[jeff]

Welcome to the Q2 2017 CPA Exam Study Group for BEC. 🙂

[Holly]

@A1lessio if you go to the lecture as if you're going to watch it, but don't hit the play button it will just be the text book. As far as the red instructor notes, go to the timer on the bottom left of the bar across the bottom of the screen, hit the widget, then turn on Instructor Notes Page X for each page.

BEC - 79
REG - 85
AUD - 5/27/16

[Holly]

@jonm857 Good catch on the cash ratio formula!
@Nomin I test 5/9 and that will put me studying a little over a month.
@pkphetan7 I use Becker and NINJA MCQ together. The NINA stuff is affordable and has prepared me in the past. It's a better supplement than buying anything extra Becker, in my opinion.

BEC - 79
REG - 85
AUD - 5/27/16

[Mike]

I've been using both Roger and Becker. Personally, I'd stick with Roger. I'm going into my fourth dance with BEC in a month, and it's not because of anything that was absent from the Roger materials. Becker is better for depth and context, Roger excels at teaching the concepts.

My opinion, that's all.

Mike

[A1lessio]

Thank you Holly 🙂

AUD (08/02/2016)

[jonm857]

Incremental backup vs. differential backup… not really grasping the difference b/w the two. Can somebody please help?

Incremental back = copying only the data items that have changed since the last backup. This produces a set of incremental backup file, each containing the results of one day's transactions.

Differential backup = copies all changes made since the last backup.

B - 81
A - 87
R - 73
F - July 5th

[Holly]

Not sure but based on the names only – so someone correct me if wrong:

Incremental backup only gets things that are “new” since last backup, like an additional day etc and doesn't look at a day that would've already been backed up. Differential backup goes and looks at prior info for and gets a backup for the changes.

Anyone using Becker and found the AICPA released questions?

BEC - 79
REG - 85
AUD - 5/27/16

[pkhetan7]

Hey Holly
You are correct. Incremental backup gets the changes since the last backup. Differential backup records the difference between today's date and the last full backup. Let me explain with an example.
Say the full backup was made on Sunday. We are on Thursday of the same week, in case of incremental backup, we will be having backups for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, each will have a record of that day's transaction. When we restore the system on Thursday, we need to restore the full backup we took on Sunday and put in the all the incremental backups.
When it comes to differential backup, we will be having backups for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. But every backup will have a record of updates made from Sunday backup till the date of backup. E.g. Monday backup will have updates made on Monday. Tuesday backup will include updates made on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday will have updates made in Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. So when we restore the system, we restore the Sunday full backup and the Wednesday(the latest) differential backup.
I hope this helped.

[jonm857]

Guys I think I screwed myself… i just finished taking BEC, and being the dum dum that I am, did not pay much attention to how i shouldve allocated my time to the new format. The sims, while there are just 4 of them, do take a big chunk of time. However, they seem to be easier to work through. Its more organized.

Anyway, i left myself a whopping 10 minutes to write 3 essays. One of them i left completely blank, the 2nd one i was able to get maybe 100 words max. The 3rd i can probly salvage 4 to 5 points out of. Is one of the essays a practice question?

B - 81
A - 87
R - 73
F - July 5th

[pkhetan7]

Hey
I went through Wiley's guide to new BEC exam and it mentioned that one of the essay questions is a practice question. So i guess yes, there are only 2 essay questions which will count towards the final score. All the best!

[Nutcracker2016]

@jonm857 Thanks for sharing your experience with us. All the very best for your results. How was the MCQ's? Thanks for telling SIM's were organized. Roger said the first testlet sims are the long ones and will take around 25-30 mins and second testlet sims are more manageable. So my question is, are the first testlet sims are like DRS type questions??
Thanks again.

[jonm857]

@nutcracker

I thought the first mcq testlet was brutal. I flagged several.
It kicked my butt and I ended up wasting too much time on it. The second was easier (not a good sign). The first two Sims were the longest compared to the next two. If I could go back and do it again, i wouldnt sweat missing a handful of MCQs and wasting time on them as theyre now worth just 50%

B - 81
A - 87
R - 73
F - July 5th

[Nutcracker2016]

@jonm857 Oh, does the testlet difficulty is there in new exam too?? It is a news to me. Anyways, if it make you feel better, My last exam was REG under the old format and I didn’t note any change in testlet difficulty. I passed. Got comparable on MCQ’s and stronger on Sims. I think you have done well on SIMS. You will pass too. Thanks for taking your time and answering my question.

[etsang2]

Does anyone have a list of materials were removed for the BEC Q2 exam?

I noticed that the Q2 Becker BEC material has less information than the 2016 BEC materials.

[Joe]

I found what I think to be a Conflict in the Becker MCQ… look at question CPA-05303
Harvey Co. is evaluating a capital investment proposal for a new machine. The investment proposal
shows the following information:
Initial cost $500,000
Life 10 years
Annual net cash inflows $200,000
Salvage value $100,000
If acquired, the machine will be depreciated using the straight-line method. The payback period for this
investment is:
a. 3.25 years.
b. 2.67 years.
c. 2.5 years.
d. 2 years.

The right answer is 2.5 (500,000/200,000) salvage value is not included in the calculation however, Question CPA-04836 in the same set of MCQ states that Salvage value is specifically considered as part of payback computations because it contributes to the incoming cash flow when the asset is sold. So, what is it!! is it included or not??? if it is included then CPA-05303 should be 2 years and not 2.5

[Holly]

I see what you're saying but let's ignore that formula. Ignoring tax AND deprecation, it would be 2.5 years $200,000 a year. We would have to wait until the end of the 10 year to get to salvage value. Why would salvage be considered in the ANNUAL cash flow given we reach initial investment before end of life? I do think that the salvage value would be considered if we got to year 10.

Edited once I thought about what I put.

BEC - 79
REG - 85
AUD - 5/27/16

[Author]

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