[garvatron]

Earlier this year I signed up to take my first CPA exam which was the BEC section. I chose that because my friend told me it was the easiest and had the highest pass rate. I work full-time and was looking to get some momentum so I went ahead and signed up. Things got unexpectedly busy at work and I was only able to study for a few weeks. After months of not studying it became clear that I would not be able to get enough prep in within the 6 months allowed to take the exam, so I decided to just go ahead and take it for the practice.

As expected, I didn’t feel like I did well and was certain I’d failed. When I got my results I was not surprised I didn’t pass, but I was surprised at how high I scored. I got a 66, just 9 points away from passing. I was especially surprised since by the WC part I only did 1 out of 3 because I knew I wasn’t going to pass anyway.

So now I am trying to determine how much time to allocate to passing this exam again. I am trying to avoid the trap that “I was only a few questions away from passing with almost no preparation.” I know it’s a black box in terms of how the exams are graded, but does anyone know the general distribution of scores? For instance, maybe 90% of people who took the exam got 66 or better and those last 9 points are going to require a lot more studying. Maybe 66 wasn’t that close to passing. All I can find out there is pass/fail rates per exam per testing period.

Basically, due to work, I need to budget my time wisely. Is it worth doing the all out 100+ hours of studying to improve my score by 10 points? Anyone have experience with this? Thanks in advance!

BEC 66, 83 2/27/16
AUD 81 11/28/15

[EuroAddict]

No one can tell you what's best. Just have to decided your path and do it. It appears work will always be busy for you at your current job so you will have to deal with that while studying for every exam.

-----------------------------
BEC - 77, 03/2015 (first try)
FAR - 79, 05/2015 (second try)
REG - 83, 12/2015 (first try)
AUD - 84, 03/2015 (first try)

I got 99 problems but the CPA ain't one.

[GHardesty]

I wouldn't take it lightly. I studied very hard for 8 days the first time, and I earned a 74. The second time I didn't study much…maybe 10 or 12 hours worth over a few weeks, which yielded a score of 66. The test only covers a fraction of the material, so it is possible the new test looks very different from the first. Also, keep in mind that the 66 is not 66%, but is a score of 66. The moral of the story is do not take it for granted, and put forth the effort necessary.

AUD 80 05/31/16 (1x)
BEC 80 01/16/16 (3x)
FAR 78 11/23/15 (2x)
REG 87 02/29/16 (2x)

[phuocan87]

I hate BEC. I think it is ridiculous…Becker did not prepare me well at all or maybe I did not know how to study for me. All small details always threw me off. Just do the MCs over and over. I studied about the same 15-20 hours a week no more than that.

[Author]

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