[CPAoneday]

I took BEC today and wanted to share my experience. Honestly, it wasn’t what I expected in the sense that I felt that the subjects that I thought were important and studied hard were barely there or not tested at all. The first tastlet was pretty straightforward. I think I guessed just a couple of questions. The second testlet was an IT nightmare. Honestly, it was rediculous. I was using Becker and was familiar with some of it (just some, not much).I don’t know if it got harder besides that. Much less computational questions than I expected and studied so hard for. The simulations were nothing like Becker or AICPA prectise test. One was easy, two moderate/hard, and one completely off the wall. I hope it was a pretest. Writing portion was fair. All memos were BEC related. Overall, I feel like I did alright, but there’s a good chance I will have to do it again, which frustrates me because going in i felt like I new the material, I just wasn’t tested on it. Oh well. Moving on to REG.

Newbie
FAR oct 2016 working on it
REG ??
BEC ??
AUD ??

[rencpa]

Hi Dy,

Thank you for sharing your experience.

I know you are stressed out, but from what you said it seems like you did more than enough for 75!

My exam is in December, so I am still studying. Other people have pretty much similar experience. In my opinion, everyone gets some crazy IT questions. I stopped getting worry about them because it seems like they are “normal” on the exam.

Suggest a day off before you start REG. Good luck with that one!

[CPAoneday]

Rencpa, thank you for encouragement. It could go either way, I feel like. COSO and crazy IT, like everybody says. I was really hoping for more cost accounting and economics.. Well, it's not supposed to be easy, right?

Newbie
FAR oct 2016 working on it
REG ??
BEC ??
AUD ??

[r00shine]

I know exactly how you feel. I just took bec and the TBS were definitely off the wall. They were nothing liked on the study material and made no sense some of them

[Earla Riopel (NYCARE)]

Thanks for the info.

Sounds like ‘deja vu' of BEC 2017 Q3. I was definitely not prepared late August 2017. It was expected, in my case. It was more like an experimentation for me, studied a day or two. NTS expiring both for Q1/Q3 situations. Last BEC exams taken before that, was 2011 with a 63%. Then I quit for a while, when I lost my credits with REG & AUD in 2010.

I don't know what to expect with the CPA exam new format. Of course, I failed ‘big time' in 2017 Q3, except for AUD.

As an old candidate, a Canadian resident, I usually take my exams in a bunch these days. Ready or not. Taking FAR/REG/BEC this Q4. This time though, 10-12hrs per day for 2 months, until the day before my exams. Hopefully that would be enough.

[bunkhaus]

I took BEC on 10/27/17. I felt that the exam was difficult, but fair.

I used Yaeger as my review course (Larry does a nice job teaching the material) and I easily invested the recommended 90 hours in study/review time. I did all of the MC questions three times and the ones that I did not get correct I reworked them 4-5 times each. I also used the simulation exam on the AICPA website… this resource was very valuable as it gets you used to the actual exam format and using the various tabs on the TBS.

The only recommendation that I can make is this: believe you can, do your best, and keep going. Quitters never win and winners never quit! Keep the faith.

[murd]

A lot of COSO and IT.

[Author]

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