I'm new to the forum, so a quick background on my education and study method for context.
Education:
BBA in Accounting & Finance, May '16
Master of Science in Accountancy, May '17
Both from an AACSB accredited university
Study Materials:
Wiley CPAExcel
Ninja MCQ, audio, and notes
I took a CPA review course in my last semester of grad school, covering both AUD and FAR in roughly three months. Once school ended, I continued FAR and spent approximately a month reviewing FAR material. Mainly focused on understanding/ affirming underlying concepts, did copious MCQs in Wiley test bank and Ninja MCQ. Reread and wrote Ninja notes in the week leading up to the exam following Jeff's prescribed model. One potential downfall: I didn't spend a significant amount of time reviewing simulations. My concern was to genuinely understand the material, not learn how to answer one specific simulation question. Overall and extremely comfortable navigating the AL for research questions. Collectively put in roughly 300 hours for FAR alone.
I took FAR on 05/27/2017. Naturally, like everyone going into exam day, I was nervous and felt unprepared. I'll break this into two parts, my thoughts on MCQs and simulations. I budgeted and maintained my time as follows 45:45:30:60:60 per testlet (finished with about five minutes to spare).
MCQs:
If you study with Wiley, Ninja, Becker, Roger, etc. you are more likely than not fine with regard to MCQs. All the questions were fair and I'm almost certain there were questions from my Wiley and Ninja test bank, although modified. There wasn't a question on the exam on a topic that wasn't covered. At first I didn't think the difficulty increased from testlet one moving onto two. However, looking at Jeff's PDF of the AICPA's ‘moderate” and “difficult” MCQs confirmed my testlets did in fact get more difficult. While I don't believe I aced the MCQ, I believe I did respectable. There were a couple government questions that I found tricky, but other than that, everything was pretty tame.
Simulations:
This is where my confidence is shattered. Out of my eight simulations, there were two I was confident on, including the research question. While I can't divulge what my topics were, they were on material lightly covered in my review materials. One word summation of my experience: wild. My confidence in the exam dropped with each simulation testlet. I completed each to the best of my ability, however, they were difficult. Going back over my review materials, both print book and online material, I couldn't find a simulation that came remotely close to what I had on exam day.
I don't mean to frighten anyone by this, however, this is my exam day experience, and is by no means reflective of what others may encounter due to the random nature and breadth of possible questions. At heart, I believe I failed. The complexity of the simulations combined with the new weighting has almost guaranteed this. However, I'll find out in August. It will be interesting to see my final score taking into consideration the AICPA's Item Response Theory grading. While I'm remaining optimistic, however, I'm mentally prepared that I will have to do a retake. In the meantime, I'm now pushing forward and will sit for AUD on July 1, 2017. Here's hoping for a 75 on FAR come August.
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