[Anonymous]

Whats the most basic bare bones advice you successful FAR candidates can give to tackling the SIMS?? (Feel free to go into as much detail as you’d like).

Jeff – if you’d like to weigh in as well, feel free (actually, please do…)

I would have passed this section on my first two attempts but for these stupid things!

[sarah210]

1. First and foremost: LEAVE YOURSELF ENOUGH TIME. Do not get caught up trying to answer some stupid MCQ that you are convinced the right answer is not there. Just pick an answer and move on. Leave yourself PLENTY of time for SIMs. I usually spent about half the time in any of my exams working on SIMs

2. Completely agree with Kricket– learn to use the Auth Lit. It helped me immensely with all three sections, and especially AUD. If you leave yourself enough time, you'll have time to search for things in the AL and will be able to read through things slowly enough to be able to think through the information. I don't know about you, but I can't research in a time-crunch panic.

3. Comprehension of journal entries are key. The couple of days before I took FAR, I went through my becker book chapter by chapter, and copied down every single journal entry in the book. Yes its possible you'll get a SIM on a topic that doesn't have a ton of JEs represented in becker, but in copying down all the JEs for all the topics in the book, you start to understand the logic behind them. When you are taking the actual test, try to think through what is happening if you get a SIM involving JEs. Is an asset account increasing? etc.

4. Know your stuff on governmental/nfp, because there is not AL for govt, and you may still get a sim on a govt/nfp topic.

Now that I've taken all four parts, when I look back on my experience overall, there were always, in each section, *details* of topics tested in the SIMs that were not in becker. My thought on the AICPA's approach to SIMs is that while they do test the some of the major concepts, by throwing in these weird details they also test your ability to reason through situations you would face as a public accountant. Just my two cents though.

REG- 53, 91
BEC- 88
FAR- 62, 85
AUD- 85

Ethics- 93

[Anonymous]

I don't understand how one can pass the CPA exam and not understand journal entries. I worked with a tax accountant who is a CPA and she could just not do journal entries. She would mess them up all the time. Don't be one of those CPAs, who doesn't understand journal entries which is a fundamental basic of double-entry acccounting.

Ok, rant over. But definitely understand journal entries, EPS formula, cash flow statement. A trick I used on the exam and when I was an auditor to complete the cash flow statements is:

DI

AL

+ – – +

Go down or diagonally to figure out how to add or subtract amounts to determine cash flow:

Decrease in Assets Subtract

Decrease in Liabilities Add

Increase in Assets Add

Increase in Liabilites Subtract

[Anonymous]

I'll disagree with you there chupacabra….

There are a TON of JE's that are considered extremely advanced that one might encounter. Governmental and NFP JE's are nonsensical and must be memorized so there's not telling what they will hit you with on that. My JE's were EXTREMELY elementary but I was worried about the information they might pull.

Oh and on the NFP and Governmental, I would make sure I knew the statements and their contents. For instance the statement of cash flows for a government entity. Just like in auditing where you need to know the contents of the opinions, you need to know what's in the various govt and nfp statements.

[MRSJLeon917]

I have to agree with a majority of the posters here who say you have to know the material! I really don't practice SIMS at all and have fared pretty well on all the exams thus far. I think a solid understanding of the material (and in FAR, knowing and understanding how to do JE's) is the key. If you understand the material for the section, you should be able to logically work through the SIMS that you get. Also, knowing how to use the Authoritative Literature can be a big help as well, if you have left yourself enough time to be able to research topics.

AUD (5/25/2012): 91
FAR (10/22/2012): 89
REG (11/28/2012): 89
BEC (01/05/2013): 82
Ethics Exam: 90

IL Licensed CPA - 7/15/2013

A long journey, officially DONE!

[Anonymous]

@CPAPending I agree that the more complicated J/Es, specifically Governmental Accounting, do need to be memorized. Those just never made sense to me and I hated them.

But I'm talking about knowing debits and credits and which accounts are normally debit balances and which are credit balances. A basic J/E like relieving a pre-paid.

I had a great Intro to Accounting professor who said, that their is no logic to it and you just need to know which accounts are debit balances and which are credit balances.

Sometimes I need T-accounts to track out the ins and outs of the accounts. Those are so helpful, I have used them on every section of the exam.

[Pippy Longstocking 93105]

I think the only way to prepare for the sims is to be fully prepared, and make sure you have enough time to complete them too.

The downside of being extremely well prepared for the FAR exam, you're going to hit the time trap questions in your question sets for sure. Don't fall for the trap, guess on them and move on. The upside is that you're well prepared for the sims so you should pick up most of the points on them so long as you have the time to complete them. Don't fall for the trap. In my experience none of the other CPA exams have the time constraint that FAR has. Its a mistake not to prepare your exam strategy for this section.

Its curious for me because the first time I took the exam I did not run out of time, but did not pass. This time I really did fall for the time trap and ran out of time (leaving 3 tabs blank) but still managed to pass. So I could say I botched the exam strategy, but at the same time, my over-preparedness more than compensated for this weakness.

I was mentally preparing for having to re-take this one because of the time traps, which is sort of a below the belt punch. In my experience the only other exam I've ever had where they pull these punches is the SAT. Had I thought thru this before hand and had a strategy I'd have saved myself a few weeks of mental anguish.

Passed all 4
Done!
If I can pass, you can too!

[Author]

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