BEC exam experience today

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    Topic
  • #190133
    krokofilen
    Member

    Good afternoon everyone

    I started so many new forum threads last couple of days that I thought I might as well start a new one to “tie it all together”.

    So after my long Atlantic flight and taking REG aka “the beast” last Friday, I started my BEC preparations the very same night, eating a takeaway pizza in a hotel lobby in New York over a Becker book on a Friday night… sweet life. I did not adjust to US time zone, so went to bed at 7 pm and up again at 3 am (9 am “my time”). I did my first set of BEC MCQs literally 48 hours before the exam. I managed to cram 2+12+13+3=30 study hours Friday night – Monday morning, and sat for the exam this morning at 8:30. It was a tough cram session I can tell you, and I wouldn’t do it again. My head was spinning and I honestly did not feel well at all at the point of stopping each night at 5:30 pm (11:30 pm “my time”), just to get up again at 3 am. Bud I did it! And I feel a lot better now at the airport with an expensive glass red wine, all though I wonder how 3 days could just disappear like that.

    BEC was a lot easier than I expected. Testlets were E-M-H. I flagged 3 questions in the first testlet, which is less than for any of the other exams I have taken. It was theory focused and just a few, simple calcs – odd tough it took me 30 minutes to complete, which was probably a few minutes too much. Second testlet had longer questions, and more calcs – took me a good 40 minutes. Third session had a great deal of “odd” topics thrown in, and I flagged like 10 of them. Took me way too long to get though 3rd testlet – something like 45 minutes. They kept coming back (with 2 questions) on one topic that I missed in the first session – a calc that I had not studied for one second, so I literally guessed the answer. That’s frustrating, since it probably cost me 3 questions all together = non-weighted 3.5% of the full exam. There were also a ton of other weird theory and calcs in there that I had not seen, but think I managed pretty well with thanks to some old college studies 10 years ago that came back to life (I knew I would get to use it one day!).

    The writing sims were on 3 topics that I knew pretty well, however with 60 min left I was running out of time half-way through the second one and really had to speed up. Ended up writing very short memos, no telling if it will be sufficient for a score about 75% but at least it will not count as 0. What I wrote was OK, since I knew the topics OK (not 100%, but OK). For a non-native English speaker, I would recommend allocating 75 minutes or so for the writing.

    So – all together – I walked out of this exam feeling pretty good. Better than both FAR and REG. I know I missed a few questions, and probably got a few calcs wrong too due to the rather stressful manner in which you tend to perform these, but surely I will get 75+. Just a little more time on this exam would have made a huge difference though.

    Big 4 Audit Manager from Europe here to pass the CPA in the U.S. of A in 2014! Niiice!

    AUD - 95 / Jul 15 / 130h over 4 weeks
    FAR - 86 / Aug 14 / 240h over 4 weeks
    (11 week break)

    REG - 81 / Nov 14 / 200h over 4 weeks
    BEC - 87 / Nov 17 / 30 h over 2.5 days

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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  • #627264
    tomq04
    Participant

    I've paid attention to your story, pretty intense.

    REG- (1) 76
    FAR- (2) 64, (5)74, (7)83 (Over achiever!)
    AUD- (3) 70, (4) 75
    BEC- (6) 75

    #627265
    krokofilen
    Member

    Insane if you ask me 🙂

    Big 4 Audit Manager from Europe here to pass the CPA in the U.S. of A in 2014! Niiice!

    AUD - 95 / Jul 15 / 130h over 4 weeks
    FAR - 86 / Aug 14 / 240h over 4 weeks
    (11 week break)

    REG - 81 / Nov 14 / 200h over 4 weeks
    BEC - 87 / Nov 17 / 30 h over 2.5 days

    #627266
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I'm glad to hear it went well for you. I'll be watching the score release and hoping you can say you are DONE with this exam forever! 🙂

    #627267
    Rocky123
    Member

    You rock! I love reading your posts. You are INSANE!!

    Good luck on score release. When do you find out?

    The tallest oak in the forest was once just a little nut that held its ground.

    AUD-PASS
    BEC-PASS
    REG-PASS
    FAR-PASS

    Rocky123, CPA

    #627268
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Thanks for the confidence boost! Im sure Ill kill BEC next week !

    #627269
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Shame on me!

    Well, it's about time. I should say “Yes” to drugs now. LOL

    #627270
    Gatorgirl1231
    Participant

    That is insane… Best of luck to you!

    Florida Candidate

    AUD: 77
    REG: 86
    FAR: TBD
    BEC: 79 (Expired)

    #627271
    Panda Love
    Member

    i've been following your posts and you seriously inspire me. I feel so dumb because i've been trying to do this for years and here you come in a window knock all of them out… keep inspiring us. Have a safe trip back to your country and hope to hear the good news.

    #627272
    Panda Love
    Member

    i've been following your posts and you seriously inspire me. I feel so dumb because i've been trying to do this for years and here you come in a window knock all of them out… keep inspiring us. Have a safe trip back to your country and hope to hear the good news.

    #627273
    krokofilen
    Member

    Passed with 87! Wohooo!

    Big 4 Audit Manager from Europe here to pass the CPA in the U.S. of A in 2014! Niiice!

    AUD - 95 / Jul 15 / 130h over 4 weeks
    FAR - 86 / Aug 14 / 240h over 4 weeks
    (11 week break)

    REG - 81 / Nov 14 / 200h over 4 weeks
    BEC - 87 / Nov 17 / 30 h over 2.5 days

    #627274
    rpull004
    Member

    @krokofilen congrats on becoming a CPA. Can you please provide some advice oh how to structure the BEC WC's? I feel like I do good on the, but keep getting less comparable. My structure is typically:

    Dear xxxxx,

    Paragraph 1. Paragraph 1. Paragraph 1.

    Paragraph 2. Paragraph 2. Paragraph 2.

    Paragraph 3. Paragraph 3. Paragraph 3.

    Best regards,

    John Dough

    I typically repeat the question as my first line of my intro paragraph but not word for word, try to stay on topic by using buzz words and properly responding to what they ask for, and use some of the terms they use in the question throughout my memo.

    #627275
    rpull004
    Member

    My approach does not seem to be working. Hope you can provide some input!!!

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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