[Anonymous]

I’m baccccckkkk…….I gotta say, ‘what the heck?’. Took my BEC exam today.

Working backwards, the writing assignments were manageable. 1 was from the industry I used to work in so it better darn well not be the toss out question. I don’t think it will be. The other two were on the same very difficult and obscure topics that I had in my auditing sims. But I managed to get enough in them to get all the points. OH and here’s something that I didn’t see anyone suggest: DATE the memo/letter. I’m not sure if it will add points but it shows I was thinking.

Now for the test, I feel cheated. I worked Wiley over like Rocky did that side of beef learning and relearning all that information and computations about capital budgeting, ratios, time value of money, weighted average of debt, etc. etc. etc. . I am not saying they weren’t there but WILEY was 1,000 times more difficult than the actual test. Exponentially harder. It was like I trained for the SAT and had a middle school pop quiz. I will say that my decision to retype the notes at the expense of spending more time on Wiley computations ended up saving the day.

The exam seemed like it got harder after the first section, but then again what defines hard? All in all, I left the exam feeling very confident and going “Why the he!! did I study so hard?”. It seemed like a shotgun approach to question selection and the only thing I can say (without violating anything) is know IT….but even it was infantile. Anyone who turned on a computer could have answered these questions. I wonder if I couldn’t have passed this exam without studying at all….perhaps except for terminology.

Here’s one real beef that I had related to a ratio question…come on, everyone knows that there will be ratios on the exam, says so right there in the book. The exam used a generic term for a ratio that could have been two or three different ratios…let’s just say it id’d the ratio by its numerator name but didn’t specify which ratio it actually wanted. Once you got the ratio, you had to do something with it…but how can you because I calculated the various possibilities for the real answer and came up with two different directions I could go.

If I didn’t pass this, I will want to know how. Of course I thought I failed audit and sprung an 87. So I might get a 47 on this one.

I’m going to go collapse.

[RedStorm45]

so…what's the issue here?

Starting all over.

FAR - 11/27/13
AUD - 1/4/14

[Anonymous]

I feel cheated!!!! I took three days of PTO off work and prepared like the world was going to end and if I didn't answer the questions right, we'd all perish! 😀 It was almost infantile.

I'm not really complaining, just blowing off steam of relief. If all goes well, I should get a six week break before studying for REG.

Oh here's one very important point. I arrived 20 minutes early and was late by about 10 minutes getting into the center because of all the people checking in/out. I ended up timing out on my test right as I was finishing reviewing my last writing example. I am fairly certain that I could have used those last ten minutes as a sanity check to make sure everything was perfect on the sims.

CPAPending

[Minimorty]

Your time starts when you log in, not when your scheduled time is. You had a full 180 minutes….

Also, I think you need to take a deep breath and relax this afternoon/evening. lol. Do you know how many people on these boards would love to feel over-prepared? Assuming you passed (it would be kind of funny if you didnt after that post), you should apply the same study methods for your remaining sections. Just dont get cocky and study less because you think its going to be easy.

[Anonymous]

Aha…I didn't know that about the time. I could have taken a nap after my auditing was completed before timing out….I was really surprised at the fact I timed out on this BEC given that there were 18 fewer questions.

What did affect me was the waiting after quick bathroom breaks, took one after section one and one after section three. What can I say, my kidneys are sensitive to my blood pressure. Lesson learned…..the last few days before the end of the window, bad mojo and busy.

Well as for being over prepared, if anyone here deserved to be it was me (humbly speaking). Up at 5 every morning, study before work…haven't been out at lunch since Nov….study until 10 PM at night every night…..a good solid 8 hours on Saturdays and 4 on Sundays. I've put in my time and it has made all the difference, this is the same method I used for Auditing and pulled an 87. For BEC I was militaristic in my schedule, even more so than Auditing. It's the same I will use for REG and FAR (although FAR might take some modification due to the volume of material on it).

Yes, it would suck suck suck if I failed it. I just don't see how I could have…but weirder things have happened.

[Minimorty]

Sounds like you have earned it. Just be glad that you put in the time and made the test manageable. You shouldn't feel cheated for being prepared for the worst and getting something less. You should be happy, thrilled, excited, etc. Sounds like you are half way there.

[MSG10]

I'm glad you felt like you were overly prepared. I felt that the WC part was the easiest. THe MCQ's I was 50/50. I felt I was prepared for most of them but I know I different made educated guesses.

Now for the waiting game… this bottle of tequila is not helping ebb the anxiety.. :X

[RedStorm45]

Gotcha, couldn't tell if you were actually angry about it or not.

Starting all over.

FAR - 11/27/13
AUD - 1/4/14

[Anonymous]

Glad it went well, Good Luck!:)

[ROACH]

Sounds like you had a… horrible experience. I shed a tear reading it. Goodluck next time man.

BEC: 66 | 69 | 7/23/2013
AUD: 8/28/2013
REG:
FAR:

[Anonymous]

Same for me, BEC was easier than I expected. And I nailed it with my highest score yet.

[wonny1108]

I took BEC last saturday (2/25/12) and this was my second time.

To those of you who failed at least once and passed, did you feel the difference between the failed exam and the passed one? Were you 100% confident after the exam? Knew all the answers to the questions?

I'll probably find out next week whether I passed or failed, but wanted to know the different feelings between a 72 and a 76. I kinda feel I did better this time but who know?

Starting all over again...
BEC - 79 Lost credit
AUD - Retake April 2016

[whycpa]

Not fair! 🙁 My exam was so hard, I got a lot of theory problems on the left. There is no way for me to figure out the answer on some of them. I want to cry now…. I took my BEC on 2/25/12… It was the hardest test ever for me. I know I have to retake this one again…

REG 5/31/2011 Pass

Success is the ability to learn, unlearn, and relearn.

[Author]

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