[Anonymous]

So, I finally was face to face with the devil, “FAR”.

I felt prepared, and I got into the exam earlier that my assigned time.

The first testlet was easy and took me 20 minutes to move to the next testlet.

The second testlet was medium and it had a lot of NFP questions to the point that I started looking at subsequent question as if they were NFP related, but I realized that soon enough to actually pay attention. I was able to move on to the next testlet after about 30 minutes.

The third testlet was harder, but manageable because Becker literally covered every things that I saw on exam day. The hard part in this testlet wasn’t the concepts or the trickiness, but it was that it required a lot of calculations and table setting (bonds amortization or expense in subsequent years if payment was semi annual and so on). This testlet took me an hour.

Then come the sims 🙂

They were manageable, but you must know the JEs; if you don’t know them, you are in trouble. The research question was a piece of cake. The first look at sims made me panic a little because they looked so ugly and crammed language, but then I figured that most of the writing was directions and that sims are actually short. All of my sims were JE’s except for research sim and one other sim that dealt with FIFO vs. LIFO inventory (this was a hard one, computation wise).

Overall, please do not be fooled by what others say about the exam or the sims. A lot of people were saying that sims were from hell or that they’ve never seen these when they were studying. Well, that might be true because they didn’t STUDY them.

Oh, one more thing; there was a question that I honestly didn’t understand the vocabulary in it, and I wasn’t able to infer the meaning from the context, so this point might be gone. I should have paid more attention in English classes 🙂

I left the exam one hour earlier. I am neither happy nor disappointed. I do not know if I will pass or not. My score will be released on June 9. I will start REG next Tuesday!

Thanks

[Priscilla]

sounds like you did well…..

I have my exam this week and focusing on nfp and Gov…..

about your posting on aje's…. how can anyone possible memorize “each topic” of all 10 chapters aje's?? Ive had the hardest time memorizing the exact je… any suggestions based on what you saw exam day?

Thanks!

AUD - Done
REG - Done
BEC - Done
FAR - August 2015

[Anonymous]

FAR was my first test too. My experience was a lot like yours.

First two testlets were done in an hour. The third took me about 40 minutes. I spent an 1:20 on the sims and left with an hour to spare.

I didn't feel an overwhelming sense that I had done well, but I definitely hadn't been completely stumped by anything.

My research actually took me the longest, lol. I went to it first and spent about 10 minutes trying to find it. I decided not to waste anymore time than that and would go back to it if I had time. The rest of the sims were like yours, lots of JEs but nothing Becker hadn't prepared me for. When I went back to the research and reread the scenario, I picked up on keywords I hadn't before (I blame my nerves) and found it right away.

Ended up with an 82! Sounds like you did just fine.

[Anonymous]

@Priscilla , focusing on NFP & gov. will definitely pay off on exam day, especially the “PUT”, “RUN”, “NU CAR”, and conditional vs. restricted.

Regarding JEs, do not even attempt to memorize them! Becker set up the sims in a similar manner as the real exam (format wise & definitely not content wise), and those sims on Becker would give you drop down menus containing suggested entries, and from those suggestions you'll be able to recall any JE, and that is the case on the exam. All you have to do is understand them when you are studying. What I did is that every complex MCQ, I “would try to “write down the JE for it; of course I wasn't able to do all JEs for all MCQ because I'm only human and I don't have all the time in the world. That helped me A LOT with an MCQ related to percentage of completion, I wouldn't be able to solve it without the JE given the fact that the MCQ was too long and has a lot of Junk info.

I hope I did well, and don't worry. This is a stupid exam, and you will beat it.

@ABinTX

I hope I did well as you did! 82 is an awesome score. Yes the research that I got was so easy and it didn't require me to second thought my selection because it was so obvious where to find it. I found Becker's research to be harder, way way harder. I almost got all Becker's research questions wrong because I lack patience, unfortunately 🙂

Becker really does prepare you well, too well. All you have to do is do what the instructor says you should do and you'll pass.

Good luck.

[EuroAddict]

Hopefully you can chalk this up as a win!

My research Q took me 20 damn minutes! lol I feel comfortable looking up the answers to. Never know.

-----------------------------
BEC - 77, 03/2015 (first try)
FAR - 79, 05/2015 (second try)
REG - 83, 12/2015 (first try)
AUD - 84, 03/2015 (first try)

I got 99 problems but the CPA ain't one.

[Priscilla]

Thank you – Another85 –

I'm totally scared about tomorrow!!!!

I'm going to try to review a few things today and be done!

I hope also we can chat about this in two weeks and see our passing scores!

P

AUD - Done
REG - Done
BEC - Done
FAR - August 2015

[TheblackCPAseeker]

@another85 I felt the same way about FAR, except I used all the 4 hours (Being Safe). The SIMs were not foreign but I struggled on a few of them. I hope I did enough to get a 75 my scores are out June 9 so i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

AUD - 81
BEC - 78
FAR - 80
REG - 77

Finally Done, started studying January 2015

FAR - 80 (05/2015)

AUD - 68 (08/2015, Retake (07/03/16)

REG - 77 (11/2015)

BEC - Sometime in 2016

We are destined for this.

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys!

Let's hope that June 9 has good news for all of us!

[Author]

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