[GoBears123]

Anyone else take BEC today (or in the Q3 window)? Would love to hear the thoughts of others.

Overall, it was “easier” than I thought it would be, in the sense that it focused a lot less on the math-based questions than I thought it would. Unfortunately, the math stuff was what I focused my studies on. So though I want to be optimistic, I am nervous.

I was still cramming to finish the written questions at the end. Ended up having about 10 minutes for each of the three — hoping my first thoughts were good ones, because they were all I had time for.

The SIMs were soooo document heavy that they took forever. Having taken REG in the new format back in the Q2 window, it for sure feels like this is what the examiners are going for — lots and lots of documents to review. These BEC SIMs wouldn’t have been too bad (I don’t think), if I had had more time. I was really scrambling to get all my computations done and save (barely) enough time for the essays.

Sigh. This is my last exam. I want it to be over so badly. This process has sucked so much that I don’t even really want to be a CPA anymore as much as I just want this torture to be over….

FAR - 6/4/16 - 82
AUD - 8/27/16
REG - TBD
BEC - TBD

[shawn in VA]

Go Bears,

I took BEC on Aug 22. My MCQ experience seems similar to yours. Not many calcs, and the ones that I got were straightforward. I only flagged a couple.

Our SIMS experience was different for sure. The AICPA website SIMS for BEC did help me a lot. I had some documents to review but nothing crazy. One of the SIMS did take a while.

The WC were manageable -2 very business general questions and 1 very specific to BEC.

I alloted my time as follows and it worked really well for me ,

MCQ testlet 1- 1 hour
MCQ testlet 2 – 1 hour
SIMS – 1 hour 15 min
WC 45 mins

Best of luck to us on SEPT 19

[RyonT]

I took mine on 9/7, and I got quite a few calcs on the first testlet. Second one not so much, and felt much easier, which doesn't make me feel great about my performance. The SIMS I thought were mostly decent, except for one. The WC, I mostly bs'd, so hopefully I used the right buzz words. Still don't think it was enough for a pass, but I'm hopeful.

[PNS2CLT]

My experience was the same as RyonT. My first testlet was approximately 2/3 computational, many of them time consuming intermediate calculations. This caught me off guard — based on feedback, I assumed the MCQ would be light on computational thus I stopped practicing them. This really stung given that most of them were straight-forward, and nearly identical to those in WTB. The second testlet, SIMS and WC weren't nearly as bad. I ran into the same problems on the SIM though — while others report receiving the formulas, I most certainly didn't. And one of my SIMS and several of my multiple choice questions were on a specific topic that Wiley claimed was lightly tested.

Hoping for the best, but it doesn't look good for me. 2 of the SIMS that I did so-so on were straight-forward whereas 2 that I crushed were very experimentally in nature, so I'm assuming one will be the pretest.

[rsg149]

@GoBears123,

My experience was relatively similar to yours.

The first testlet was pretty easy, maybe about 3/5 computational.

Second Testlet had some more difficult questions, but not NEARLY as many computations. I don't necessarily relate difficulty to computation questions, because when it comes to BEC or the CPA in general for that matter, they can provide some extremely difficult questions that have less that 15 words. Every answer seems right and there is not a lot of ways to distinguish if you haven't delved deep into the subject.

SIMS were absolutely doable. Left the testing center feeling more confident than I have in a long time. I mean one or two of them I was like “seriously?”….
Very easy to do, if you studied.

Overall I think this test was easier for me because I got a lot of questions that I had studied about. But then again, who ever knows with these tests.

I will get REG and BEC back on the 19th and will find out if I'm done. So ready to be done with this thing….

[GoBears123]

Thanks all. I am feeling much more nervous one day later. I feel like the consensus is the exam was pretty manageable, and that means the curve will be really unfavorable. I know the curve helped me a ton with the other exams.

Fingers crossed and good luck to us all. Gonna try (and fail) to not think about it for the next week….

FAR - 6/4/16 - 82
AUD - 8/27/16
REG - TBD
BEC - TBD

[shawn in VA]

Bears,

As the MCQs were manageable the SIMS were still somewhat challenging but nothing unbearable. I read on hear that some people had “cruel” WC's but mine were reasonable for sure. Please note that NOT many people took the exam in Q3 because the Q2 results came out in mid Aug and the ppl that failed have literally 2 weeks to study and take the exam before the SEPT 10 deadline. You have to wait 2 days to apply again if you fail and then it takes 5 days to get an NTS . That puts you at Aug 23/24 easily.

I am not sure how this will play into the curve but lets just keep fingers crossed

[rsg149]

Is it really curved though?

My understanding is that certain questions are worth a certain amount of points, so if that is true, how can it be curved?

Isn't 75 points 75 points? Or am I missing something here?

[PNS2CLT]

There's no curve. Scores are based upon an algorithm take takes into consideration the difficulty of each question and your exam performance. Difficulty is measure based upon past candidate performance (during pre-testing, I assume). AICPA makes it clear that scores are based upon pre-determined metrics (e.g. no curves).

[Author]

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