[Nikki374]

Hi all, if you have already passed BEC, how many hours did you study? I am taking REG next week (1/27) and I am scheduled to take BEC on 3/10. I want to make sure that I budget my time right but I am nervous because of all the IT questions that will be on there. BEC is my last section and I want to make sure that I am fully prepared for the test! Thanks in advance!

[tygolfer]

I would say in the 70-80 hour range. I didn't exactly keep a detailed log, but I studied over the course of about 6 weeks. I also took BEC before the the SIMS were introduced. I would not take it lightly, but BEC seemed like the least amount of material of the 4. Good luck!

[Nikki374]

@tygolfer – thanks for the input!

[leah]

75 hours. Got a 90. Used book + flash cards + Mastery CPA BEC app. I was nervous after I took it, because it seemed to center so much on technology, but in the end I did fine. I have a strong writing background, so I did not prep for the memos at all. If you are weak on writing, it is worth practicing for that. Writing under the stress of the time limit is difficult!

[Light]

4 weeks and 5-6 hours daily. Keep few days for revision.

[Nikki374]

@leah @Light@End

Thanks you! This is encouraging. I will have to make very good use of my weekends but this is doable. I will definitely need to practice my writing skills because of the time limit.

[letsrun4it]

It is not writing skills you need to do well on the memos. You just need to know the material. Drop all the buzzwords. It's easy.

BEC was my first exam, I did 2500 practice MCQ and then took the exam. I didn't do anything but MCQ. Not sure how many hours that took, I just did 250 questions a day for 10 days. I wasn't working.

I think it's similar to audit in terms of overall material volume but many CPA candidates have seen much of the BEC material before in some capacity.

BEC: 85
REG: 74, 78
AUD: 86
FAR: October?

[turo9992000]

2 weeks about 5 hours per day. No Sundays.

[TommyTheCat]

cant recall the exact hours as i didnt keep that tight of a schedule but I would approximate about 2 hours every other night during the work week and about 4 – 6 hours on weekends for 6 weeks. Probably in the 60 – 75 hour range.

I have an econ / accounting hybrid degree so the macro/micro-economics concepts and the cost accounting stuff came relatively easy to me. The IT shit on the exam was seemingly out of nowhere like lots of folks here have said. From my score I imagine a good amount of those IT questions were my pretests

[Nikki374]

Thanks everyone! I think I am going to take some days off work and knock it out!

[Anonymous]

I studied over the course of 5 weeks with about 160 hours, but this was over the holiday break so I had plenty of time to study all day between Christmas and New Year's.

[Tim]

I studied about 90 hours over 3 months. I took it but I don't know my score yet. I'm pretty sure I passed, though.

[Josh]

I passed BEC twice already, once with Gleim in a month and the next time with Becker in 5 weeks at 20-30 hours a week, so probably close to 90 hours as well.

[Nikki374]

Thank you everyone! This is helpful!

[CPAfit]

1.5 – 2 months studying 4 – 6 hours during the weekdays and 8 hours on the weekend. I used to take one day off completely to avoid burnout. Keep in mind I was also working full time during this period, so my pace was rather slower than an ideal candidate who would be studying full time.

[aaronmo]

I hated BEC…of all the CPA exams, it was by far my least favorite. I took it without SIMs to fall back on, and I'm better at sims than I am MCQ, generally. I'm not good at memorization without context/strategy.

I also didn't have the “other” business classes, or econ, that so much of the BEC non-sense was based in. Cost accounting was OK…I found that of all the areas, Becker was weakest on Cost and variance though. I remember it being easier in college…Becker made it worse somehow. But it was at least accounting and a “real” thing to learn. Maybe it's in my head…but I just don't remember variance being that bad in class…and somehow Becker taught it in a way that was constipated. I remember there being grids we used in class that made it easy, and that's not how Becker did it.

The thing that annoyed me were “coso” and the IT subjects…mostly because they were made up non-sense with artificial standards and definitions. It's not “real” in the sense that accounting is real, and I HATE studying/learning things I think are BS. And a lot of BEC was BS. It was also the last one I took, and I was burned out by that point. I was unwilling to study as hard as I did for FAR…and when I took the exam, I was irritated with it. It was the only exam I took where time actually became a factor. At some point I just decided “screw it” in regards to the COSO memorization…and, of course, I got a COSO enema on the exam.

I – think – I probably studied about 120 hours? I found BEC very time consuming and memorization heavy…which is not my strength and takes me a long time.

[Author]

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