[Brokenglass]

I have taken 4 exams so far and I never used it or thought about using it except for the research question. I’ve always thought the cost of doing it exceeds the benefit when it comes to time management.

Does anyone use it and were you able to find the material fast enough?

[Steven K]

First and foremost, good luck on BEC today! I take it tomorrow.
I'm not sure if this reply will be useful to you anymore but here is my insight.
I personally used the authoritative literature for REG and FAR. I didn't feel the need to use it for AUD and I don't think it would help with BEC. On each of the exams I took, I was able to bang out both MCQ testlets in about 1 hr. thus leaving me about 3 hours to do 8 sims. That comes out to about 22 minutes per SIM. Now, idk how good you are with the research question but I was always good at those and one of the classes in my MAcc program actually had us use the FASB codification regularly so when I took FAR, i literally found the answer in like 16 seconds. As a result I pretty much had 25 minutes per SIM. All in all, i didn't use the authoritative literature for every SIM however, if there was a question that I didn't know or wasn't confident about (ie. in my case it was a SIM on leases), I ended up going into the codification and looking up the accounting for it.

[Mike J]

If you have to fill in the blanks for a report during an AUD sim, you might find the authoritative literature very useful.

[Hank Scorpio]

I also found it useful for FAR and REG much more than BEC and AUD. I went through the MCQ faster than most so I had the time to wear the IRC out on REG.

FAR - 10/3/16
BEC - 69 - 10/31/16
AUD - November 2016
REG - December 2016

[Recked]

I found it useful for some exams, but it can also be a detriment.
Ended up spending more time than I should have trying to confirm an answer on FAR. Ended up running out of time on the exam.
If you do use the AL, just be careful not to fall down a rabbit hole.
I ended up not finding a conclusive answer to my question and probably wasted 5-10, (maybe more) minutes.

[turo9992000]

Yes, everytime, and it is hella useful. I'm good at research, so it was never an issue.

[Kevin]

I agree with Recked. It is easy to waste a lot of time reviewing the AL while working on your sims. I used it for REG and it worked great though. If you have plenty of time left and you are working on your last testlet, I would go through and answer as best as you can first and then go back and fine tune them with using the AL. I had about 30 minutes left on REG and AUD and I used that time to research and make sure my answers were as best as possible. On your first and second testlet, I would only budget a certain amount of time. Say leave about 1 hour left or so for the last testlet and that should work. I haven't taken FAR yet.

[fsugirl2005]

Welp, I guess this explains why I kept missing passing scores within a couple of points. I just found out that you can use the authoritative literature on the exams. I thought that was only reserved for the research question. Now I'm really kicking myself because this is something I should have known from day one. I could have been a CPA by now. [insert crying emoji here]

AUD - 10/21/16 (75----07/2010 expired)
FAR - 10/28/16
BEC - 11/2016
REG - 01/2017

Using Gleim CPA Review, Ninja Audio, Ninja Book

[JM03]

Like what was said above. I found the AL to be extremely useful for FAR and REG. I found a sim word for word on FAR…

I only looked at it once on AUD for a quick reference. It was no use at all on BEC.

[Author]

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