gods if I actually pass. The WC were not as brutal as I anticipated. The questions were very straight forward so am hoping that will save me some.

Overall, I feel like all the money I've spent on study materials (Wiley, Becker, AND NINJA) and I still feel like I got hit by the BEC truck Friday. I can't seem to shake this section and will be praying hard to the CPA gods this week.

Good luck everyone if you're waiting for the 16th score release.

[jms10101]

With you Megan, except that I did not notice much difference in my 3 testlets. Each contained easy to enormously difficult questions. I am waiting for the 16th too. Good luck.

[bronze5988]

I took BEC last Monday and it was my second shot at it. I felt as though my exam was just as hard as the first time, possibly harder which made me feel very defeated. I studied the IT section using Roger, ninja, and wiley yet all of the questions I got, I had never read about in my material. I also got computational questions never covered in my material as well.
My mind can't handle reading this material anymore, but I feel like I may have to give it another shot after how horrible I feel about the test.

[CPAgal]

I too had the same experience of typing too loud. The girl in front of me kept pounding on the table and kicking the desk. I slowed down on my typing and also lost some time on the WC. However, I will say that I may not have boded well on WC. I forgot to put my salutation at the end. Also, my first and 3rd test were easier an my second testlet was harder.

[NeedsA75]

What kind of salutation are you putting at the end? From becker's lecture I was under the impression you had to just type the memo and not put “Dear So and So” at the begging or “Sincerely, John Doe” at the end. Am I wrong?

[So FAR So Good]

@Chinchil3n – so you think we should be including salutations? Becker didn't mention it at all, so I was under the impression it wasn't necessary. Does your review material recommend it?

And as for that girl, there are headphones for a reason! I actually tried to be a nice guy and tell the Prometric team beforehand that I was taking an exam that involved a lot of typing in case they wanted to move me away from anybody, and even they said “Don't worry, they can deal with it and wear the headphones if they need to.” To be fair, the keyboards were actually very quiet to begin with.

F - 91 (6/5/2016)
A - 7/30/2016
R - 10/8/2016
B - 12/10/2016

[CPYay]

How did you feel when studying for the BEC exam? I'm using Roger and have 1 section of videos left. After that, I'm going to start on MCQs.

I feel overwhelmed with the amount of vocabulary (all very similar) and various “steps” of calculations. Granted, I've seen these before in my undergrad, but I didn't care for the cost accounting very much and find myself lost in the details. I'm guessing it will get easier as I do MCQs, but should I expect a ton of calculation problems or moreso concepts?

I thought BEC was the “easiest” of the exams? haha…

[NeedsA75]

IMO BEC is no easier to study for than any of the other sections. Its just marginally less material. But it really is the bastard child of all the exams with a ton of random, disjointed concepts thrown together to make a rather difficult to predict exam..

Once I get my score I can tell you how I actually feel the difficulty of the BEC exam is compared to the others. But as far as the studying goes, its only a little easier to prep for because of slightly less material and the fact that you don't have to worry about sims

[CPAgal]

Hey @NeedsA75 I was told by Roger and I saw other people say to always put Sincerely, CPA Candidate/Manager, etc.

[NeedsA75]

ROTFL, well 100% of Becker's examples and WC lecture don't mention to do that so I'm praying they didn't do me wrong

[Author]

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