[Mandu4ever]

Hi Ninjas,

I just took REG. TBH, MCQs were manageable. I just had to make educational guesses about 6 out of 76.

Guess what? OMG~ I had 4 DRS. Are you kidding? I totally mismanaged my time. There were tons of documents to go through in order to solve those questions.

Has anyone had similar experiences? Without an additional monitor, there won’t be enough time to go through all attachments, IMHO.

[Radez]

REG SIMS sucked for me too. I think it's the one I'm most likely to fail. Generally speaking, with respect to the DRS problems, I've found that most of the time, each separate section of the problem is pointing to one or two resources, so my approach has been to skim the docs super quick, in like a minute or two, and then begin going through the actual problem. Just refer to the docs that you need for each section and then move on. You might run into something in one document that refers back to something you already did, and it might require some additional scratchwork to adjust, but I think it's a mistake to try to grok all the material presented at once.

I made notes in the spreadsheet app to avoid having to flip back and forth too too much, but I agree with you. Two screens would be nice, but even a more functional spreadsheet would be heaven. I've been bitching about having the spreadsheet app available for MCQ in literally every exam I've taken whiles also demanding that it be improved. No arrow-key navigation while entering formulas, and the return key doesn't move you down a row. It's still frustrating me, 10 hours later.

[BBHYX]

HI @Mandu4ever, how long did you save for sims? I'm worried about not having enough time too

[CPyAyy]

@xyz107 I'd recommend at least leaving 2.25 hours absolute minimum for the REG sims and if you can 2.5 hours.

It really just depends on what sims you get though. Besides the research sim, the least amount of documents attached to a sim was 8 for me.

To top it off, where I take my exams the CPA exam software does not use the entire screen. It is absolutely the stupidest design ever. The monitors where I test are about 70% utilized. If try doing horizontal split screen you can only see about 3-4 words per line for an actual sentence. Forget about trying to split screen and review documents. Not to mention during my exam the document reviewer took forever to load the PDF format documents. I thought the document reviewer was going to crash my exam once because it took so long to load. The exam GUI needs to be updated.

[tskits75]

We really do need a second monitor, or the software really needs to make it where you can see a document and enter the information without having to go back and forth so often.

AUD - 92
BEC - 79
REG - August
FAR - TBD

[Anonymous]

To be honest the enhanced SIMs are closer to real world accounting. Often times you will receive and be given a bunch of documents and emails from clients you have to sort through. When you are out on the field most likely you won't have dual monitors. You might even work for a firm where everything is done manually (little to no computer use) and you have to sort through an entire conference table of papers and files, etc.

[Anonymous]

Brickle- but in the real world I would print those documents and have them in front of me while working and not constantly clicking back and forth.

[Mandu4ever]

@ xyz107, I had 2.15 min for sims. The reason why I mismanaged my time was that I had 2 DRS on the 3rd testlet. So I put enough attention on those 2 because I thought I will not have DRS anymore. However, when I was on the 4th testlet, there was another DRS and I was shocked but I tried to come down. When I proceeded to the 5th testlet, there was one more DRS(OMG) and I felt defeated. Also, all sims besides DRS, I had 8-10 docs on each sim so it took a long time to open the PDF docs as one of the ninjas mentioned above. I also thought the document viewer was going to crash my exam.

The sucks thing is that new exam format does not allow us to see all sims as opposed to the previous version. That is the reason why I was shocked when I saw DRS in every testlet. If I had a chance to see all sims, I could have managed my time better!

@ BrickellCPA, I work for the top 6 public accounting firm and we all have a portable monitor to work with when we work on the client sites which makes our life a lot easier! A bunch of docs to sort through is pretty easy when you have enough time, as you may know.

[JCVFUTURECPA]

Dual Monitors are common its 2017. I had a portable one as an auditor after college in 2011. One screen is horrible.

[Anonymous]

At least 8 additional documents? Are u serious? I don't think we have enough time to scan through all of that crap during the exam. That is INSANE if u truly had at least 8 additional docs! Yikes.

[Mandu4ever]

@ Blue Collar Nerd, yes, I had 8-10 docs. I was speechless. That's why I was here to vent yesterday….Even with work experience, I ran out of my time. I am just hoping for the best now as I feel good about MCQs, at least.

[maj1028]

@Mandu4ever Oh my!! That was really mean to have all those kinds of sims in your test. I was expecting maybe 1 DRS and half may be would be enhanced TBS with documents and the rest would be pretty manageable. Anyway, at least with DRS you can guess an answer and you may still get lucky unlike with calculations where you really need to get it right up to decimal point or your screwed.

What would you recommend as to preparation and test day? Thanks!

I hope you pass and I hope I would too.. I am taking my exam at the end of the month and have been going through flashcards, tax forms, slides, and about 90 MCQs to as much as 200. I graduated back in 2001 so this journey has been tough but thanks to my family who have been very supportive.

Good luck to us all!

[Anonymous]

True, many firms have the dual monitors in office and on the field. I think that is the exception though with the larger firms mainly. Many CPAs don't make it into those positions and work for smaller companies or private companies that don't necessarily do all the technology. Being able to sift through what's important and what's not is an important skill as a CPA which is basically what the SIMs are trying to teach. Fundamental skills rather than laying it all out nice and neat. It's like playing a sport and having to learn and work on your form/technique in order to become proficient.

[Author]

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