This isn’t going to be the case for BEC, which I take in less than two weeks. I am on the last two modules of that section and I have learned so much! I previously took the Becker coursework and I came out of an all day class not knowing what they even talked about. Then I spent a whole day watching Cindy’s lectures and I’m excited because I learned a lot.

My game plan for the next two weeks is pretty simple. I plan on finishing up the modules in a few days, then spend the remaining week and a half reviewing the text and doing practice problems. I also plan on working on memorizing all of the formulas. Well, I better get prepared for some busy weeks.

Since there are no exams in June, I will probably end up taking FAR in the beginning of July, but I’m dreading it a bit because that means a full two and a half months of studying. I’m worried by the end, I may be shaky on what I learned from the beginning. But more time for MCQs may make or break me. So hopefully I won’t be too worn out to get as many of those in as I can.

This past week I’ve been studying FAR’s module 9 as well as dealing with Wiley technical support to try and get the test bank CD to work on my 2008 Macbook. If you think it’s hard getting in touch with the IRS during tax season, Wiley’s wait told me between an hour and fourteen minutes and an hour and thirty-two! That’s insane!! Although, once you get someone, the follow ups are extremely prompt. In case you were wondering, the software does not work with my version of Mac’s OS and I will probably find myself at an Apple store on Sunday upgrading.

Anyway, May is going to be a big month. I hope to receive my AUD score this coming Friday (It seems that they start posting scores a business day before the expected score release date. The expected release date this time is Monday, May 7th, so some test takers will potentially start receiving their scores the preceding Friday, May 4th. Fingers crossed!), which is a relief because I’m tired of waiting for it lol… I’m not as anxious about this one as I was about FAR, but with the possibility of failure always hanging over my head, I still want to find out once and for all how it went. All I ask for is a 75… I just want to pass… pleeeeeeeaaasssseeee??

Additionally, BEC is scheduled for Monday, May 14th, and it’s coming up in a hurry. I have two solid weeks left to study, which means I took my first full length practice test today, but I bet you could’ve guessed that by now.

So far, BEC has been a mixed basket. The economics material is interesting to me so I find that to be relatively “fun” (if that word is even legal to use in reference to this exam) compared to the other material, but I’m finding that a LOT of the formulas used in the other sections seem totally foreign to me, so questions using those formulas are surprisingly challenging for me. I’ve been taking a ton of notes and trying to absorb as much as I can, but I know I still have a long ways to go, especially after taking this full length practice exam today…

The practice exam didn’t quite go as well as I’d hoped. I must preface my score by stating that the Wiley software does not grade your memos, you have to self-evaluate and enter in your own score to be used in calculating your final score. In order to be fair, I gave myself 3.75/5 points on each memo, which comes out to a 75. I don’t know the intricacies of the essay scoring on the exam, so I felt this would be the most fair way to go about it. Is it true that your answer can be totally and blatantly wrong? Does essay/memo scoring take place solely on the basis of grammar, spelling, and content relevancy?

The score it spat out was a 74. BOO! The detailed breakdown links will follow. I think this wasn’t very surprising to me considering how difficult I found many of the MCQs to be. I was alright on time, spending an average of 71 seconds on each MCQ, but I was definitely shocked at how many computational questions there were and how clueless I was on some of the other questions. I already reviewed every textbook MCQ on the BEC handout, but there were still several (>5) questions that asked about a topic I’ve never heard of.

BEC Practice Exam 1 Detail: http://oi47.tinypic.com/ctiti.jpg
BEC Practice Exam 1 Chart: http://oi47.tinypic.com/10mlev8.jpg

In order to strategize for the memos, I plan to read over several of the examples in the textbook just to get a feel for the length and structure that the Wiley folks tend to use. I consider myself to have fairly decent writing skills (when I’m trying to write professionally anyway), so I’m not particularly concerned about grammar or spelling as much as I’m concerned about recommended structure and other issues I mentioned earlier (whether your answer can be totally wrong, how relevancy is determined, etc). I know I need to become a LOT more familiar with the formulas and applications of said formulas, because I’m sure the calculations were a weak point of mine. I’m going to spend this week reviewing the CRAM and practicing questions from the online testbank and taking notes on those testbank questions.

My score on this practice exam was definitely something of a wakeup call, but as I mentioned, it wasn’t as jarring as it could have been since I already knew I was going to have problems with a lot of the computational and formula-required questions. I just hope these next 2 weeks will be enough time to get familiar enough with everything in order to pass the exam. I’ll probably do another practice exam next weekend for progress, and hopefully that will provide good news. Also expect an update in my AUD thread sometime next weekend (maybe Monday, I’m not sure… whenever I get my score I’ll be sure to post it haha).

Any tips for the BEC memos or for how to approach the huge list of formulas needed would be greatly appreciated. I did well in my undergraduate econ and cost accounting classes, but I’m not nearly as fresh with those concepts as I am with financial accounting and auditing concepts, which must be why this section seems more challenging to me than FAR and AUD did.

Thank you for reading, and please cross your fingers for me for my AUD score!!
Dave

FAR: 91 (2/27)
AUD: 4/9
BEC: 5/14
REG: 7/9

Well.the good news is that I was able to settle-in, and break-down Phil’s lecture into a minute-by-minute segments. With the break-down I have taken detail notes and transformed the summaries as well as the highlighting the main points to a set of flash cards. I’ve finally got this thing nailed down and am now feeling comfortable to move forward. Unfortunately, the extra time spend will likely push my exam date back by an additional week. To this extend, I am SOOO glad I read my fellow blogger Gaudy’s advice and not schedule my exam date far in advance w/ Prometrics. I think the take away for anyone preparing to take on the CPA exam challenge is to be flexible on your schedule. Things happens and you never know when you might hit a soft patch of your own.

Gotta get back to study… I got some catching up to do!! Will report back after Mod 20(s)

Cheers!!

Bee

For once, I feel like I have 2 of the most important parts down for studying for these exams – plenty of time to study, and a mental freshness. I always felt like I crammed too much going into every exam I have taken. I really didn’t space my studying out over 6-8 (or more) weeks. In between sections, I had about a day or two off. By the third and fourth consecutive sections of studying, I was mentally drained.

Not this time. I took a little time off to just completely forget CPA material and didn’t pick up my Wiley textbook. I wanted my mind fresh for this next run. I have also come up with a plan of attack. As I wait for the likely FAR failing score to be released in the beginning of May, I have begun studying Audit again. This is because I cannot sit for FAR again until July 1, even though that is the most recent material I covered. However, I can take Audit at the end of May – still 6 full weeks away – if I’m ready. If not, I can take AUD at the beginning of July and then either REG or Audit later in August. I haven’t determined the exact schedule, but I’m back to 100% on AUD right now.

I could just get my NTS right now for AUD and wait to get the ones for REG and FAR later, or wait until after my FAR score and get all 3 at once (saves a little bit of money). I’ll probably make that decision in the next week or two.

I also looked back over my notes a couple days ago for my most recent sections – I think I went too detailed. I paused a lot so I could write, but in doing so, I didn’t get through a lot of the material. Since I already have a foundation of notes, it should make getting through the material easier. Hopefully this will free up more time to hammer home multiple choice questions and SIMS, which were again areas I did not have a chance to work a ton the last time through.

It might be easy to think, “Oh man, I didn’t pass again” and get discouraged. I’m actually not though. I didn’t feel overly or even adequately prepared for almost any section I sat for due to time constraints and other life events interfering. I’ve really just thrown those passing scores out the window. I’m confident with more time and limiting myself from getting overwhelmed that I’ve got a much better shot this time around, and there’s probably only 3 to knock out instead of 4. I should have a more official “schedule” the next time I check in, until then keep on plugging away.

So I went on a much needed rejuvenating “break” (we’ll call it a “break” because what is tax season really?), and now I am actually excited to start again. I KNOW I’m going to do it this time around. About a month ago, I posted in a LinkedIn group (CPA Exam Study Group) what CPA courses people recommend. I got a lot of responses and decided to take the top two and check ‘em out. Yaeger stuck out to me most because from what I read, the response time to questions was quicker than the rest. I think that is key. A lot of times we self study and think we understand something, or we’ll attempt to make sense of something, but we do so incorrectly without asking questions. I’ve learned not to be afraid to ask questions – ironically something my mom tried to instill in me when I was younger. Hopefully that will be the key to this go-around.

Other than that, I have been studying pretty steadily this week. I have went through a couple of modules and everything seems to be clicking. I am anxiously awaiting the score of my FAR exam and I received good news this week. I received a promotion to a team lead at work. The downside of that is the project went from 19 months to 9 months, so it is going to be a crazy remainder of the year. I am excited about the opportunity, but it is also overwhelming. I am giong to try to not let it intimidate me though. I know I can be successful if I just put enough effort into it. Well, that’s it for this week.. I have studying to do!

I decided to study for the BEC exam next. I have my exam scheduled for May 19, which gave me 6 weeks to study. I started studying the night of my FAR exam and have been going pretty strong so far. I have been studying at night when my daughter falls asleep, but I have divided up my studying a little bit. Last night, I reviewed a module and this morning I work up at 3:00 am to listen to the next module. I know this is a time where some people are just going to sleep, but I wake up at 4:00 for work, so it is really only an hour earlier. I have been reviewing questions during my thirty minute lunch at work also. So, adding all of this time up is about 2.5 hours per day. I try to study more on the weekends if time allows. My plan this section is to complete all of the modules within four weeks and then spend time the last two weeks reviewing questions. Needless to say.. it’s been a busy week!

Okay.. enough of that touchy feeling stuff and here is my current progress rant….

I feel like I kicked butt in the last couple weeks. I completed module 14 through 17; namely Deferred Taxes, Shareholder’s Equity and Statement of Cash Flow. Most of these modules are comprised of “2 for 1 deals” for lectures. Whereby both Phil and Cindy tag team ala WWF style on the lectures. It is a refreshing and unique format where Phil lectures on the new materials and Cindy wraps the new material to tie-in with the previously discussed subjects/lectures by her. Nice touch team Yeager!!

Lastly, a shout-out to my fellow blogger Melissa. Good luck on your FARE exam and we are pulling for your and looking forward to your exam after-thoughts.

That is all for this time… stay tuned… same bat time… same bat channel..

Bee

If I can study the way I work, I would be done with this exam! I’ve been working 7 days a week and have not had a break! We will be filing extensions soon so it should be slowing down.

I am not trying to slow down on my studying though. I finally finished module 23 this weekend and started module 24 this morning. I finally woke up at 6:30AM and studied for an hour. I’m excited to finish this module today! I had originally planned to sit for REG this weekend, but I am one week behind plus my two week review. I should be sitting for it in three weeks (Saturday 4/28/12).

I haven’t applied for the exam yet, I will after this weekend (as some of you may know, I do not like to schedule my exam until I’ve gone through my studying plan due to prior experience). My goal for the next few days is the following:

1) Finish M. 24 today
2) Start and Finish M.25 the next day
3) Saturday: M26 & M27 & M28
4) Sunday: M29 & M30
5) Monday: M31 (30 minute lecture) & M32
6) Tuesday: M33 & M34

My two week review (10 days) will start 4/18/12 (Tuesday) and end 4/27/12 (Friday). The material should stay fresh in my head for the next day….YIKES!!!

Every day is one step closer to our dreams, keep walking!