Hopefully the CPA exam will soon be behind me! I sat for BEC on Monday. As usual, I really didn’t feel that good about it, but I’ll just have to wait and see.

Here are my practice question results for BEC:

I felt pretty comfortable with most of the practice questions by the time I went to take the exam. I think the most frustrating part is that even if you have all of the practice questions DOWN, they come up with new things to fling at you on the test itself. Plus, there are only 90 questions on the test – there are so many questions I could have answered easily but they weren’t asked!

Does anyone have any insights on BEC? Did it seem more difficult than you expected? It did for me…

I finally got the notice of my REG score! I passed! I guess that just goes to show that it’s true what they say about how you can feel like you’ve failed when you did just fine.

On the other hand, the online score checking option definitely didn’t work for me. I don’t know why, or if I should contact anyone, or if it’ll work for the next two sections because I scheduled those with a different NTS. Mysterious.

Anyway, good luck for anyone studying for the CPA exam now, or waiting for your scores! If you put in the study hours, and study the right material (which Roger is great at pulling out for you) you’ll do great!

Also, a photo of my dog in a RogerCPA shirt: (it’s a little small for me, and it’s a good color on her no?)

So, my non-accounting-related life has been pretty fun and interesting lately. I think I am finally ready to sit down and begin studying for the CPA Exam. Or at least, begin to figure out where to begin studying.

Study Stratgy

I have been reading the intro chapters to my old (free) books for now. I realized when I took GMAT that reading everything the study books have to say is important. For example, this one pointed out that it is better to spend a higher percentage of time on practice questions in a simulated exam situation than on the actual studying. This is something I had learned when I took GMAT but had forgotten.

So, my very loose plan at this point is to set a study schedule that involves a few weeks of studying all of the material, and then more weeks of doing practice questions, taking practice tests, and practicing using the software that I’ll need to be familiar with for the exam.

Which parts to take first?

I am still waiting to hear back about being able to sign up for the exam. I think I applied to sign up for the  Financial Accounting and Reporting (4 hours) section and the Regulation (3 hours) sections first.

I did change my mind a lot at the last minute, and then I went on vacation to Italy, so my memory is a little fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure I stuck with those.

I decided to take FAR first, even though it is what we covered the most of in classes, because it just seems like the sheer volume of information will make it my biggest challenge. I do much better on tests where logic can be applied, rather than just memorized facts.

I decided to take Regulation second because… well… it involves taxes. And my weak spot of hating to memorize pops up there again.

I know Auditing and Attestation (4.5 hours) will require the most studying, judging by the length of the exam, but audit class just made a lot more sense to me than financial accounting or tax classes did, so I’m hoping that feeling will carry over into the CPA exam.

So, for now, I’m familiarizing myself with the test in general, then I’ll set up a more detailed schedule to study for FAR. Hopefully I’ll be able to sign up soon so I’ll know what my timeline is going to look like!