[jeff]

Recommended prep time for BEC is 4 weeks @ 20 hours a week.

Study Notes: https://www.another71.com/cpa-review-store/

Study Videos: https://www.another71.com/cpa-exam/cpa-exam-review-video/

Jeff Elliott, CPA (KS) | Another71 | NINJA CPA | NINJA CMA | NINJA CPE

[CPL]

Hey – is everyone here using Becker????

Still have to buy today – but looking for input. Has anyone used Yager for this section?

[Anonymous]

LSU_BR mentioned a couple of weeks back about a chart in Ch 5 that really helps with the variance problems; can anyone tell me if it's the tabular format in B5-69?

[TexasTechalum]

Ugh…Last night was not good…Did the Ch.3 Supplementals and went back over the regular homework. It's like my brain is full! I'm missing stuff i got right the first time through! I guess the good news is that means I haven't memorized the answers yet. I just rescheduled my exam from next Monday to next Friday. I hope that's enough time.

AUD 07/13/10 75!
REG 08/24/10 90!
BEC 10/04/10 82!
FAR 11/22/10 79! I'm Done!

[Florida_Candidate]

Oh my goodness I'm actually starting to get some of the B5 questions right! w00t w00t! LOL

FAR-91 (7/29)
AUD-99 (8/23)
BEC-90 (10/1)
REG-99 (11/3)

[75 CPA]

Created with Compare Ninja

[2010Please]

Well, gotta say, seeing how much trouble everyone else is still having with B3 and B5 cheered me just a little tonight – made me not feel so alone. 🙂 This is one of those things in my life that only fellow sufferers can understand. The explanations for some of these monsters are just crazy…doesn't FEEL like stuff a new accountant should just grasp yet…that is what the test is supposed to be about, right? I was always in the top 5% of my classes…right now, I'm feeling as if that was a mistake…feeling pretty incompetent at this point. 🙂

I've decided to take Thursday and Friday off from work and use those two days plus the weekend to try to be ready for Monday. I've thought about rescheduling, but if I do, it will decrease the time I have to prepare for FAR in order to sit for it by the end of November, so I'm going to try to cram and hold tight to my 10/4 testing date. I wish I weren't working at all so I could devote full time to the exams, but the job came up just as I received my NTS, so here I am. Right now I can honestly say that I have struggled much more in studying for BEC than I did for REG or AUD. It is like as I'm studying, I think, “Yeah, I get that, I understand,” then I attempt some questions, and I think, “What in the #*&!^ is this?”

I hope FAR doesn't get any worse. I can't survive much more of this!!!!!! 🙂

AUD 92, REG 85, BEC 90, FAR 85
Ethics 100
Obtained License 7/11/11 🙂

[Florida_Candidate]

@2010 – I'm completely right there with ya. I understood the book/lectures and memorized all the flashcards but am having difficulty with the questions. All I can say is hang in there, this will all be over soon. I'm scheduled for Friday morning and I considered rescheduling too but decided against it since I need to squeeze in Reg before 2011 (I start work full time and will be traveling 100% of the time so I doubt I'll be wanting to study in hotel rooms)

We will both pass this thing… you can do this!

FAR-91 (7/29)
AUD-99 (8/23)
BEC-90 (10/1)
REG-99 (11/3)

[Florida_Candidate]

p.s. FAR questions seemed to match up with the lecture much more in my opinion. Like if I understood the lecture I understood the questions and vice versa. Not so much with BEC. So I wouldn't freak out about FAR quite yet 😉

FAR-91 (7/29)
AUD-99 (8/23)
BEC-90 (10/1)
REG-99 (11/3)

[Florida_Candidate]

I officially have variances down!!! Now relevant costs and financial planning is another topic but i just got 100% on the variance questions 😀

FAR-91 (7/29)
AUD-99 (8/23)
BEC-90 (10/1)
REG-99 (11/3)

[Florida_Candidate]

Okay DONE with all the homework finally. I have two full days left (Wednesday and Thursday). I'm still thinking I can pull the Friday morning date off…. we'll see.

Plan for tomorrow (and I'm writing it here so I have some sort of accountability lol)

7:30am Leave house for library

8:00am Be in study room

Things to get accomplished in morning

-Read Jeff's BEC Notes (just bought them a minute ago, they look neat!) including highlighting, and “sticky-noting” important topics

-Take Progress Test – Identify weak spots (I'm guessing B3 & B5)

-Hopefully start to review first weak spot

12:00-1:00pm LUNCH BREAK

1:00-5:00pm Be in study room again

To-Do in the Afternoon

-Review Both Weak Spots Thoroughly and take “limited” progress tests (just on each weak spot)

5:00-6:00pm DINNER BREAK

After dinner….

Take another progress test and see where I stand 🙂

See ya'll tomorrow! I'm starting to feel some hope here 🙂

FAR-91 (7/29)
AUD-99 (8/23)
BEC-90 (10/1)
REG-99 (11/3)

[2010Please]

@Florida: Sounds like a plan to me. 🙂

Wish I could stick a straw in your brain and copy some of that knowledge over to my brain…lol. I know what you mean about not wanting to be on the road studying – did that during my REG exam…in some ways it isn't bad – hotel room to self at night. But, I'd recommend getting it done before you start working, for sure.

I'm going to try to focus my energy on my weakest areas on Thursday and Friday too, then do progress test after progess test over the weekend. Maybe, just maybe…I want to be soooooo finished with this mess this year. Started this journey in June and so ready to be done!! One thing that terrifies me is that sometimes when I get stuff wrong, I just KNEW I had it right…but it turns out I have left out some simple step that I should have known. The examiners have those kind of wrong answers on the exam too. I can see why some people walk out of the exam thinking they passed when they failed. Knowing this will make that long wait for test results all that more difficult. 🙂

Post back and let us know how you “feel” after coming out of the exam on Friday, and if I'm not on here again between now and the time you take it, Good Luck!

AUD 92, REG 85, BEC 90, FAR 85
Ethics 100
Obtained License 7/11/11 🙂

[whitesoxfancpa]

2010,

“Wish I could stick a straw in your brain…”

Are you saying you want to suck her brains?

Is that what the CPA exam does to us?!?!

You guys will be fine. Becker is notorious for having harder BEC questions than the actual exam. So many people say that.

AUD 96 FAR 95 REG 94 BEC 88

[Florida_Candidate]

lol ewww brain sucking. Yes this CPA exam is making us all zombies! LOL

And no worries I will DEFINITELY post how I feel. I'm just warning you it'll probably be a long and tearful “oh my god I think I failed” post but I'll definitely post it 🙂

I thought i failed Far, and I thought I did really well on AUD and honestly my scores aren't too much different for both of them so I feel like what you feel like coming out of the exam has such a small relation to how you actually do lol!

FAR-91 (7/29)
AUD-99 (8/23)
BEC-90 (10/1)
REG-99 (11/3)

[Florida_Candidate]

Sooo took a progress exam and made a 97… see print screen for breakout details:

https://lh6.ggpht.com/_LvkC8xI85Vk/TKNM-Lf2sVI/AAAAAAAACdA/Dicq-tov2ys/PracticeExam1.jpg

Not sure how much to invest in this result as I had remembered quite a few of the fact patterns from doing the homework. It's hard to forget them when you spend 15+ minutes on one calc question during homework! However, I made myself re-do all of them even if I remembered the answer just so I knew that I would “KNOW” the steps if that makes sense.

I have a feeling I'm going to be buying gleim test bank today and working through some IT on there as well as maybe some more cost accounting. I feel SO much better after taking that progress test though. I think I was freaking out because I seriously spent 8 hours yesterday doing calculations and by the end I thought there's no way I was going to pass this stupid exam. But taking the progress test made me realize that B3 and B5 are just 2/5 parts, so a lot of the exam is not doing calculations and that really helps take some of the mental fatigue out when it switches up from calc to concepts and then back to calc. I have a feeling that's how it'll be on the actual exam too so that makes me happy. Just doing 8 hours of calc is NOT fun AT ALL.

Ahhh I feel so much better.

p.s. I did not do ANY of the supplemental questions from B5 and got a few of those on the progress exam (I could tell because they were long drawn out calc questions that I didn't recognize fact patterns from) so that could be why I scored lower in that section. I definitely want to review more of those so that they are like second nature to me.

conclusion of the day: I think I'm ready for Friday =] Well, I mean to say I think today and tomorrow studying will make me more than prepared. No longer considering a reschedule!

How are you all faring?

FAR-91 (7/29)
AUD-99 (8/23)
BEC-90 (10/1)
REG-99 (11/3)

[njguy26]

Sounds like you're pretty well prepared Florida_Candidate. I decided to review chapters 1 and 2 yesterday by skimming the book and doing all those questions, even though 2 is supposedly about 10% of the exam I'm hoping I can master those parts to make up for any weaknesses in chapter 5. Today I'm going to do the same thing for chapter 4 and read the technical addendum supplement packet online, I'm a bit worried about some of the IT topics being so out there that hopefully that will cover some stuff. I'm starting to feel pretty good about chapter 3 and am still weak on some parts on chapter 5. But I figure I will review chapter 5 after I finish 4 today and really try to focus on my weak parts. The variance part has been really tough for me, I think I understand the PURE DADS part, but some of the other ones are confusing and some of the explanations are so detailed and long with so many charts. I hope the ones on the test are strictly from the PURE DADS formulas, those I think I could do. As of now I think my hope is to be really strong on chapters 1, 2 and 4 topics, chapter 3 I have a few weak points but I'm getting more comfortable with those topics each time I look over them and hopefully I can be good enough at chapter 5 to get a good amount of those questions. I too didn't do the chapter 5 supplemental questions, I did about 30 and decided it'd be more beneficial to read the book a few times and hopefully the important topics will stick.

I hope Becker's problems are harder than the real ones, if they are then I think we'll be well prepared.

Good luck today everyone!

[Author]

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