[Joemark]

Becker Question –

Is it me, or am i starring every paragraph to memorize, while going through the lectures/ textbook. I’m so far removed from school, that i am pretty much teaching myself this material over again. It doesn’t help that i think the instructor comes off like an a$$. Why am i even going through the lectures if he is just telling me to memorize every paragraph? He will be explaining something and i will think to myself “ok, that makes sense”. Then its time for the MC questions and it everything looks like a foreign language to me. I’m getting frustrated. Very frustrated. Oh well, enough venting for now. Back to listening to this fake mobster tell me to star and memorize more ENTIRE pages of the text. Stupid jerk. Was that mature of me to call him that? No. Helpful in venting? Yes!

REG - 77, AUD - 85, BEC - 75, FAR - 80

[nolifecpa]

i hear ya!! BEC is no joke. how far along are you in becker? B3 is about where i lost it. I just remind myself that the hw questions are NOT a test but an extra study tool. it definitly does not feel good when i answer questions and see that yellow highlight appear instead of green, averaging in the 40's and 50's doesn't help either. better to get the answers wrong now, learn from them, and get them right on the actual exam

back to hating life!!!

REG-65,71,74,73,70,74,79
BEC-60's,60's,69,71,76*,78
FAR-67,66,65,79
AUD-54,60's,65,83*,69,80
*expired

DONE

[Anonymous]

Joemark

Dom'y if you read the note that many of the harder MCQ come from old CMA exams. They are good teaching toolss but you won't see those long drawn out problems on the actual exam. Loved your description of the laptop over the head. Sometimes I see it sailing out the window!

[FL_CPA2010]

Joemark – I feel your pain. I can't remember his name, but there was one instructor that literally almost put me to sleep…and I do the classroom lectures! I started losing it a little from chapter 3 on, and the MCQ's made no sense to me at all. Yaeger is awesome for BEC, so you should give it a try. You still have enough time that you won't lose much momentum. They actually go over a ton of the MCQ's, and in great detail…instead of just a handful of theory questions that Becker does in their lectures.

REG 79 (Becker); BEC 63 (Becker) 70 (Yaeger); AUD 66 (Becker; 11/30 - Becker); FAR 11/24 (Yaeger/Wiley)

[Idrathergolf]

I sat for BEC on 7/22 and my advice is to “be familiar” as Peter Olinto says with much of the material he says to memorize. Granted you have to memorize how to calculate RI, but you don't have to memorize every minute detail about the money market. You have to be familiar enough with the material to be able to read a multiple choice question, read the answer choices, and go from there. It is not going to ask you to recite the requirements. There are no SIMS and there is no written communication, purely MC.

I was in the same boat as yourself, I really began to lose it during B3, especially during the supplemental question. They were extremely trying of my patience. I would get through a 2 paragraph question and answer it correctly, only to press next to have another 2 paragraph question, and then another. My guess as to the reason Becker does this is to somewhat over prepare you for the exam from a calculation aspect. Although my test was about 40% calculations, I was able to stay on budget with time. I never got to a calculation based problem and said “what is this? I can't do this!”.

During the review of BEC I remember thinking that it was the worst section yet. This seems to be a trend. During REG (first section) I recall thinking to myself that it can't get anymore boring/tedious than business law. During AUD I recall thinking that business law may not have been that bad afterall. BEC I got to the point where I could barely get motivated enough to do more questions.

REG: 5/26 - 90hrs (Pass) AUD: 7/1 - 86hrs (Pass)
BEC: 7/22 - 72hrs (Pass) FAR: 8/31 - 56hrs (Wait)

[75 CPA]

BEC is Becker's weak link. Yaeger with Cindy for BEC is so much better!

Your emphasis on studying BEC should be in this order:

1. Business Structure

2. IT

3. Finance

4. Cost Accounting

5. Economics

[Joemark]

Thanks for the words of encouragement and shared stories. It was actually B3 that I was studying for when I wrote that, so it is nice (yet unfortunate) to see that I am not alone. Seems like B3 = the decline of the CPA candidates sanity. It is bizarrely comforting to know that we all hit the mental wall about the same time though.

As far as yeager is concerned, thanks for the suggestions, but I just spent 3k on the Becker materials, so I feel I owe it to myself to try and pass with this first. If things don’t go well, then I definitely intent on looking into Yeager BEC materials.

Fight on, everyone!

REG - 77, AUD - 85, BEC - 75, FAR - 80

[Iwillpasswithalife]

I only memorized Becker's cost accounting variance grid. Didn't memorize anything esle and used cpareviewforfree.com. His BEC section is the strongest of the 4 section he has on there. I would highly recommend it for BEC prep and you can access it anytime. Best thing about it is that it doesn't cost you a dime to try it.

REG - 67, 76 (Q4 2009) - Used CPAExcel first time, Used CPAExcel + CPAReviewForFree
BEC - 83 (Q1 2010) - CPAExcel + CPAReviewForFree
AUD - 89 (Q2 2010) - CPAExcel + CPAReviewForFree
FAR - 81 (Q4 2010) - Roger CPA + CPAReviwForFree

[Anonymous]

Hey JoeMark

I just finished Becker BEC 3 last night and I totally can see where your coming from. I did not have much trouble with the MC's though as I have a fairly large finance background and remember a lot of it from my undergrad finance degree. For the longest time and through multiple sections I have felt the lectures to be damn near a waste of time. Olinto is more entertaining than Gearty but really I think Olinto belongs on the cast of the Jersey Shore more than teaching at Becker. The only reason I even stick with the lectures is to supplement my reading. If I did not do the lectures I would read each chapter 2x. If I watch the lecture I will read the chapters only once after doing the lecture and MC's. This works better for me since when I am reading the chapter I have already seen the questions and got a preview of the text from one of the dodo's during the lecture. I have noticed many occasions where they seem to tell you to practically memorize more than seems reasonable.

End result is BEC is my last test and I just want it done. Even if Gearty and the Italian Ice piss me off they will have gotten me thru this in the end. I actually think if you are not getting frustrated by something/someone when studying then maybe you just are not trying hard enough. In each section for different reasons at some point I want to beat my laptop with a 2×4. Its just natural when you are trying really hard at something to get frustrated. It is very important that when that happens you dust yourself off, adjust your game plan and keep moving forward. I think the majority of us here do that and that is why we will pass.

Hope this helps

Chris

[Anonymous]

Lol to wanting to break the laptop. I can't use an actual mouse for the MCs bc of the fear that I will break it on top of my desk after repeatedly missing the Qs. I am usually a pretty calm person, but the CPA exam really brings out the anger in me. I think we should all web cam ourselves while studying for this exam. I am sure the highlights of angry moments would make the video a big hit on YouTube in no time.

[Anonymous]

I have this ‘talking cat' app on my iphone, i swear i start talking to the cat to calm myself down. The cpa exam brings the crazy in me. Or maybe i'm just procrastinating…

[potatogun]

A lot of programmers have a stuff animal or something inanimate on their desks to talk to to problem solve and bounce ideas off it. It isn't as crazy as you think :P.

FAR 92 - AUD 91 - REG 94 - BEC 86

[Author]

Replies