[mgoloubenko]

Hey everyone!

I’m taking REG on December 6th, and I am in my final review. For those of you who are studying REG currently, or have taken it let me know if you think this is a good approach over the next few days and if you have any suggestions! I am really hoping to make this my last exam.

Over the last week of review I’ve been focusing extensively on the tax portion of Becker’s material (R1-R4) and am trying to get all of the tax rules down. I’ve taken really detailed notes on each chapter as I have gone through it, re-did all of the Becker MCQs, half-way through all of the Wiley tax questions, and intend to re-do Beckers SIMs and add in Wiley SIMs and CPAreviewforfree.com SIMs. I understand that for the most part the SIMs on REG are directly derived from tax topics, which is exactly why I chose to emphasis my attention into this area. I’ve also taken very detailed notes regarding Ethics! I will continue doing Tax practice exams up until the day of my test.

For the business law portion, I’m not going to kill myself as heavily as I did with tax mostly because I know I am unlikely to see SIMs from B.Law, and the law questions I get, I will hopefully be familiar with from Becker. Over the next few days, I intend to review R5-R8 by re-doing all the MCQs and taking notes on what I get wrong. I do not intend to really comb through each chapter and will only focus on areas that I find that I’ve forgotten important rules in.

What is your analysis of my approach?

FAR 4/9/12- PASSED
BEC 7/13/12- PASSED
AUD 8/16/12- Ughhh 71, Rematch: 90!!!
REG-12/6/12 PASSED

USC MAcc- Fight on!

They say good things come to those who wait, but only those things that are left by those who hustle.

[jenuno01]

For REG, two words: tax, basis!

Class of 2012

[mgoloubenko]

Jenuno, what do you specifically mean by basis?

FAR 4/9/12- PASSED
BEC 7/13/12- PASSED
AUD 8/16/12- Ughhh 71, Rematch: 90!!!
REG-12/6/12 PASSED

USC MAcc- Fight on!

They say good things come to those who wait, but only those things that are left by those who hustle.

[sarah210]

I think your strategy sounds good. I spent twice as long reviewing for tax as I did for b-law. For b-law I just redid the homework problems in becker once and rewrote the b-law section of the ninja notes. I didn't obsess over all the details, and that was fine. I reviewed and reviewed the tax stuff. I went into the test feeling very prepared by Becker. IMO their tax section is the best one. Make sure you don't forget the ethics/rules chapter. B4, I think? It's easy to skip over that information, but at least re-read it once.

You sound really prepared. I bet you'll be part of the 2012 CPA club. 🙂

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

Ethics- 93

[jenuno01]

@Mg, I can't disclose too much, but basically know everything that has to do with basis. (R1-R4) I left the exam thinking “holy basis!” =O

Class of 2012

[mgoloubenko]

Yeah haha there are so many things that involve basis that I was confused as to what you meant! But I've been trying to do as much as I can to get comfortable with the topics from R1-R4 so fingers crossed.

@Sarah, I hope you're right! It was my personal goal to myself to be done with the exam before NYE so let's hope I can pull it off- pressure is definitely on. I see you brought up your score tremendously in REG by focusing on tax, ethics, and re-doing the B.Law MCQs. I'm hoping I see similar results by following the same strategy! I've seen on the REG CSO that Ethics is nearly 20% of the exam so I spent the day today re-writing that entire section from Becker to be able to recall it when I see it exam day.

FAR 4/9/12- PASSED
BEC 7/13/12- PASSED
AUD 8/16/12- Ughhh 71, Rematch: 90!!!
REG-12/6/12 PASSED

USC MAcc- Fight on!

They say good things come to those who wait, but only those things that are left by those who hustle.

[jenuno01]

Yeah and basis for one party, other party, the entity… so much to remember! Just keep practicing.

Class of 2012

[mgoloubenko]

Another question I had was recommendations on time management. I have heard REG can feel like quite the time crunch, how much time should I plan to spend per testlet and what is the optimal amount of time to leave for SIMS? Has anyone had time to utilize AL on Reg?

FAR 4/9/12- PASSED
BEC 7/13/12- PASSED
AUD 8/16/12- Ughhh 71, Rematch: 90!!!
REG-12/6/12 PASSED

USC MAcc- Fight on!

They say good things come to those who wait, but only those things that are left by those who hustle.

[sarah210]

@mg– The second time I took REG, I spent almost half the time (about an hour and 20 minute) working on the SIMs. I used the AL heavily. With the MCQs, I spent a little over a half hour for each testlet. If I didn't know the answer to a problem right away, I flagged it. At the end of the testlet, I went back over those problems briefly. If I really did not know the answer at all, I just picked one that sounded fairly reasonable and moved on without agonizing/wasting time. Having time management strategies is a very important thing to do if you want to have enough time to use the AL on the SIMs.

Out of the 6 sims, 2 were on topics I was completely comfortable with, 1 was the research which was easy enough, and I used the AL heavily on the other 3. I was glad to have all that time so I could research without feeling panicked and stressed for time. I ended up finishing right on time. You need every minute of all three hours on this exam, IMO.

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

Ethics- 93

[FearTheBeard]

@mgoloubenko

I like your study strategy for tax. I wish I had the will to do all that work. All I did was go through Becker's MCQs and take notes on missed questions. You'll crush this test.

I spent about half the test on MCQs (about 30 mins per testlet) and the other half on SIMs. Wish I spent a little more time on the MCQs. I remember the first testlet being relatively easy, but I flagged about 20 questions total in testlets 2 & 3. Some of the SIMs were so obscure that I had to use the AL, but to no avail. I'd recommend using it if you have no idea about the question. But if you remember the concepts, just work through the SIMs based on your knowledge. I nailed the research question and felt okay about two other SIMs, but I made educated guesses on the last 3 SIMs even with the AL. I feel like I failed this exam, but it was similar to how I felt when I took FAR, and I ended up passing. You're gonna do great.

[mgoloubenko]

@FeartheBeard, I really hope you're right! I just never really feel prepared going into these exams because I know at any point I can have my ass handed to me so the fear of failure is a huge driving force in my study habits. It still feels like I've been pretty much brushing Business Law aside so hopefully once I review all of that then I'll feel more prepared overall! Reading your words of encouragement definitely made me smile though so thank you for the support! 🙂

FAR 4/9/12- PASSED
BEC 7/13/12- PASSED
AUD 8/16/12- Ughhh 71, Rematch: 90!!!
REG-12/6/12 PASSED

USC MAcc- Fight on!

They say good things come to those who wait, but only those things that are left by those who hustle.

[HeyPawl]

I just posted in the REG exam experience thread, but I was ashamed answering the business law questions. Some should have been easy, but there were a few pretty difficult. It is entirely my fault because I focused so hard on tax during my final review and neglected much of business law. A positive note is that I think I nailed every tax related multiple choice question.

AUD - 82 (July)
FAR - 85 (Aug)
BEC - 82 (Oct)
REG - 75 (Nov)
DONE

[mgoloubenko]

HeyPawl,

I'm sure you did great regardless. What did you do to prepare for Business law? Do you use Becker?

FAR 4/9/12- PASSED
BEC 7/13/12- PASSED
AUD 8/16/12- Ughhh 71, Rematch: 90!!!
REG-12/6/12 PASSED

USC MAcc- Fight on!

They say good things come to those who wait, but only those things that are left by those who hustle.

[HeyPawl]

I use Gleim, but a few year's ago one of my professors gave me his old teacher's edition Becker books and it's very simliar to Gleim. The only difference is Gleim breaks each exam to 20 sub units instead of 10.

If you dedicate the time, you should not have a problem. It was frustrating for me because some were straight forward and I could not narrow down the answer choices because they all seemed either a.) viable solutions or b.) no correlation between the four choices. You literally have to know the material, and while I studied all the topics during my regular prep, I did not spend enough time on them during the final review.

AUD - 82 (July)
FAR - 85 (Aug)
BEC - 82 (Oct)
REG - 75 (Nov)
DONE

[Author]

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