[Anonymous]

Is anyone else having a hard time learning theses variances? I am studying with Becker, Wiley and CPA excel and these variance questions are structured so many different ways and all taught differently in each software. I desperatly need help, does anyone have a good method for learning them. I take the test in less than a week and BEC is becoming very frustrating and turning into a mojor headache.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Ok, first, questions on variances on actual exam are definitely not as difficult as on software. I overstufied variances; thought it was my weak link and ended up thinking that it was much easier than IT on exam…

Second, remember how Olinto said: make variance your Friday date? I did that. Spent whole day listening to his explanation of that one page on CD… Finally it came to me. With struggle, but it did. And I used Wiley book as well.

That was sufficient for doing actual exam problems, BUT still not sufficient for Becker homework problems – they were just too complex.

Now, maybe other people will have different opinion, but I think if you can do basic variance problems and have problems with huge wordy ones – you are OK for the exam.

Just my opinion, though.

[25percentcpa]

Hi Anna,

I recently took BEC last testing window and passed with a 79. Here are video clips on variances that helped me out dramatically went it came to the exam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAdZofU_rlM. There are 6 of them all by the same lady.. This should definitely help you out as she actually goes into detail on each one. On the actual exam I had exactly 4 variance questions all pretty straightforward. They covered all 4 of the main variances.. (DM and labor variances).. A topic I would focus heavily on is IT as I believe that made up around 25-30% of my exam. I used Becker and they definitely skipped over some materials, but there are alot of questions that are common sense.. Had a good amount of corporation and partnership questions and a couple of questions on S corps. Had about 8-10 questions on economics, pretty straightforward.. I also had a great deal of questions from capital budgeting.. Make sure you know ROI and residual income.. Hope this helps!

[Anonymous]

Use the CPAexcel method. It is by far the easiset to learn and has practically perfect functional application on the exam.

[jeff]

Reminder: please follow the AICPA guidelines for exam content disclosure.

Thanks, everyone.

-Jeff

[Anonymous]

Jeff-

Is a reccomendation of a problem solving method getting close to violating the exam question disclosure rule? Not arguing, I just don't want to get in trouble for it.

[jeff]

jeremy – no, what you described is not a violation at all.

What I am referring to is someone posting what they encountered on their exam…this # of questions over this…this # of questions over that…etc.

I had to remove a post…that's what I was referring to. You're in the clear in regards to what you describing.

[Anonymous]

I couldn't figure out variances for the life of me. I took a gamble and skipped them. My first BEC exam, I got 74 but that's because my NTS was expiring and I didn't get to study all the material in time. The second time I passed without knowing variance calculations. I'm not suggesting you blow them off, but in every section there has been stuff that I just don't understand and have skipped. If you can't figure out how to calculate them, at least know the theory behind them. Maybe it was exam content, maybe I got lucky…

[25percentcpa]

Hey Jeff – New to this site. Was not aware of the exam content disclosure. Sorry!

[jeff]

"Hey Jeff – New to this site. Was not aware of the exam content disclosure. Sorry! "

You read the thing you agreed to when you took your exam, right? 🙂

[Anonymous]

I'm going to assume the 25% you have passed was not REG.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info everyone

Tim, I like your approach the best

[Anonymous]

I'm not going to disclose anything 😉 but please do not skip variances! Maybe pass up the more complicated OH ones, but know the basic easier ones. I was glad I had learned them. Check out that YouTube video, it really is helpful.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, it's a complete gamble to skip variances. You could lose. Lucky for me it paid off. You could get saddled with an exam that's filled with variances. Stranger things have happened. But at the same time it's not unheard of to skip a topic because you don't understand it. Make sure you're stronger in the other areas. Don't skip accrual accounting 😉

[Anonymous]

I thought Cindy's explanation of variances in Yaeger was excellent, along with the summary on the Yaeger handout. I'm assuming that handout is copyrighted so can't post it, but it made variances so simple and understandable.

[Author]

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