Hi Silvia
I used CPAexcel to pass AUD, REG and BEC. I know that CPAexcel has improved it's study program recently and I haven't explored those changes. Back when I used it, I would leave an extra week at the end of my study plan to take CPAexcel practice exams and review anything I was scoring weak in. I believe with the changes they have incorporated time to take the final exam (more than one day like they did when I used it), so you may not need to make the same adjustment to your schedule that I did.
That being said, I spent about a week at the end of my review doing the following:
1) Take a practice exam
2) Look over the answers to ALL of the questions. If I read an answer and either a) got the question wrong or b) got the question right for the wrong reason, I would write the explanation down. If I still didn't understand it, I would do some research and review.
If I was consistently scoring low in one subject, I would spend an hour or so reviewing that topic. The topics are broken down so nicely into little bits in CPAexcel that it's easy to find what you need.
I think that this final review method probably gained me at least 5-7 points on my REG and BEC exams. I hadn't discovered it yet when I took AUD.
As for the CPAexcel questions vs the actual exam, I felt that CPAexcel's questions definitely prepared me for my exams. I saw some of the same, or very similar questions on my exams. And I always scored either comparable, or most often stronger on my multiple questions.
For AUD, CPAexcel's sim practice questions were actually pretty amazing, and I DID get some that were similar to them. However the thing that got me to really start kicking ass on my sims was that I started using the research tab for EVERY sim that I wasn't 100% sure of my answer on. I have a tendency to score lower on sims, so I saved up extra time (beyond the recommended about by about 15-30 minutes) so that I could spend more time researching on my sims. Plus I knew that I was pretty quick at answering multiple choice.
For journal entries, I recommend that you don't try to memorize any specifically… Just try to understand the reasoning behind why certain JEs are made. Go through the JEs logically and slowly in your mind until you fully grasp what is happening. T accounts might help.
As far as just a general study tip, I also made a ton of note cards throughout the entire study process, which really helped me.
If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I'll try to check this forum often enough to catch your response. 🙂
FAR: 71, 77
BEC: 70, 82
AUD: 62, 78
REG: 71, 68, 85
CA Licensed 11/2011