[Anonymous]

I am taking my first CPA exam (FAR) tomorrow evening. I took the Becker Final Exam Simulation #1 this morning and was a bit worried about this exam result. I went over the questions I got wrong and about only 30% of the questions that I completely did not know how to do. The rest of the 70% I got wrong were more of forgetting formulas, didn’t subtract tax, didn’t watch the dates, forgetting to do the last step of a multi-step calculation, etc.

What should I study for the last day to prepare myself for the exam tomorrow as a result of this? Also, should I take the 2nd Final Exam on Becker? or should I just do more reviews?

Really appreciate your advice.

[IwannaBaCPA]

I found those Final Exams did more damage than good to my confidence. I would hope you know your weaknesses by now and I think you should focus on those once more before the exam so the information is fresh in your mind. As for missing questions because you did not read the question carefully, learn from that! Someone on here mentioned a great acronym for this very problem: RTCDQ! (Read The Cock-a-Doody Question) and you just have to make sure you do just that on exam day.

Also, I would make a plan now for how you will manage your time on the exam. If you don't, you will likely run out of time when you get to the Sims. For me, I planned around 45 minutes per testlet so I would have 1.5 hours for the Sims. I had a little more than that and needed every bit of it!

Best of luck tomorrow!

BEC: 79 - April 2011
FAR: 78 - May 2011
AUD: 81 - May 2012
REG: 79 - October 2012
Ethics: Passed - March 2013
I am finally DONE!

[mla1169]

I truly believe the best way to avoid mistakes is to make them at least once. Just think of how much you learned today and how alert you will be to those items. Good luck tomorrow.

FAR- 77
AUD -49, 71, 84
REG -56,75!
BEC -75

Massachusetts CPA (non reporting) since 3/12.

[Anonymous]

I agree with mla. Also, most of the time I miss questions that I know, it's because I'm trying to skim through the question and pull out the “meat” of the question, instead of read every word. Often times, I find myself answering longer questions in about 30 seconds, and then realizing I didn't even read the whole thing. I've learned that if I answered a question really quickly, I need to start over with it.

[Anonymous]

Ah! A good technique I learned with avoiding careless errors is to find the trick in the question while you're trying to solve it. 99.9% of the time, the questions have a trap in which they're trying to make you fall right into. If you can find the trap, then you're in the right the direction. If a question seems too easy and you don't see any trick, then you're headed for a big surprise!!

[Author]

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