[Anonymous]

Bad idea? They take forever and Wiley gave me a TBS assignment that had 20 sims. That would have taken me forever. My exam is next Friday. Anyone pass without studying SIMS lately? I am trending at 80% on MCQ and feel like I know a good amount. Still questioning the correlation between putting study time into practice sims and if it equates to better performance on the exam since they are such a crapshoot.

[Julia]

I took REG twice. I did 74 1st time. Second time i
I did allll ninja MCQ and all Sims twice and got 84. I felt like they helped. Also the aicpa practice test.

[Operation_CPA]

It can't hurt to do them. The SIMS on REG were absolute beasts when I sat a few months ago – I would definitely practice them. It requires a deeper level of knowledge in my honest opinion.

[Anonymous]

I plan on practicing a few. I just don't have the time to go through a bunch. Thanks for the input

[MIsconnie]

I skipped sims for all sections (I did like 3 for FAR) and so far I am 3/3. To me studying them is near impossible and an ineffective use of your time. Why? because they are unpredictable. Your best bet is to be incredibly thorough in your lecture/note taking because SIMs are nothing when you know the material. Practicing may help some candidates, but from the looks of this website it only causes anxiety and self doubt. Focus on understanding the concepts and the SIMs will be easier/more manageable on test day.

[Anonymous]

@MIsconnie – After taking 3 exams and being in the game for almost a year now, I pretty much side with you on this one and I guess I was looking for some assurance haha. If someone can go through all the Ninja sims, then they probably passed due to how much time they studied – not because they practiced sims. I'm going to keep pounding MCQ's and making notes. Thanks!

[Becca]

I didn’t do any SIMS when studying REG for the same reason and I passed in Q1 of this year. I agree with MIsconnie that if you know the concepts, SIMS will be more manageable on test day. Word of advice when it comes to DRS’s: try not to get overwhelmed with the amount of documents that are attached to the SIM. Go straight to your first question, find the applicable document(s), answer the question, then move to the next. It will save you a lot of time rather than reading each document first.

[Anonymous]

@Becca – Thanks! I think not getting overwhelmed plays a HUGE role in doing well on the sims. It's easy to freak out when you see how lengthy they can be. The more experience I have gained with these exams, the easier the sims seem to get since I now know what to expect and no longer freak out during the exams. My first exam was AUD and I almost walked out after the first sim testlet.

[MIsconnie]

What Becca said is absolutely right about the Simulation's documents. The AICPA wants to see how candidates handle information that may not be useful, that was a huge part of the exam changes in 2017. Just take it one piece at a time and stay calm, nothing good happens when you panic. Also, I always focus more on limiting my MCQ testlets to only 45-50 mins each. That way, I usually start SIMs when I still have 2.5 hours to really slow down and take my time with the SIMs.

You got this, good luck!

[CS]

I do SIMs as a study tool but not so much for the “experience”, as aside from DRS SIMs I’ve never seen a similar one to the study material in the 3 exams I’ve taken so far. I’ve only done Gleim SIMs but the main purpose is to tighten any gaps. That being said I don’t think they’re necessary at all save for maybe practicing a few DRS just to see what that’s like if anything and also be familiar with knowing how to navigate through AL to find specific topics etc.

[Anonymous]

From my experience so far, practicing the SIMS was time well spent.

I am exclusively using Becker and when I studied for FAR I did all the SIMS once and just kind of glanced over them in the week leading up to the exam to get a feel for the type of questions I would see. Much like @skolvikes, I hammered MCQ's and was trending in the low 80%, so I thought I would be ok. When I got to the actual exam, I felt really good about how I did on the MCQ's testlets. Then I started the SIMs. 3 of the 8 I know I got 100% right (including the research question) because they related to what I do everyday at my job. So, I actually feel like I got lucky with the SIM problems I got. The other 5 I was totally unsure about any of my answers and I was kicking myself when I left because I knew I had seen all these same problems in the Becker material almost word for word. I said to myself that if I failed, I would fail because I didn't study the SIMs hard enough. I barely passed FAR with a 76.

When I studied for BEC I gave myself an extra 2 days of review before the exam so I could hammer MCQ's just like I did for FAR (trended in the low 80% again,) but also put a lot more effort into working the SIMs. When I sat for the actual exam I was much more comfortable when the SIMs rolled around, and if anything I felt like I did better on the SIMs then the MCQ's because I got a few IT MCQ's that were totally out of left field. I scored an 89 on BEC.

I know some people will say that BEC is inherently easier then FAR just based off of the amount of information we're tested on, but I think I made a mistake not practicing the SIMs for FAR like I did for BEC. And I think my scores reflect that. The SIMs count for 50% of your score just like the MCQ's do, so while I think it's possible to pass without studying the SIMs hardcore, I don't think it's wise to simply glance over them.

[RTRGARTR]

One word of warning, I have always found the Sims to be helpful in understanding HOW they want you to input info as your answer. Most of the time they tell you “If negative, enter a negative number” etc., but I have also found that some Sims just are not very clear in how they want your answer presented and can screw you out of points just because you didn't enter it the way they wanted you to.

[Anonymous]

I would totally support your decision, if your goal is to not pass the exam.

Definitely do some sims, especially the ones where you fill out the tax forms. Just do sims for 3 days straight across all the major topics. You can easily do 100 sims over 3 days. I would even just random ones, submit and even review the answers to get the whole concept and approach to solving it.

I think you will do just fine based on what you said.. scoring 90's on mcq

[Anonymous]

I plan on doing some this weekend and early next week, but definitely don't have 3 full days to just do sims. I don't know how people have that much time to do ALL Ninja sims along with thousands of MCQ's and a full review course. That would take me at least 2 months. If you're not working, I guess it would be different, so lucky you to those people who don't have that added responsibility. For me, I am working and try to limit myself to 6-8 weeks to study which is plenty for most people. I just want to be done with this misery so I'll sacrifice a month of studying if I feel like I can still muster up a passing score.

[Anonymous]

Can anyone tell me a list of topics that would be useful to try and find study sims for? I have Ninja and Wiley so I am sure I can match them

[BoyNextDoor]

@skolvikes

This is the go to thread on Another71 for studying FAR SIMS based on the AICPA blueprints.

https://www.another71.com/cpa-exam-forum/topic/potential-far-simulation-topics-straight-from-the-aicpa/

I wonder if there is a similar one for REG?

[Author]

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