[ppierce]

Showed up to Prometric 3.5 hours before exam in hopes of taking it early. They had room and accomodated. Thanks testing center people.

Anyway, exam was basically what i expected. I screwed up a couple of MCQ that i 100% knew. Thats the worst when you check your Wiley book after the test and you knew the question but still screwed it up. Now i play the what if game for 3 weeks.

Sims were fine. Best piece of advice would be to study the material and MCQ and forget practicing Sims. That doesn’t help you at all. If you know the material, you’ll know the Sims. The only time i looked at a sim in my prep was the last couple of days when i could not bare doing any MCQ anymore.

Approx how many questions are not counted? And are those questions easy to figure out?

FAR 80
REG 76
AUD 85
BEC 85
Ethics 98
DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[See Pee A]

I couldn't agree more. Sims are a total waste of time in practice, unless you just have an abundance of time and want to play with them. I haven't touched more than 3-4 sims in my entire CPA journey and my success has been there, so it definitely pays to focus on the material and hope you can apply it to the sims.

They don't release information on the pretest questions, unfortunately. Sometimes you get a question that is just nuts, or is very awkward. You can assume it is either pretest, or just a difficult question. In either case, it seems pointless to try and judge anything while you're taking the exam. We don't know what happens in the Nasba/Prometric black box once we exit the exam and it spits out a score, so might as well just pray to the accounting gods afterwards.

BEC 86 (08/30/11)
FAR 84 (10/13/11)
REG 88 (11/08/11)
AUD 86 (11/29/11)

Exam prep - Becker self-study

[RedRage00]

ppierce,

I noticed you closed your FAR exam by accident. I took REG on Sunday and I hate that the calculator is right next to the EXIT button. I almost accidently pressed the EXIT button a couple of times. I'm glad I didn't because I don't know or want to find out what would happen LOL

Anyway, I felt the same way about my REG exam on Sunday. I'm hoping to nail that 75!

Texas CPA
Licensed, March 2012

[HumanPiranha]

The only thing about preparing for sims is that you probably should practice a few just to get the hang of what the nature of the simulations will be. I didn't do all the simulations available on becker for FAR, but i played with them enough to know what kind of format they are presenting.

i do think its important to get the hang of the research question though. Those should be easy points, and there is no excuse to spend too much time playing with the search box.

[ppierce]

HumanPiranha,

Problem with that is you won't get the hang of the SIMS b/c the Sim you practice, you will never ever see. The only thing SIM practice is good for, is seeing the material in a diff't light, when you have exhausted all MCQ options. Like for instance, i practiced a Sim for Individual Taxation on what and where things are deductible and included in Income. I didn't practice it in hopes of seeing that Sim again. I practiced it to renforce what i already knew.

FAR 80
REG 76
AUD 85
BEC 85
Ethics 98
DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[RedRage00]

The SIM software is terrible for Wiley, and every other program according to other posters who use Becker.

For my first exam (FAR) I played with the SIMS a little just to get a feel for them because it was my first exam. I wasted more time fighting the SIMS than learning the material because the Wiley Software is buggy….you have to have the answers entered in EXACTLY the way they want it or it counts it wrong. It was annoying as hell so I took Jeff's advice and just focused on the MCQs to learn the material. I did the same thing for REG. I only played with a couple of them like the day before my exam.

I know for sure I nailed the research question on my exam. I found it in like 2 minutes! I feel confident on that one.

Texas CPA
Licensed, March 2012

[katyuser]

ppierce,

In REG, 12 MCQs and 1 sim are pre-test. Which ones – no way to figure out.

[Anonymous]

Totally agree on the Research Sim comment. Those should be free points if you just know how to use the search function properly.

I took REG as well in this window. It was a tough test, but fair. Nothing was out of left field or totally unexpected. Still waiting for my score from CA. Hopefully I'll have it in the morning!

[HumanPiranha]

@ppierce,

I don't disagree with you. But just because you practice, for example, a sim where you have to prepare a statement of cash flow does not mean you won't have a sim where you prepare an income statement for a non profit, or some other financial statement for a government or whatever. you won't get the idea of what the content will be, but by practicing the simulations, you get a fair idea of what you will have to do.

[Anonymous]

@ppierce. I disagree slightly. I felt that practicing the sims with the Gliem online wizard was very helpful. They give you a set of 6 sims for each major category which cover all of the key calculations AND they have some multiple-choice-ish questions. I found it very helpful.

Maybe you may not spend a lot of time on the sims if you only have 1 week left, but I found the Gleim sims broad enough to be as helpful as the Wiley multiple choice – ESPECIALLY for those of us that need to practice doing actual problems in order to learn them.

Oh- and it was HUGELY helpful for the gains/loss/basis questions which I struggled with.

[NySinghCPA1985]

can anyone advice on research tab simulation? i have trouble finding the exact IRC everytime. is there more to just selecting from the choices you get after you input the keyword?

FAR 1/30/14 86 beast is slayed
REG 5/30/12 81 expired :/ Retake April or May 2014
AUD 5/24/13 85
BEC 10/07/13 80

[NySinghCPA1985]

can anyone advice on research tab simulation? i have trouble finding the exact IRC every-time. is there more to just selecting from the choices you get after you input the keyword?

FAR 1/30/14 86 beast is slayed
REG 5/30/12 81 expired :/ Retake April or May 2014
AUD 5/24/13 85
BEC 10/07/13 80

[Author]

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