CPASilv
offlineMember
Hi Guys,
I have about 3 1/2 weeks until AUD and I am NERVOUS!! I am about half way with learning the material and plan to finish up in a week and review for about two weeks, take the final review... any advice about how you passed the first time using CPAexcel? How similar was the test compared to the questions on CPAexcel?
Also, I am terrified of Sims! My weakness is Journal Entries so... maybe advice on how to improve on that??
Thanks.
Silvia
kandisjoy
offlineMember
Hi Silvia
I used CPAexcel to pass AUD, REG and BEC. I know that CPAexcel has improved it's study program recently and I haven't explored those changes. Back when I used it, I would leave an extra week at the end of my study plan to take CPAexcel practice exams and review anything I was scoring weak in. I believe with the changes they have incorporated time to take the final exam (more than one day like they did when I used it), so you may not need to make the same adjustment to your schedule that I did.
That being said, I spent about a week at the end of my review doing the following:
1) Take a practice exam
2) Look over the answers to ALL of the questions. If I read an answer and either a) got the question wrong or b) got the question right for the wrong reason, I would write the explanation down. If I still didn't understand it, I would do some research and review.
If I was consistently scoring low in one subject, I would spend an hour or so reviewing that topic. The topics are broken down so nicely into little bits in CPAexcel that it's easy to find what you need.
I think that this final review method probably gained me at least 5-7 points on my REG and BEC exams. I hadn't discovered it yet when I took AUD.
As for the CPAexcel questions vs the actual exam, I felt that CPAexcel's questions definitely prepared me for my exams. I saw some of the same, or very similar questions on my exams. And I always scored either comparable, or most often stronger on my multiple questions.
For AUD, CPAexcel's sim practice questions were actually pretty amazing, and I DID get some that were similar to them. However the thing that got me to really start kicking ass on my sims was that I started using the research tab for EVERY sim that I wasn't 100% sure of my answer on. I have a tendency to score lower on sims, so I saved up extra time (beyond the recommended about by about 15-30 minutes) so that I could spend more time researching on my sims. Plus I knew that I was pretty quick at answering multiple choice.
For journal entries, I recommend that you don't try to memorize any specifically... Just try to understand the reasoning behind why certain JEs are made. Go through the JEs logically and slowly in your mind until you fully grasp what is happening. T accounts might help.
As far as just a general study tip, I also made a ton of note cards throughout the entire study process, which really helped me.
If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I'll try to check this forum often enough to catch your response. :)
CPASilv
offlineMember
Thank you so much Kandis.. your post gave me some encouragement :)
I'm off of the schedule by two days...which isn't a lot but it makes me feel like I need to learn more material than I can handle. I'm a pretty slow learner and usually, I need to absorb the material over time so at this point, I'm only worried about forgetting certain things that I have learned. I still have about less than 3 weeks, and my plan is to learn the rest of the material this next week and like you said, spend a week and a few days reviewing/doing a ton of multiple choice questions.
For some of the CPAexcel bite size lessons, they are very summarized even for their MCQ (which sometimes you often have to refer to the SASs)... do you think that the information/knowledge obtained from the MCQ is sufficient enough? Did you look over the professional guidance a lot? Thanks so much again :)
Silvia
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