[smoothiezguy]

Hi all,

I took the BEC yesterday. Talk about squeezing it in last minute, there was a major hang up with my application that was submitted on January 6 and as a result I didn’t receive my NTS until last Monday. Fortunately, there was an open spot the very last day of the month at a testing center a state away. That’s fine, I’ll drive a couple hours one way so that I can have an extra weekend to study.

Anyway, as far as the test went. I’d say it went okay. My consumption time ended up being as follows:

Testlet 1 – 25 minutes

Testlet 2 – 35 minutes

Testlet 3 – 49 minutes

Testlet 4 – 71 minutes

The first three testlets got progressively harder (as evidenced by my time on them). The third testlet had a couple questions that really ate the time due to calculations. I kept arriving at answers which weren’t even an option (*facepalm*)! Anyway, I finally got it sorted – just hoping I got ’em right. 😉

As far as all the questions were concerned, nothing was out of left field. I wasn’t surprised by any of them. Nor were there any that were relating to something I had never encountered before. I guess in this regard though I am a bit advantaged having already taken the CMA. I would say overall that the Ninja MCQ were harder than the actual exam questions.

I was blessed to have about the best WC topics possible. That was the part of the exam I was worried about most because I don’t feel like I do very well coming up with stuff to say under pressure. Plus, based on the practice simulations in Ninja MCQ, there were certain areas that I could have received which would have been really tough. However, the ones I got were pretty good. I would have loved to have an additional hour for those, but even still was able to complete all three in time, albeit far from perfectly.

Now to wait and see if I passed or not… This was my first CPA exam, just hoping the next three won’t be too big of bears.

As to my prep, I used the Wiley CPA Excel Book read over the course of the last year (the last half was read in the last two months). I do NOT recommend this, but due to life circumstances, that is what I had. However, as I mentioned earlier, I took both CMA exams last year, which definitely is a much more through dive into many of the BEC concepts.

And then the last two weeks I did 2000 questions in Ninja MCQ, which was hugely beneficial. Even though there were many of the same questions in Ninja as in the Wiley test bank, the Ninja software is MUCH more insightful, user friendly, and useful than Wiley’s. Highly recommend Ninja MCQ!

CMA - 430
BEC - 83
FAR - ?
AUD -
REG -

[hannahFletcher16]

Thanks for the advice! And Congrats! I have the becker flash cards. I will definitely focus on those more as well as Ninja. I suck at these ratios plus there are so many, so I am going to have to figure out a way to memorize those. I thought the test was easy too! I was actually shocked I failed with a 65. I thought I passed. I know the writing hurt me I didn't finish them all the way. I have almost 3 weeks left until take 2 and I am freaking out. I think Ill just hammer out Ninja mcq each day and flash cards from now on. Then maybe the practice exam the week before.

can I ask what your scores were on Ninja? Did you take the pre assessment?

Thanks again!

[Popodopolis]

My Becker flashcards, chapter 1,2 and 3 were the most important. I would say you need to know every single one of those inside and out.

I can't say what hurt you as I don't know what kind of questions you were asked. The only thing I can say is many of the computation formulas would have a slight curveball somewhere in them, and they would always provide the “right” wrong answer. I think the conceptual answers were pretty straight forward for the most part, as were the computation…but you have to know your formulas. You have got to know what items compose your formulas because almost every calculation provided too much info. You got to know what to pull and what not to.

I was scoring in the low to mid 70s on almost everything. I was scoring highest on governance, cost, and finance. My weak points were IT and econ.

I did not take the pre-assessment as everything I read said that it was nothing to worry about. In retrospect, I underestimated the writing portion. I've since got my official score and I scored a whopping 6 on my writing portion. I needed 3 out of 15 points on my writing portion to pass the exam and I was a hair away from screwing that up. But….I passed so I guess it doesn't matter.

BEC - 78 PASS 2/26/2016

[rinahm]

Popodopolis-How did you find out that you scored 6 on your writing part? I just received my score email and performance and I did strong on MCQ but weak on WC. Its my second time failing BEC with weak WC and since none of my study materials give me score on WC so Im having hard time studying the WC part. English is my second language and have been using Word to check my writing…My score was 73 and MCQ has been comparable to strong so If I can do better on WC, I feel like can pass next time…

[hannahFletcher16]

Well you rock, thank you! I feel like my brain is mush and I have lost confidence in what I do know, because I have been covering all this other stuff I did not know. Oh well I am going to give it my best shot. 14 days to go. My goal is at least 2 sets of 30 MCQ from Ninja a day and major flash card studying. my average scores are in the 60s. My scores are in the 70s for becker. Hoping to get them both up. I sucked on the writing I think. It says “weaker” how do you know the exact number you scored?

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