[Anonymous]

Hi guys. I am using Becker and currently on F4. When I read the chapters, I feel like I get it because it doesnt seem hard. However, when I start doing the hw mcq, I get completely lost because I feel the book doesnt prepare you well for the hw. I am getting 50-60% on the hw mcq and I get really really really frustrated while doing the hw to the point that I just stop and get discouraged. This has happened for the chapters ive covered so far.

I recently passed my first two exams on the first try (AUD and BEC) so I was somewhat confident before I started studying for FAR. But after finishing up F1-F4, I am starting to get frustrated and I cant even imagine how much harder the chapters are going to get.

Can you guys please tell me if this is normal? What advice do you have going forward to help retain all of the important information? I am thinking of buying FAR NINJA Notes, will those help? Any tips will be much appreciated, thanks!

[kdawg88]

If you're having problems with answering MCQ's I recommend using NINJA MCQ, it is so far the best way to review ALL FAR topics and it keeps track of what you don't know. If you buy the ninja notes, you'll just be doing what you're doing now, reading and not facing any MCQ's. I would advise against that. Finish lectures for FAR and becker as soon as you can, and start doing NINJA MCQ's ASAP, as there is 1,400 of em. GL!

AUD - 78 (first attempt)
BEC - 79 (first attempt)
FAR - 72, 79 =)
REG - 71

[OnMyWay732]

I'm using Becker also. I'm in exactly the same boat as you. Makes me not want to do the sections that have 109 mcq because I know I won't know 50

AUD - July 2014 - 76
REG - August 2014 - 82
FAR - November 2014 - 78
BEC - January 2015 - 81

DONE!!!!

Used Becker online. Who needs a text when you can burn your eyes out staring at the screen for months on end?

"Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you're hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!"

[Anonymous]

Scoring around 60% is normal your first time through Becker. They throw in a ton of questions with wrinkles that in all reality will not be on the CPA exam. Just try to get through them all and get a good review in at the end.

[rshukla]

602Kid,

I only used Becker to study for all of my sections and I passed while working 45 to 50 hours every week. I won't bore you with too much detail, but I'll have to say having the Becker app on my iPad Mini gave me the freedom to discretely study anywhere, everywhere and anytime. Our scores in AUD and BEC are almost the same. I barely passed REG (less study time vs. other sections) and passed FAR with score in 80's in 08/2014 testing window. It has been less than a month, so I'm happy to share my $0.02:

1. You passed AUD and BEC within a month of each other with very good scores so trust me when I say that you are smart enough to pass FAR. That also leads me to believe that you have a lot of study time available and that is good because otherwise I would have worried about your FAR exam (scheduled for 10/22, ~30 days left, 6 chapters to go, plus time needed for review).

2. Yes, it is perfectly normal for you to make 50's or 60's the first time in some sections (I did too) with chapter 4 being no exception. Here's some free advice I can still recall from that chapter without even picking up the book:

– Capitalization of interest gets tricky when borrowings are NOT related to construction activities (weighted average method).

– If inventory is expected to be sold at a loss, use ‘lower of cost or market' method where Cost = Original Cost and Market = (middle value amongst) Net Realizable Value, Net Realizable Value – Normal Profit, Replacement Cost.

– Salvage value is considered in ALL methods except Double Declining Rate.

– No gain/loss is recognized when an asset is retired from a group of composite assets because we have no idea regarding the amount of accumulated depreciation for that one asset. They were all depreciated as a GROUP, remember?.

The real secret to passing FAR is to have failed enough times on Becker questions to start creating, understanding and recalling these little tricks that sum up an entire section into a few lines. For a serious student, which you clearly are, each failure at a question stings and leaves a mark in your memory. Instead of focusing on how many questions you answered incorrectly, focus on WHY you answered it incorrectly. Read and understand every answer explanation even if you got it right and especially if you got it wrong. Remember, it is much better to make a 50 the first time on Becker followed by a 60 and a 70 and an 80 versus making a failing grade on the actual exam. Failing in Becker and learning from your many failures is exactly why you will pass on the actual exam whereas many others, unfortunately, will not.

3. I found the test questions to be relatively easier versus Becker MCQ's but this is a matter of perception and is dictated by your level of preparedness. What appeared easy to me can appear confusing and difficult to another test candidate. You must study the material as best as you can before attempting MCQ's. Then fill in the gaps in your understanding using answer explanations.

4. Do NOT cram any topic! You MUST understand! It is impossible to cram FAR and pass the CPA exam. Pretend as if you're teaching a class – can you talk about ‘accounting changes and error corrections' or ‘criteria for segment reporting' or ‘accounting for non-monetary transactions' for ten minutes each to a group of your peers, break down each component and answer any follow up questions? If the answer is no, study more. You have to grasp the mechanics of a concept and then dumb it down to truly understand it and recall it instinctively. It sounds crazy, so after you have read the insanely complicated jargon in chapter 5 of Becker regarding sale-leaseback and feel a bit suicidal, see if my dumbed down version of that topic helps:

I own a car. I sold that car to my friend. I owed 10,000 on that car and my friend paid me 12,000. I have a gain of $2,000 on sale of my car. Next day my car dealer told me that my custom ordered car will take 3 months to arrive. Well, I need a car. I leased back the car I just sold to my friend and I am making monthly payments of $400 to him for 3 months ($1,200 total). Given the situation and assumption of an operating lease, how much of that $2,000 gain on sale of my car should I recognize?

– If the present value of lease payments is less than 10% of the $2,000 gain on sale, I recognize ALL of it.

– If the present value of lease payments is between 10% and 90% of the $2,000 gain on sale, I recognize the amount in EXCESS of the present value as gain.

– If the present value of lease payments is higher than 90% of the $2,000 gain on sale, I recognize NOTHING as gain on sale!

And you're done with that topic! Congratulations.

5. You'll have to overcome more difficult topics in the near future – leases, bonds, pension plans, deferred taxes, stockholders equity, earnings per share and, cash-flow to be followed by governmental (GASB) and not-for-profit accounting (FASB). The last two are particularly important – I have yet to meet a candidate who ignored governmental and not-for-profit accounting and still managed to pass FAR section of CPA exam.

I hope my rambling helps you out. Do not give up! Keep studying the material and keep doing MCQ's. Feel free to reach out if you think I can help. Good Luck!

AUD: 80's (Passed)
FAR: 80's (Passed)
BEC: 80's (Passed)
REG: 70's (Passed)

[Tootsie]

I feel like the Becker FAR book treats the reader as if they're an expert. I have to Google and YouTube concepts and terms, and I find it extremely helpful. I recommend looking things up to help you with the multiple choice questions. An intermediate accounting textbook is helpful too IMO.

FAR - 76
AUD - 88!!! DONE!!!!!!!!
BEC - 76
REG - 77

never, never, never give up

[Anonymous]

@rshukla you're awesome!! Thanks for taking the time to write that, it gave me a bit more confidence! Keep the advice coming guys, this is very helpful. Thanks

[puffnation2009]

In my opinion, i think its perfectly normal. Those MCQs are meant for you to practice and apply concepts you learned. the materials are somewhat board. by doing the MCQs, you can get an actual feel how they will be tested.

FAR - 84
BEC - 80
REG - 81
AUD - 85

[Guti]

So why do you retain 90% when you teach someone else or when you implement it immediately?

There’s a good reason why. When you implement or teach, you instantly make mistakes. Try it for yourself. (In this article for instance, after I’d read the information, I cited the loss rate as 95% instead of 90% to begin with. I had to go back and correct myself. Then I found three more errors, which I had to fix. These were factual errors that required copy and paste, but I still made the errors).

So as soon as you run into difficulty and start to make mistakes, you have to learn how to correct the mistake. This forces your brain to concentrate.

But surely your brain is concentrating in a lecture or while reading

Sure it is, but it’s not making any mistakes. What your brain hears or sees is simply an abstract concept. And no matter how clearly the steps are outlined, there is no way you’re going to retain the information. There are two reasons why.

Reason 1: Your brain gets stuck at the first obstacle.

Reason 2: Your brain needs to make the mistake first hand.

Reason 1: Your brain gets stuck at the first obstacle.

Yes it does. And the only way to understand this concept is to pick up a book, watch a video, or listen to audio. Any book, any video, any audio. And you’ll find you’ve missed out at least two or three concepts in just the first few minutes. It’s hard to believe at first, but as you keep reading the same chapter over and over, you’ll find you’re finding more and more that you’ve missed.

This is because the brain gets stuck at the first new concept/obstacle. It stops and tries to apply the concept but struggles to do so. But you continue to read the book, watch the video or listen to the speaker. The brain got stuck at the first point, but more points keep coming. And of course, without complete information, you have ‘incomplete information’.

Incomplete information can easily be fixed by making the mistake first hand.

Reason 2: Your brain needs to make the mistake first hand

No matter how good the explanation, you will not get it right the first time. You must make the mistake. And this is because your interpretation varies from the writer/speaker. You think you’ve heard or read what you’ve heard/read. But the reality is different. You’ve only interpreted what they’ve said, and more often than not, the interpretation is not quite correct. You can only find out how much off the mark you are by trying to implement or teach the concept.

FAR-84
AUD-
REG-
BEC-

[JamesBJames]

The Becker FAR questions can get stupid hard. I think everyone struggles with F2. F3's tricky if you don't remember much about the topic from college. I don't remember exactly what F4 was — maybe I thought that one was easy, actually, but I remember I hated F5, F6, and F7.

Just take it slow. If you get 60% on a HW section, whatever. Fix your mistakes, get a better understanding of the framework by going over your wrong answers, and try it again until you feel more comfortable with it. You don't have to have perfect comprehension – if you're like me, you're going to forget a lot of it anyway until you start your review – but I think it really helped me to know that, at one point in my studying, I felt OK with every single topic.

Basically, if you correct your weak areas periodically, the material will start to come together by the time you're done.

FAR: May 1st, 2014 - 91
AUD: May 29th, 2014 - 97!
BEC: July 16th, 2014 - 91
REG: August 29th, 2014 - 88

Licensed December 2015

Feel free to add me on LinkedIn by clicking my username!

[rbozung]

First of all, passing the CPA is not about being smart. It is about being dedicated, answering as many practice questions as possible, and when you get a questions wrong, taking the time to understand why (utilize google on this one and make sure that you click on an authoritiatve current source). I use to think the same way that you did (I got frustrated by how poorly I was doing on the questions). Having the right mind-frame has changed everything. Whenever you get an answer wrong, take a sigh of relief knowing that you got it wrong on the practice exam rather than on the actual exam. Also, look at it as an opportunity to learn and treat it like a game!

BEC - Passed
AUD - Passed
FAR - 10/28/14 (waiting results)
REG - Passed

[Anonymous]

my mind is numb as continue my FAR review

[Anonymous]

So I used CpaExcel and may not fully understand the Becker issue (firm didn't pay for it) but I feel like I'm pretty situated in my review. I think your best bet is to get through the Becker review course as quickly as possible and spend a significant amount of time of the wiley test bank mcqs. I've done about 4000 in the past month and swear know more now then when I did with the lessons.

[Anonymous]

Some good advice on here.

rshukla – very nice post, but I wanted to point out that regarding sales-leasebacks, the percentages are based on the fair value of the property, not the gain. For example, if you sold and leased a building and the PV of the lease payments = $9,000 and the fair value of the building is $100,000, then you would recognize the entire amount of any gain incurred since the PV of the lease pmts is less than 10% of the buildings fair value.

Now hopefully I remember this when it comes to exam day!

[rshukla]

Austin_109,

You are right, I should have said fair value instead of gain. It was close to midnight when I went off on that soapbox of mine and strictly using recollections from my study days.

I think you'll be just fine on the FAR exam. 91 on REG? Impressive!

Thanks!

AUD: 80's (Passed)
FAR: 80's (Passed)
BEC: 80's (Passed)
REG: 70's (Passed)

[Author]

Replies