[jeff]

Post by Another71.

Free Study Planner, Notes, Audio, Flashcards: https://www.another71.com/cpa-exam-study-plan/

Free CPA Exam Survival Guide: https://www.another71.com/cpa-exam-survival-guide/

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

[highlightnumb]

@justdoit2014 can you please share your exam experience and @futureninja

FAR. Feb 2014 76
REG. Jan 2015 79 half way there!!
BEC. Feb 2015 79 thank you God!!
AUD. Apr 20, 2015 and will be done. Hold that thought 65, 7/14/15 85!
Ok where was I? Oh thats right now I'm Done!!!!!!!!!
Ethics 92!!

"You down wit SEC?, yeah you know me!!!"

Cali Candidate

All Becker Materials, Wiley Test Bank, Ninja audio, Ninja MCQ, Ninja Notes

[Justdoit2014]

Thanks for your good wishes 🙂

I used Gleim and did the mcq's 3 times. Their material and test bank is great. The exam questions were very similar. For WC I just got a general idea and made sure that the grammer and composition was correct. I am a qualified CMA, so I found BEC quite easy.

FAR - 80 (Roger + Wiley TB) May 2014
AUD - 82 (Roger + Gleim TB + Wiley TB) August 2014
REG - 79 (Gleim + Gleim TB) November 2014
BEC - 85 (Gleim + Gleim TB) January 2015

[fightingforsanity]

@futureninja Aw man, so close. You're going to knock it out of the park next time. You got this!

@justdoit Congrats! Hoping to join you soon! Go and celebrate!

And I second highlightnumb's request, mind sharing your exam experience with us? Seems like the BEC threads aren't as poppin as the other sections.

*EDIT: Just read your post justdoit. Thanks! 🙂

FAR - ✓
AUD - ✓
REG - ✓
BEC - ✓

Don't give up!

[Anonymous]

89 for me! 😀 I REALLY hated BEC. I'll post my thoughts and tips a bit later when I should be working 😉

[Anonymous]

OK. Here’s my, overly long, thoughts on BEC before I let this one go:

First up. I’ve said this before and others have echoed it but it bears repeating. BEC is NOT the “easy” exam. You need to treat this material the same as you did for FAR, AUD or REG. It’s challenging and some of the concepts are difficult. With that said, there’s not as much material as FAR but BEC is all over the board. There’s about 5, distinct, topics with no relation to each other and you need to know them all. It does have the highest passing rate but I think that’s because of how the score is broken down since there are no sims. But, again, don’t treat this one lightly or it will bite you in the backside.

To study I used Becker and NINJA MCQ. My strategy was to watch all of the lectures in Becker one topic at a time and then I worked the MCQ for that section. After finishing all of the lectures, I hit NINJA MCQ really hard. I just kept hammering away at it so concepts would stick. Finally, I went back and reworked the Becker MCQ a second time. When I took the exam, I was trending around an 81% in NINJA with about 60% questions correct (meaning I never saw or answered correctly 40%). Last note on practicing MCQ, I never finished the optional finance questions in Becker. Some of them are WAY out there and Finance was my weakest area. So if you’re like me, do a pass of the optional finance questions but don’t dwell on the really crazy ones because it’s likely that those will be far more difficult than what was on the exam.

What to know: Honestly Becker does a pretty good job of hitting all of the important stuff. There’s no real surprises. You must know Governance and COSO (if people say you need to know COSO, assume they include Governance when they say that). Cost Accounting, Finance, IT and Economics. Cost Accounting and Finance are going to take you the longest to get through. They are very calculation and formula heavy. Governance, IT and Economics is very conceptual so it’s easy to get to it.

For the exam: I’ve said this before but my exam was VERY calculation/formula heavy when I took it in early February. But here’s the thing, everyone who took it in January was saying that theirs was VERY conceptual. In the end though, all the major topics were covered to a greater or lesser extent (Governance, IT, Cost, Finance, Economics). So, unfortunately, there’s no skimping on studying. You just don’t know if you’re going to get a concept heavy or calculation heavy exam. It’s a 3 hour exam and I recommend budgeting about 2 hours for the MCQ and 1 hour for the WC.

Written Communication: This part worries everyone because there’s not a lot of solid information out there about it. Despite what I said about not treating BEC as the “easy” exam, this is one portion I wouldn’t overly stress about (even though everyone does anyway). My advice is to spend about an hour or so reading your review course’s advice / tips on the WC and be done with it. As long as you can write a good memo, you should be fine for this. The consensus is that writing a proper memo is much more important than answering the question correctly. I went Introduction, 2 or 3 body paragraphs (each paragraph on a major concept) and a conclusion paragraph. Introduction is basically restating the question. Body is answering the question. Conclusion is a final question restatement and I threw in something along the lines of “I hope that this answers your questions and concerns regarding X. If you have any additional questions or would like more information on X, I would be happy to sit down with you and discuss X at length. Thank you.”

Functionality of the word processor is a hot topic. I don’t remember a formal spellcheck button. But if you misspell a word such as mitsteak, it’s going to do the red underline indicating a mistake. I’ve been told that if you click on the word, you will get suggestions but I didn’t try that myself. If it went red, I simply corrected my mistake and moved on. The only real functionality that I remember was Copy, Cut, Paste icons which I never used.

So there you go. That’s my, overly long review of BEC. Feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer without compromising the integrity of the exam.

Good luck!

[Mjganier]

Thanks for the input, Angelwatch. This exam comes second in terms of difficulty next to FAR since it incorporates all the other subjects that I hated and took the easy A in college. I'm about to take a practice test just to see where I am but I know my main focus for the remaining days are financial management, economics, and cost. I barely got any sleep last night due to anxiety. Every time I would close my eyes I would see numbers and equations…Anyway, congrats to you all who passed and I hope to join you all within the next few weeks!

FAR 8/18/2014--87
AUD 10/18/2014--78
REG 11/24/2014--76
BEC 2/28/2015--76

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough"-Albert Einstein

Study Mats: Cpaexcel study text and EQ, Ninja MCQ, Ninja notes

[Anonymous]

I just took BEC yesterday. It took me the whole 3 hours. My testlet (in my own opinion) went Easy-Fairly Difficult- Difficult.

I purchased the Ninja MCQs and Flashcards approximately 2 weeks prior to testing. I think the Ninja MCQs are 10000x more difficult, thus preparing you properly for the actual test. So upon receiving my score (I feel pretty confident) I would highly recommend these. Thanks Jeff!

[Anonymous]

angelwatch what grades were you getting on your Becker mcq? I'm really struggling with BEC and my exam is Saturday! I'm around 65% trending with ninja mcq right now and I've done about 600 questions. I listened to all the Becker lectures plus re-read the book on my own. I re-did the Becker mcq again this time without using the book for reference. I did OK! averaging about in the high 70s.

[Anonymous]

Nobody ever does great on Becker during their first pass. 60 to 70% for a tough subject (if not worse) is completely normal.

There's a dichotomy that goes on with MCQ. Hammering them is the best way to learn the material but if you get to the point where you read “Sally goes to a construction site” and you, immediately, go “Oh the answer is Elephant” than you're doing it wrong. You've simply memorized the question but need to understand why Elephant is the correct answer while Black Hole, Cactus and Sub Atomic Particles are the wrong answers.

This is truly a case where it's not how you start but how you finish. Expect to do poorly on your first pass but you need to learn from those you missed and your scores will improve.

[Anonymous]

preach it, angelwatch.

i had a lot of calculations on my exam. heres my tip: do not just memorize the formulas! understand the meaning behind them and why they are used. be able to say it in words. that is when u really know it. i found myself thinking logically about the question (what do I need to do to get from a to b) and without even realizing it I was using the formula to solve the problem

[Anonymous]

the ninja questions are very frustrating. I figure it out then I get a similar question with a little twist and it's wrong again. I get past the 60s

[Anonymous]

A company is considering outsourcing one of the component parts for its product. The company currently makes 10,000 parts per month. Current costs are as follows:

Per Unit Total

---

---

Direct materials $4 $40,000

Direct labor 3 30,000

Fixed plant facility cost 2 20,000

The company decides to purchase the part for $8 per unit from another supplier and rents its idle capacity for $5,000/month. How will the company's monthly revenue change?

A.

Decrease $15,000

Incorrect B.

Decrease $10,000

C.

Increase $5,000

D.

Increase $10,000

Says the answer is ‘C', but it should be decrease by $5000, right?

[No_one]

@Angelwatch You mentioned you used Becker, I am like you not so good on Finance and calculations…Still I tried my best keeping a good understanding of B3 but when it comes to B6 I feel I have no clue what they are asking and what am I doing…Did you left B6 finance part or how you tackled that nasty one?

Please answer this one, My exam is on /Friday and this last twist in the tail is eating me…

Forgot to greet you…Congratulations You really scored well..

Thanks

CA Candidate
FAR: You are down...
Aud: Surprised me...Thanks
BEC: 75% work done
REG: It's 80 but I am 100% done 🙂

[Anonymous]

I just spent extra time with B3 Finance. I made sure I nailed down all of the really common formulas such as:

WACC

Cost of forgoing a Discount

CAPM

ROI and RI

ROA

Common ratios (Current, Quick/Acid, A/R and Inventory Turnovers)

If you know those, you should be good. There are more and if you can memorize those others as well, that's even better.

For B6 you, definitely, want to go through it. It's mostly conceptual so it doesn't take as long but anything in the chapter is fair game. Compared to the FAR and AUD “catch all” chapter, BEC's is much more heavily tested.

Good luck!

[No_one]

Thank you Angelwatch 🙂

Regulation is my next subject too, Provided I pass BEC in my first try. So, If I will be lucky, will join you soon in REG study group second quarter 2015.

Good luck studying 🙂

CA Candidate
FAR: You are down...
Aud: Surprised me...Thanks
BEC: 75% work done
REG: It's 80 but I am 100% done 🙂

[Author]

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