[Anonymous]

I’m studying for BEC right now and plan to take it for the first time on Oct 23rd. Out of all 4 parts, this has to be the least tedious of the 4. While it certainly is not easy, I thought the other 3 parts were a lot harder because the materials on FAR, REG and AUD were not only more difficult, but the amount of material was A LOT more.

So, I must ask, why does BEC have pretty much the same pass rate as the other three parts? What’s the catch? Are the questions on the real exam a lot harder? Is it more competitively graded, meaning there’s no curve?

I ask this question because I want to know if I’m going to be hit with any surprises later on, such as… the exam might be a lot harder than I expected or my score will end up being a lot lower than I expected.

[ScruffMcGruff]

@CPAMan – I think he was just using the 99 points thing as an example. The point we are trying to make is that I did not get 78% of the questions right (in total) on the exam, nor did you get 89% of the questions right on FAR when you passed it. If you can accept the previous statement I made, then you should be able to understand the argument that if I did not actually earn that score (i.e. I did not get 78 out of 100 questions right), but I still got the 78 somehow, then my ACTUAL score MUST have been curved.

Again, whether you want to call that a straight curve, or a curve built in to the exam from weighting, it's still a curve nonetheless.

AUD - 85
FAR - 78 (lol@ FAR Sims)
REG - 85
BEC - August

[Laura]

Also if you all would like to test your theories and just throw your exam fees out the window and mark C on everything while i study and take the exam I will be more than willing to take the score they would give me based on everyone else's performance. I might actually get a 99! lol!!

REG-80, 77, 77
BEC-67, 68, 71, 67, 71, 74, 71, 74, 72, 77
FAR- 72, 65,67, 53, 75 (truth be known the 53 was with 4 hours of studying)
AUD-58, 62, 72, 74, 74, 75
took 5 years but I'm DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

@keeptrying- You just gave me an idea. Here's a real way to test my theory, that is if any of you dare, lol!! Don't study and take a practice exam and guess your way through. You'll probably get a 50. Then don't study and take the real exam and guess your way through. You'll probably get a 30.

Now, study hard and take a practice exam. You'll probably get in the 70s. Then take the real exam. You'll probably get in the high 80s to 90s.

To summarize what I've been saying all this time…. a poor performance is not curved, but a good performance is.

[Minimorty]

@CPAMan – I think that kind of proves my point. You seem to think that a curve can only be beneficial. A poor performance is punished by the curve I am suggesting because more people did better on the test than you did. A strong performance is rewarded because fewer people did as well or better than you did. A curve does not have to push your grade UP. It can also push your score further DOWN (in the case of a poor performance).

[Anonymous]

Ah! I see. I misunderstood then. When I hear curve, I always think of a set amount of points that's given to everyone… meaning, everyone gets 15 free extra points.

I definitely agree though that this exam is competitive, i.e. based on how other candidates do. Just think. If everyone would just study less, this exam wouldn't be as hard to pass. But because so many people work their butts off, it forces us to study extremely hard so we can beat the other candidates in order to pass.

[RedRage00]

It's always fun to speculate, but I'm just going to study my butt off and not worry about it. No one really knows. I think as long as I put in some good quality study time I'll be okay.

RR

Texas CPA
Licensed, March 2012

[ScruffMcGruff]

All-in-all, I think someone on this forum put it best when they said that it doesn't really matter how well you actually do, you just need to outperform 50-55% of the people taking the exam in your test period to get a passing score.

AUD - 85
FAR - 78 (lol@ FAR Sims)
REG - 85
BEC - August

[goodluck2everyone]

well the AICPA wants a pass rate between 42-46% on these tests. That part will never change. The reason so many people struggle with BEC is because since it is an easier test, the curve is lower.

@keeptrying

Im sorry you got another 74, that must have been tough.

BEC- 80
REG- 68, 71, July
AUD- 61 , 84
FAR- -- 75 🙂

[Anonymous]

Ok, I've been busy this past week doing lots of practice questions on the Gleim software and I'm telling you, a lot of those practice questions are ridiculously hard!!!! The questions in the Wiley book are a lot easier. If the real exam is anything like these Gleim questions, then I now know why the passing rate in BEC is so low.

[Anonymous]

@cpaman I see you've failed your exams several times in '10, and then you finally passed FAR/AUD in '11 with much higher scores. I know you attribute this to “weighting” or “curving” or whatever your theory is, but I want to ask you:

what did you do differently in terms of studying methods to achieve these higher passing scores? You can't fully attribute it to scoring methods..

[SwanCPA]

The AICPA has actually said that they grade using Item Response Theory. The way I understand this theory is that let's say Candidate A got all of their questions correct. There were both easy and difficult questions on their exam. Then, let's say Candidate B only got 20% of their questions correct. They had all easy questions. They weight the questions Candidate B got correct very low because their overall score was low. They weight the questions Candidate A got right higher.

So, it is not curved in the sense that the person who gets the highest score gets 99 and the rest fall into the bell curve, but, it is not graded strictly on getting the answer right or wrong either. My opinion, it's curved because they do compare the scores to other candidates before coming up with the weights.

FAR- 63, 75
AUD- 61, 78
REG- 63, 74, 80
BEC - 63, 61, 75!!!!! I'm done!!!!

[Anonymous]

@Minimorty- I see you took BEC already. Can you please give me some feedback on what you thought of your test? Is it the easiest test out of the 4?

[Minimorty]

Not having to do any simulations was awesome. I cruised through the writing section. Pretty sure I'll be stronger on that part.

The first testlet was really easy. Like really easy. Then it got substantially harder in testlet two. The questions were random and pretty tricky. The third testlet was hard, but not as bad as 2. I walked out with about 45 minutes left.

Overall, BEC was easier for me than AUD was. Just hoping I got enough rigt on that second testlet. I'll be pretty pissed if I failed. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a pass. 😀

I'll be taking it in less than 2 weeks. So far, I seem to get the hang of things, but the hardest part is memorizing all those formulas. I made a list of all the formulas that need to be memorized and there are about 50 of them. And I'll bet that out of these 50, I'll probably only get questions on about 5 of them. Geez!!

[Minimorty]

Yeah, there are a ton of formulas. Most are pretty intuitive but some of the variance ones are a bit tricky.

[Author]

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