[jeff]

Welcome to the Q2 2017 CPA Exam Study Group for FAR. 🙂

Jeff Elliott, CPA (KS) | Another71 | NINJA CPA | NINJA CMA | NINJA CPE

[CPAIN2K17]

Joining this party! About 25% through the Wiley FAR course, and sitting for the exam on May 31. Hoping to give myself 5-6 weeks to review. Good luck to everyone!!

[CPAIN2K17]

@claudia408 is this in relations to EPS calculations? I think you don't always have to weight common shares ISSUED or AUTHORIZED, but do have to weight common shares OUTSTANDING. Is there a MCQ that says otherwise?

[CPAIN2K17]

@yhanalla with diluted EPS, it doesn't matter if anyone converted because you assume conversion for all potential common stock. I'm not sure about taking 1/4 of the preferred dividend. Was there an answer given?

[Claudia408]

@CPAIN2K17 – it's from a Wiley SIM and they did not weight the shares but they were asking for “common dividends – cash”

-Common stock, $1 par value, 150,000 shares authorized; 100,000 issued and outstanding 100,000
-February 1, year 2—Issued 13,000 shares of common stock to Ram Co. in exchange for land. On the date issued, the stock had a market price of $11 per share. The land had a carrying value on Ram's books of $135,000, and an assessed value for property taxes of $90,000.
-March 1, year 2—Purchased 5,000 shares of its own common stock to be held as treasury stock for $14 per share. Min uses the cost method to account for treasury stock. Transactions in treasury stock are legal in Min's state of incorporation.
-October 1, year 2—Reissued 2,000 shares of treasury stock for $16 per share.

Answer: 165,000

BEC - 75 (3x)
AUD - 78 (3x)
REG - 67, 66, Aug 1
FAR - 54, Sept 8

[Claudia408]

forgot to add this: November 4, year 2—Declared a cash dividend of $1.50 per share to all common shareholders of record November 15, year 2. The dividend was paid on November 25, year 2.

BEC - 75 (3x)
AUD - 78 (3x)
REG - 67, 66, Aug 1
FAR - 54, Sept 8

[gicenter27]

Studying for the final test begins today. Please, please, please I just want a 75!

BEC – 83
AUD – 95
REG – 87
FAR – 05/25/17

[rwglapalma]

gicenter27, it looks like you have a solid handle on the exam. Any advice on studying? Which product(s) did you use and how many hours/day did you study? Thank you in advance!

[Yo831CA]

@CPAIN2K17 Thanks for clarifying! i was so confused when they said “nothing was converted”

and no, there were no answer. Will try to find the exact question.

Good luck to all!!

[CPAIN2K17]

@claudia408 you don't weight shares for dividend payments. You pay dividends on the amount of shares outstanding. So, they had 100,000 outstanding plus the 13,000 issued for the land, minus the 5,000 bought back, plus the 2,000 reissued. The total of that is 110,000 shares outstanding and you multiply that by the 1.5 per share dividend to get 165,000.

[Cruzer]

Didn't squeeze enough points out of my 3/10/17 stab at FAR so I will have to pass the beast under the new format, so please welcome me with open arms FAR Study Group Q2.

Spent about 10 mins this morning reading through this forum to see everyone's input on how they are attacking new format. I currently have NINJA MCQ, notes and PLUS Videos along with V1.0 of Becker book a buddy gave me. I went on Becker’s website and updated all pages to the current V1.3. I am thinking of purchasing GLEIM SIMS as well as exam will now be weighted more heavily on SIMS with also increasing the amount.

I will probably just renew my NINJA products when they expire in late April. Does anyone know what got updated on the NINJA notes? The current NINJA notes I have are 118 pages and under the product description of the NINJA notes now it says they have been updated to the New 2017 exam and are 121 pages. This might be a question for @Jeff. I didn’t practice more than a few SIMS when I was studying for FAR on 3/10/17 and got slaughtered by SIMS on actual exam but I still have not received my score report yet (in a NON-NASBA state). Although FAR doesn’t seem like it is changing drastically, they are going to be testing more on analysis and application and less on remembering and understanding so definitely will need to buckle down and really be able to apply the concepts in a more real life situation.

What products is everyone using and how do they like them so far?

[HoldMyBeerCPA]

@Cruzer

I'm using Roger and so far, it's been pretty good. The only complaint I have is that he can speak VERY fast at times, so I'll have to pause my video and re-watch a 1 minute cilp two or three times. This was a bit problematic during the lecture on receivables (seriously, who cares about servicing assets and interest-only strips? I don't).

I'm going to supplement his materials with NINJA MCQ once I'm through the lectures.

My only other concern is do I review my notes as I'm going, or wait until I'm done with the videos and then re-write my notes? I've never taken this exam before, so I'm not really sure if I'm studying the right way.

[gicenter27]

rwglapalma,

I have been using CPAWiley Excel and have been giving myself somewhere between 6-7 weeks of studying before the test. CPAExcel has bit size lessons and it will tell you how many lessons you need to do in that day but I study anywhere between 2-3 hours during the week and anywhere between 3-5 on the weekend. Sometimes I feel good and do extra so I can have a day off. I think the biggest thing that has helped me though is the supplemental material which is the Wiley test bank. It's a separate program that just gives you about 1000 questions per test and any chance I have some downtime I just take small 10 question quizzes throughout each week. The questions seem to be a much higher difficulty and as you answer the questions you start to see a trend what type of questions they ask and how important some topics are to nail down. Hope this helps and good luck!

[gicenter27]

Oh and also a week before the test, I take 3 practice exams. One a day for three days and I review what I am getting wrong and why to try and correct what I'm doing wrong before the actual test. I've been scoring much better on the actual exams than I do on the practice. I usually am in the 70%-80% range on practice exams.

[rwglapalma]

Thank you! That was very helpful and thorough

[jeff]

Jeff Elliott, CPA (KS) | Another71 | NINJA CPA | NINJA CMA | NINJA CPE

[Author]

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