[baylor.bear95]

I will be taking my first exam this march (BEC) and was curious what the time constraint is like. I know this is fairly relative to each person, but just curious about experiences. I would probably call myself a fast test taker, because I’m consistently the first or second one finished on a test during class. So how do yall rate yourselves on speed and what were your exam time experiences?

[ahugemistake]

Do the practice tests and go into the exam with a rough estimate of how long you want to spend on each testlet. The sims are a time hog so on FAR I allowed myself 1.5 hours out of the 4 hours to just do Sims. The first time I took BEC it definitely was the fastest I've taken an exam. I always the take the entire time window, because that's what I'm paying for lol.

FAR - 78*
AUD - 66, 79
REG - 73, 76
BEC - 79

[animalwithin]

Everyone is different. I've never had time issues with exams, I just go with the pace. If I know something is more time consuming, such as SIMS, I'll be sure to allocate more time to that section and maintain a good pace through MCQ's.

[RoseMarie]

I'm a grad student and usually near the first to be done with tests in subjects I like and know well (FAR classes, Audit, etc..) and middle to end in classes I struggle with (Tax mainly). For CPA I have taken 2 sections so far. On FAR I was the most comfortable and finished with an hour and 5 minutes left even having got stuck on one SIM for 20-30 minutes. On BEC I was much less confident, especially with the WC and still finished 31 minutes early despite spending over an hour of the 3 WC.

Just an observation, on here and cpa facebook pages I see a lot of people talk about being close on time or running out of time but my classmates all seem to finish early. I think it might have to do with still being in school and in the habit of studying and test taking but thats just a guess based on what I've seen/heard.

[Steven K]

Honestly it depends on the person. A good rule of thumb is to spend the first hour of the exam on MCQ and leave the remaining 3 for SIMS. I'd say you can extend your time for MCQ to an 1.5hrs but anything past that is pushing it.
When I took my FAR and AUD exam, I finished both testlets withing the first hour. However, when I took BEC yesterday, I spent almost 1 hr on the first testlet (and finished the second one in like 25minutes). This was because the first testlet was computation heavy while the second wasn't. Most of the time I use almost all the time but I think the earliest I ever got out was 45 minutes when I took the AUD exam.

[cpa1234]

I am typically a fast test-taker cause I do not like overthinking questions. Sometimes I will just wrap up a section just to move on cause I never know how hard the next section will be. This is my timing for the exams I passed:

– BEC: 2 hours
– Audit: 3 hours & 30 minutes
– REG: 3 hours & 45 minutes
– FAR: I had 3 minutes left on the clock

[Recked]

45 minutes per MCQ bank, 15-20 minutes per WC is probably a lot, the rest goes to SIMs.
I ran out of time on FAR and I think I used all the time in all the other exams.
Some I was done earlier, but I paid for that 4 hours so you best believe I used AL to confirm all my answers, or whatever I could to verify everything in that last testlet.

[Author]

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