3 down 1 to go. How hard is BEC?

I agree with rani. It's not as overwhelming as the other sections and a lot of people underestimate BEC. There are more random topics with less cohesion. Also IT to your study list. There are a lot of formulas, which are hard for some people. There are a lot of concepts/definitions as well. If you approach it without the “it's easy” concept in your head and don't underestimate it you should do fine.

Okay – so, from one test taker to another.. BEC material study is fairly easy. Becker is annoying at first especially B2 and B3 but take your time and get through it. It takes a while for everything to stick, but take notes and get through all the material first.. the second time is easy peasy.. I went through it 3 times until I started scoring 85%+ on all sections… Never once looked at a SIM; however, I looked at the beginning of Becker's material and reviewed their recommendations on how to perform and write them out.

The exam.. it really only depends on which exam you get (I cant stress this enough). I kid you not, and many people have seen me write this, I wholeheartedly thought I failed. I marked 25 questions on the exam as a straight up, IDK, and I didnt have much time to go back and reread my SIMs for grammatical errors and had literally only 30s to finish. I am CONVINCED they only graded me on the first section of the exam… I finished that within 20 minutes and thought it was VERY easy, second and third sections were hard and then medium. I ended up scoring an 85 and I have absolutely no idea how (not complaining).

Best bet is to just master your study material and plow your way through the exam and continue to strive for success. It really depends on which “type” of exam you get. Hopefully an easy one so you dont have to deal with 2-3 weeks of doubting yourself like I did. Best of luck and please let me know if you have any questions. 🙂

I thought BEC was worse than REG. I just really hated BEC. I don't understand how people think it's the easiest.

“Easy” is a relative concept.

If you work in a tax practice, Reg is likely on the “easier” side. I had audit experience and found audit to be no big deal. Reg was a foreign language to me and took a minute to understand things like Capital Assets mean different things than FAR.

If you understand economics, already know formulas for ratio analysis, understand cost accounting and have some working IT knowledge, BEC might be no big deal. If you know none of those thing, you've got some work to do.

I brought study materials for 2014, can I still use those materials if I take the test January 2015? I doubt the exam changes that drastically

study the math problems…. seriously focus on that because in my experience, if you knock the first testlet out of the park, you're going to get a bunch of difficult math problems on the next testlet. be prepared for them.

I just took BEC last week and let me tell you, it is not to be underestimated. The first three chapters of Becker are the toughest and in my opinion, the most important to know very well.