[BECfuninthesun]

Hi Everyone,

I’m not one to ever post on a thread or create one – I mostly just read what others post and read from a distance here and there. I just got out of my 2nd attempt at the BEC and I feel that I owe it to Another71 and the community here to post about my experience.

I used Becker CPA on 1st try and added Ninja Audio, Ninja Notes and Becker Flashcards on 2nd try.

On October 25th, I began to study for BEC which I scheduled 6 weeks out, a day after Thanskgiving. I thought I had a solid study plan: see all the Becker lectures, do the questions and review. I found Becker to be extremely useful – the questions were much harder than the actual exam questions, however, there was far too much material for me to remember. One of my main problems was that I would rush through a lecture or not watch it at all, and instead I would read the chapters in the book and hastily gave a shot at the HW. My real problem was that I was not really learning the material and instead diving at the questions. In my Becker questions, I would regularly score in the mid-50s to 60s, thinking that I could simply re-do the questions and achieve a higher score, which I did. Little did I know that I was just memorizing the answers to questions and not actually learning the material

When I took the 1st exam, I felt extremely uneasy about the questions before me. It’s as if I remembered the problems but the actual idea behind them, I could not for the life of me use to solve the problems. Because of that I found myself guessing for a lot of questions and this lead to me feeling a huge lack of confidence as every testlet came through. I thought the written portion would be my strength since I can write well quickly but writing a lot about a given topic whether right or wrong, only scored me at most 15% of the exam right. On Dec 9th I saw my score; it was a 72. I was unhappy but not surprised – I had walked out of that exam feeling like shit and completely unsure. I had dedicated a lot of time and energy and this score did not fall in line with my plan of quickly moving on to the next exams. Now I would need to face the shame of telling my coworkers I failed and moreover letting my boss know that I didn’t pass. This mattered since they would eventually reimburse me for my failed attempt.

It’s January 20th, and I just walked out of my 2nd attempt. I can honestly say that I know I rocked that shit. I even took two bathroom breaks during testlets – and was always ahead on time. Here are the things I chose to do differently and how I felt about them:

1) I bought NINJA Audio and Notes:

I read a lot of positive reviews before purchasing either of these – mostly the review posted by Jeff next to DISCOUNT and buy pages. The Ninja Audio is simply Jeff reading the Notes, moreover it’s bad quality and the way he speaks is choppy and does not flow at times. THAT SAID, I listened to Jeff talk about every single BEC topic a million times over while driving to and fro work (I have a 45 minute commute). For the price of it, about $90, and Jeff’s constant voice in your head, it’s very worth it. When compared to Becker that can range as much as $4500 with final review then yes, Jeff’s $90 audio is worth. Taking on BEC can be daunting, and it’s necessary to make it a lifestyle leading up to the exam.

I never really rewrote the notes. I did about a chapter before studying Becker and doing more multiplechoice. However, I realized that if I wrote the Notes and then listened to his audio it actually worked well, since it was him reading his own notes. I guess I could write my own notes and create my own audio but having Jeff do it and provide initial guidance is very useful.

2) I used Becker Flashcards off Quizlet. I downloaded the app on my iphone and whenever i was at the gym running on a treadmill or laying at home on the couch, I would take these out and flip through them. They were free, since one can search for “BEC Lecture 1” and many different people’s cards pop up. I found the tool to be a useful way to retain much of the material one forgets while studying the other chapters.

3) Lastly, the main material that helped me was Becker. This time I saw all the lectures, re-read and studied the material and did the questions again and again. I got a bit lucky in that new questions were added due to the change in years from 2014 to 2015, so I got to work with new material instead of memorizing old answers. However, I made sure to understand the questions. Instead of doing them all, I would get the basic jist of a formula and then apply it in a few questions. Many Becker questions are way harder than the exam itself, but once the exam arrives it’s very worth it.

Exam #2: Redemption time.

I have never felt better leaving an exam in my life before, and while it may just be the 1st and “easiest” of them all, I do believe it was tough. Every question that flashed in front of me, I understood and though I may have guessed 2 or 3 times, I certainly did so after eliminating obviously wrong answer choices. The second I got there, I wrote a couple of quick formulas down – one only gets 10 minutes before the exam is cancelled, so I made sure to hurry. From there on, I went to every question very quickly. It’s hard to guess on these, you either got it or you don’t. If you’re spending longer than 3 minutes on a question, by trying to create a proof to see if you’re right or wrong or trying different attempts, then you probably didn’t quite know the material or remember well. It’s better to guess, flag and move on and if you have time, look back. But you’ll most likely be guessing even then.

Overall, I think Becker + Ninja Audio and Notes plus the Flashcards from Quizlet helped me immensely. I can’t wait for my results. This time I know I did well – cause I feel it.