[jeff]

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/

[lauren725]

HI Gabe, I am about 500 questions in on Ninja mcq (total) and have a 70% trending score. I am still in the assessment stage, coming up close on the adaptive learning.

How is it going for you? Good luck with your race!

AUD - 73,91
FAR - 79 - Thank you God!
BEC - 73,79!!!!
REG - 92 whatttt??!

I used Becker review + flashcards, Ninja Audio, Ninja MCQ supplement on BEC and REG.

Done! Praise God!

[NJPRU]

Hey J – glad you still check in here! Hope all is well with you! 🙂

Quick question for everyone, for turnover ratios, is it best practice to use 360 or 365 days? Will the exam tell you how many to use?

AUD: DONE
FAR: DONE
BEC: DONE
REG: DONE

IM GOING TO BE A CPA!!!!!

[Gabe]

@lauren thanks for the feedback! I got through all the questions…trending 85%, still in adaptive learning and I have been filtering it to only give me “trouble questions”

@NJ I've been using 360 and they usually state it in the question (but I've never taken BEC so…not 100% positive)

CPA, CFE
CISA- Experience will be completed by August 2016

[lauren725]

Gabe- that is great! Seems like a good plan on the trouble questions also. I will start doing that once I get through more questions. I plan on doing a few simulations for practice as well every once in a while.

AUD - 73,91
FAR - 79 - Thank you God!
BEC - 73,79!!!!
REG - 92 whatttt??!

I used Becker review + flashcards, Ninja Audio, Ninja MCQ supplement on BEC and REG.

Done! Praise God!

[Gabe]

Anyone care to break this down? The answer was extremely confusing…

A company currently has 1,000 shares of common stock outstanding with zero debt. It has the choice of raising an additional $100,000 by issuing 9% long-term debt or issuing 500 shares of common stock. The company has a 40% tax rate. What level of earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) would result in the same earnings per share (EPS) for the two financing options?

A.

An EBIT of $27,000 would result in EPS of $10.80 for both.

B.

An EBIT of $27,000 would result in EPS of $7.20 for both.

C.

An EBIT of – $18,000 would result in EPS of $(7.20) for both.

D.

An EBIT of – $10,800 would result in EPS of $(7.92) for both

CPA, CFE
CISA- Experience will be completed by August 2016

[Kimboroni]

Gabe, I believe the answer is A.

Basically, you set up two EPS calculations and set them equal to each other, where on one side it's the calculation for adding debt, and on the other side it's the calculation for adding more shares.

On the left side for adding debt, the numerator is EBIT minus the 9000 in interest paid under that scenario (100k debt times 9%), then minus the 40% of taxes paid under that scenario. The denominator is the 1000 current shares (no new shares issued under this scenario).

On the right side for adding more shares, the numerator is EBIT minus the 40% of taxes paid (no interest is paid under this scenario). The denominator is the 1000 current shares plus the 500 new shares issued under that scenario.

[(EBIT – 9000) – 40% tax] / 1000 = (EBIT – 40% tax) / 1500

They want the scenario where, with the same EBIT on each side of the equation, the EPS is the same result. (It is a weird problem, since companies normally would not be looking for it to be the same– they would want the better EPS!)

Since there are only 3 EBIT options, the fastest way is to just plug the same EBIT into both sides 3 times and see if the sides equal each other. The longer way would be to use algebra to solve for EBIT, and then see which option that matches, but you'd still have to do the EPS calc if you got 27K to see if it's A or B.

I don't know if that helps at all. It's confusing to explain.

AUD 84 (1/9/14-Wiley books/TB + free materials)
FAR 83 (5/21/14-the above + NINJA 10 Pt Combo Lite)
REG 84 (7/9/14-Wiley books/TB + NINJA Audio/FC/Notes)
BEC 76 (10/5/14-Wiley books/TB + NINJA Audio/FC)

Disclaimer: My ninja avatar is not meant to imply that I have any affiliation with this site other than being a forum member. That's a pic of a T-shirt that my daughter gave me for my birthday. 🙂

[Zackrampage]

So here is what I have experienced. I took Far once and BEC once, and within the MCQ only ever got 1 really long convoluted calculation question. I have been thankful for this, but obviously still need to brush up on formulas and concepts. I am proud of myself today though, as I taught myself how to find joint costs of a product under both Relative Sales value at Split-off and under NRV! Don't get the Physical quantity method, which actually shows up on tests.

FAR - 62 , End of aug 2015
BEC - 67, 67
AUD - TBD
REG - TBD

[Kimboroni]

Good point, Zack– if I got a question like that on the exam, I would probably just skip it at first, in favor of doing 3-4 other questions in the same amount of time. Then I'd go back to it and see if I could come up with a reasonable answer in a reasonable amount of time, and if not then randomly select an answer if necessary for time management so I can go on to the next testlet. You can't let yourself get stuck on one question that eats up too much of your time.

But I haven't taken BEC yet, where we're looking at 85% of the score coming from MCQ, instead of the 60% that I'm used to (I believe that good sims pulled me through on 2 of my passes). I don't know yet if that changes my exam day strategy for BEC.

AUD 84 (1/9/14-Wiley books/TB + free materials)
FAR 83 (5/21/14-the above + NINJA 10 Pt Combo Lite)
REG 84 (7/9/14-Wiley books/TB + NINJA Audio/FC/Notes)
BEC 76 (10/5/14-Wiley books/TB + NINJA Audio/FC)

Disclaimer: My ninja avatar is not meant to imply that I have any affiliation with this site other than being a forum member. That's a pic of a T-shirt that my daughter gave me for my birthday. 🙂

[Gabe]

Anyone else struggle with econ? I took it roughly 10 years ago and I didn't like it then…*sigh* Back to the grind.

Side note: how many hours a week is everyone studying? Or do you have an overall hour goal?

I've been doing 1.5 hrs in the morning, 1 at lunch, 1.5 at night then what I can on the weekends (toddler + 9 month pregnant wife= fun 🙂 )

Thanks @kim! I'll read your answer more thoroughly tomorrow morning after some coffee 🙂

CPA, CFE
CISA- Experience will be completed by August 2016

[schizokitten]

@len I've used Becker to prepare for REG and FAR, pretty much exclusively. I bought the WTB out of fear but only used it for a day or two before REG. I kind of regret buying it now, tbh. If you find yourself memorizing questions instead of learning the answers, it may help to break out but there are a good number of repeats between systems.

REG: ***92*** (5/14/14)
FAR: ***83*** (8/17/14)
BEC: ***89*** (10/3/14)
AUD: ***86*** (2/22/15)

[lauren725]

Gabe – econ is very detailed and there is a lot to it but I found Becker's mcq surprisingly not too bad and I scored “stronger” on it my first go around for BEC. I think once you get the basic things down most of it makes sense. There are a lot of ninja mcq on econ that I have missed but I think some if it is more detailed than becker so it won't hurt anything!

AUD - 73,91
FAR - 79 - Thank you God!
BEC - 73,79!!!!
REG - 92 whatttt??!

I used Becker review + flashcards, Ninja Audio, Ninja MCQ supplement on BEC and REG.

Done! Praise God!

[lauren725]

Also props to you for studying with a toddler and another on the way! Very impressive.

AUD - 73,91
FAR - 79 - Thank you God!
BEC - 73,79!!!!
REG - 92 whatttt??!

I used Becker review + flashcards, Ninja Audio, Ninja MCQ supplement on BEC and REG.

Done! Praise God!

[NJPRU]

Hey guys, I have a B3 question for you (long winded, I apologize in advance):

Salem Co. is considering a project that yields annual net cash inflows of $420,000 for years 1 through 5, and a net cash inflow of $100,000 in year 6. The project will require an initial investment of $1,800,000. Salem's cost of capital is 10%. Present value information is presented below:

Present value of $1 for 5 years at 10% is .62.

Present value of $1 for 6 years at 10% is .56.

Present value of an annuity of $1 for 5 years at 10% is 3.79.

What was Salem's expected net present value for this project?

The answer is: (152,200).

Which is obtained by doing the following: PV of 420,000 @ 3.79 = 1,591,800 + PV of 100,000 @ .56 = 56,000

Total: 1,647,800

Subtracted by todays outflow 1,800,000

Equals (152,200)

My question goes back to the 100,000x.56 which is for 6 years. I guess I don't understand why you wouldn't take the PV$1 @ 6 years and subtract it by PV$1 @ 5 years (.62-.56=.06) and get the PV$1 for 1 year?

Am I looking too into this? Do we only do this when they give us the PV$1 for each period, i.e:

ole Co. is investing in a machine with a 3-year life. The machine is expected to reduce annual cash operating costs by $30,000 in each of the first 2 years and by $20,000 in year 3. Present values of an annuity of $1 at 14% are:

Period:

1 — 0.88

2 –1.65

3– 2.32

Using a 14% cost of capital, what is the present value of these future savings?

which then you take the 30,000×1.65 = 49,500

then add that to 20,000x (2.32 for period 2 -1.65 for period 3) = 13,400

Total: 62,900

What's the difference?

AUD: DONE
FAR: DONE
BEC: DONE
REG: DONE

IM GOING TO BE A CPA!!!!!

[lauren725]

NJ – I am not much help but I just looked at this question in my software and you do bring up a good point. Maybe you only subtract it the way you are thinking when they give us the PV $1 for one year although I think there are a few in the software that calculate it the way you are describing. Maybe someone will know but I will look into this more when I cover B3 again better.

AUD - 73,91
FAR - 79 - Thank you God!
BEC - 73,79!!!!
REG - 92 whatttt??!

I used Becker review + flashcards, Ninja Audio, Ninja MCQ supplement on BEC and REG.

Done! Praise God!

[NJPRU]

Thanks Lauren, I'm sure there is some obvious answer i'm not seeing.

How did studying go today? It's only 9PM your time, so that's.. what? 5-6 more hours of studying?? 😛

AUD: DONE
FAR: DONE
BEC: DONE
REG: DONE

IM GOING TO BE A CPA!!!!!

[Author]

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