[Anonymous]

Hello,

I plan to take the BEC exam next month. I’m using Becker to prepare for the BEC exam, but I’ve heard from a few people that Becker is weak in preparing for the IT section. For those who have passed BEC recently, what material did you use to prepare for the IT section, and did you find it helpful?

Thanks so much!

[lizardh7]

I used becker for the first time i took it (scored an 80) and the 2nd time I took it (I lost that score, and passed a few years later with a 79). In between those two passing scores I took it and got a 70, and there was a lot of IT on there. I think BECKER does fine, but if you feel comfortable you could supplement with more.

[Anonymous]

I took BEC at the end of February and exclusively used Becker and passed. I had also heard that Becker wasn't as good as some other reviews for IT, and to be honest I got probably 2 or 3 MCQ's that asked specific IT terminology questions that weren't covered at all in the Becker material and I had to 100% guess on. I know because I had my Becker BEC book in the car and looked them up directly after the test. That being said, I still felt very prepared overall and minus those 2-3 MCQ's nothing else on the test was a surprise. So I can understand why people say the IT section on Becker was lacking, but I also don't think it's as bad as some people say. I got a few other IT MCQ's that Becker did cover.

My advice would be that if you feel under prepared for the IT part maybe supplement with a cheaper option like Ninja just to broaden your base knowledge and introduce some topics Becker maybe skimmed over. I wouldn't spend too much money as I feel Becker did an adequate job of approaching such a broad subject as IT in business.

[alloverit]

None of the review systems prepare you for what's on the exam…unless there have been updates to the IT questions within the review systems recently.

Best advice is to think about the IT questions from the perspective of how the CEO, CFO, etc would be involved. The IT questions I encountered were more conceptual than what the review systems offer…but it has been 6 months since I took that test so, again, some review systems might have already adjusted…particularly online MCQs, etc.

But seriously, you probably won't get asked the difference between a byte and a file, lol.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for that information! Does anyone have any experience using Wiley for the IT section? I was thinking about maybe signing up for the 2 week free trial.

[Tim]

Gleim has 5 chapters on IT and I think they do an overall outstanding job teaching you the majority of the IT topics. There were still a couple IT questions on the exam that I didn't have a clue what they were talking about. You just have to accept that and try to make a good guess on those ones. You're just not going to know every IT term they can possibly ask you.

[CS]

I liked Gleim's and NINJA's test banks on IT.

I agree with Tim, there's an endless possibility of IT questions they can ask. Surprisingly (for myself, I'm not an IT person at all) I was able to use logic to get the correct answers to a few of the MCQs which I've never heard of, but that was through drilling the MCQs.

[Superdude3000]

Literally the worst section of any of the 4 books. I hated the IT section with a passion. Really did not understand what purpose it served us as CPAs. When we have IT questions at my firm we call the IT center or go to the office IT specialist and say ‘help'. Sorry no advice, just had to rant

[PDiddy2000]

I would stay away from Wiley, their software platform needs a ton of improvement. Most people have good things to say about their test bank. If there's a way to pay for that only then do it.

[Author]

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