Redo Becker Test Bank or Purchase Wiley Test Bank

  • Creator
    Topic
  • #176781
    raymondsfamily
    Participant

    Hi all,

    So I am wondering if I should just redo the questions available in the Becker program (I have done them all but that spans 8 weeks) or if I should purchase the Wiley test bank instead. I have the Ninja flashcards, notes and audio for FAR but I wasn’t sure if it was beneficial enough to shell out $85 on a test bank when I have access to one already (undoubtedly I have purged the Becker questions from my memory). I am trying to assess if I would gain anything additional by way of a different test bank’s wording or question selection.

    Anyone been in the same/similar position?

    Thanks!

     
    “wiley-cpaexcel-cpa-review”/
     

    AUD - 89
    BEC - 83
    FAR - 81
    REG - 86
    Finally done - many thanks to Jeff and A71!

    F - 5/8/13 81
    R - 74, 2/7/14 86
    B - 74, 12/6/13 82
    A - 70, 11/4/14 89!!!

    I'm done 🙂 Many thanks to Jeff, A71 and Roger CPA!!!

    MBA and CPA

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
  • Author
    Replies
  • #407599
    Tina82
    Member

    Plenty of people pass with Becker alone but Wiley test bank is worth the $85. They have very useful “textlinks” for all the questions also, so you're not just doing mcqs. If you have the $$ I would get it. Some questions are repeats or very similar but it gives you a slightly different angle on the material.

    R - 74;88
    A - 84
    B - 74;89
    F - no study = 67; May 15 = 87 & done

    #407600
    Tina82
    Member

    If you have the time do both, redo Becker questions and some additional from Wiley. I never had time to do a complete set of both but went through all the Becker MCQs and then did extras from Wiley.

    Edit: Did 2nd round of Becker before the test since I usually don't remember all the stuff from earlier chapters. The fresher the material in your mind the better.

    R - 74;88
    A - 84
    B - 74;89
    F - no study = 67; May 15 = 87 & done

    #407601
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    @Tina82 I see you increased your scores in R and B in good number of points, what was your strategy? Thanks!

    #407602
    JustForFun
    Member

    I do Becker review and MCQ, then two weeks before the test I do Wiley Test Bank and then Becker Final Review last. Wiley MCQ and especially the sims are different enough from Becker to be worth the time. To pass REG the second time I supplemented my review with CPAExcel text which is much more detailed than Becker, it is $18.69 on Amazon, cheap considering the cost of CPA review material!

    FAR: 67,80 - 7/20/12
    BEC: 77 - 10/5/12
    REG: 69,86 - 2/15/13
    AUD: 81 - 4/12/13 DONE!!

    #407603
    Tina82
    Member

    @CPAJourney1

    REG – This was the 1st test I took and I didn't know about testlet difficulty and this site. I went to the testing center and blew through the exam in under 2 hours (I thought there were more testlets coming for whatever reason). Didn't know how important the final review is etc. Anyhow for 2nd round I did the same thing that for the 1st except I had more knowledge about the test itself. I watched videos, read book & took notes and then did mcqs the first time, second time I didn't watch videos. That was my strategy in general (now I don't always watch all the videos, only for parts I don't get, but I do find them useful).

    BEC – I hated BEC, mainly the cost accouting stuff. Same deal as with REG. For this one I think I just got a different set of questions with stuff I was stronger in. I was doing a lot of mcqs but honestly I thought I was going to fail BEC the second time. I was in the BEC bubble the first time around.

    Hope this helps. I think if you have good study methods then you just have to put in the time.

    R - 74;88
    A - 84
    B - 74;89
    F - no study = 67; May 15 = 87 & done

    #407604
    higher_flyer
    Member

    I would agree with Tina82's earlier posts. If you have time, do both. Wiley is a bargain at $85, and adds a lot of good practice material. I also like their detailed bar chart that illustrates your strong and weak subject areas.

    If I didn't have time for both, I'd personally recommend doing Wiley. Why not expose yourself to new material rather than re-hash the same thing? You'll remember/recognize enough of the Becker questions that it won't be nearly as challenging as wading through a lot of new MCQ's and Sims.

    REG 95 Aug '12
    FAR 95 Dec '12
    AUD 99 Apr '13
    BEC 94 Jul '13
    CA PETH 94 Oct '13

    #407605
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I'm using both – watch lectures, do Becker MCQ, then redo all Becker MCQ chapter by chapter, and then do all of Wiley MCQ. If I have time I go back through the Wiley ones I missed. So far it's working for me!

    #407606
    raymondsfamily
    Participant

    @ AnitaNC,

    I totally see the payoff in your exam scores – can you tell me how much time you're putting in on the effort (start to finish)?

    I am thinking it will take me another 4 weeks to do all the MCQs for Becker, Wiley and study any weak areas – the total time invested will be about 3 1/2 months (I was sick for the past two weeks which meant no studying whatsoever which is a total drag)…

    AUD - 89
    BEC - 83
    FAR - 81
    REG - 86
    Finally done - many thanks to Jeff and A71!

    F - 5/8/13 81
    R - 74, 2/7/14 86
    B - 74, 12/6/13 82
    A - 70, 11/4/14 89!!!

    I'm done 🙂 Many thanks to Jeff, A71 and Roger CPA!!!

    MBA and CPA

    #407607

    I would highly recommend purchasing the Wiley Test Bank as a supplement to Becker. Becker goes into a great deal of detail into solving their MCQ problems. It is very frustrating, at first, until realizing that it's their way of enforcing the concepts.

    The issue with Becker, at least that I found, is that you may subconsciously gravitate toward the answer you know is correct because you have seen the question and worked it numerous times before. It is because of this that I purchased the Wiley Test Bank; it provided a new set of fresh questions. Granted, there is some overlap in the Wiley/Becker questions. However, there are many topics covered in Wiley that Becker misses. There are also various topics that Wiley explains better than Becker and vice-versa. Wiley's books also go into a lot more depth, which may seem to be too much but I have found that the devil is in the details with a lot of this material so the added information may increase your knowledge base.

    Bottom line: I failed BEC with a 54 just using Becker. I then purchased Wiley 3 weeks before my test and did non-stop multiple choice questions and went in and failed again, but this time with a 72. Close, but no cigar. I know that this doesn't necessarily increase my credibility with this post. However, my score was a huge marginal jump and I know that I will rock it next time. I firmly believe that the Wiley/Becker combo has been a huge help.

    I hope this helps. All in all, I recommend the purchase, it seems to be worth it. There is never such thing as doing “too many” MCQ's.

    "If you're going through hell, keep going"
    - Winston Churchill

    "I've missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost over 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot, and missed. I've failed, over and over and over again in my life. And that is why, I succeed."
    - Michael Jordan

    BEC: (54), (72), 80 (losing credit on 02/02/15 - nervous)
    AUD: 78
    REG: (74), 91
    FAR: (71)

    #407608
    SammyJ
    Member

    From my experience, I think doing the Becker questions is enough. But you are definitely not fine doing Becker questions once or even twice for that matter. Depending on your section, you gotta do around 180-220 MCs every single day without fail. It'll be tedious and at times you feel like you are speeding through the answers and the same questions are coming up over and over again, but you gotta put in the time. I wouldnt purchase the Test Bank unless you failed that exam. Thats what I did for AUD. I added Ninja Notes and did all the Test Bank questions and I improved my score by 15 points.

    So my recommendation is for now focus solely on Becker MCs, but do not neglect them. I only say this because the Test Bank has maybe around 10-15% of thier questions nearly identical and in many cases word for word the same as Becker. These are questions that were released by the AICPA. So yeah.

    Good Luck!

    FAR-81!!
    AUD-69, Retake: 84!!
    REG-86!!
    BEC-81!!
    Education- Done
    Ethics- August 2013
    Experience- 7 Months of CPA Experience and counting!

    #407609
    raymondsfamily
    Participant

    @ SammyJ

    I wish I had the time available to do 200+ MCQs a day (at 2 mins a question) would be about 7 hrs a day straight of MCQs and I work full time with a family so while I wish I could push that many MCQs out each day I think I'll have to settle for maybe 1/2 that and squeak in some additional reading 😉

    I've just started redoing the Becker MCQs and can tell I've let some things go to the backburner so undoubtedly it is a good thing to rehash those questions a few times over!

    Thanks again for all the insight!

    AUD - 89
    BEC - 83
    FAR - 81
    REG - 86
    Finally done - many thanks to Jeff and A71!

    F - 5/8/13 81
    R - 74, 2/7/14 86
    B - 74, 12/6/13 82
    A - 70, 11/4/14 89!!!

    I'm done 🙂 Many thanks to Jeff, A71 and Roger CPA!!!

    MBA and CPA

    #407610

    180-200 MCQ's per day? Unless you have no kids, no job, no friends, no family, no life and are living in the mountains of Montana with no living soul within 50 miles and no television I highly doubt you'll be able to do 200 questions a day realistically.

    My suggestion/plan that I use and have seen enormous improvements in my knowledge base:

    On weekends dedicate an entire day to studying on at least one day (if you can do both, great! most likely if you have a family this isn't possible). Have a goal of about 100-150 questions a day on weekends and 50-75 a day on weekdays (spread between lunch breaks, early morning while the coffee brews and into the late evening). Some days you may hit the mark, most days you will fall within 80-90% of this amount give or take. Also, review, not re-read in detail, the review texts and take handwritten notes and review your notes in-depth. And don't pay attention to time. I hate when people say: “I spent 130 hours studying for this exam, blah blah blah.” You could spend 5 hours a day studying inefficiently (watching lectures and highlighting books pointlessly for 2 of those 5 hours) when instead you could get more out of your time by doing non stop MCQ's for 3 hours and retaining more of the knowledge. Using this mentality reinforces my belief that purchasing more MCQ's is a worthwhile investment.

    "If you're going through hell, keep going"
    - Winston Churchill

    "I've missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost over 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot, and missed. I've failed, over and over and over again in my life. And that is why, I succeed."
    - Michael Jordan

    BEC: (54), (72), 80 (losing credit on 02/02/15 - nervous)
    AUD: 78
    REG: (74), 91
    FAR: (71)

    #407611
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I used Becker only for FAR and BEC but after studying for REG felt i was memorizing answers after doing the questions so many times. I purchased the Wiley test bank. After doing Wiley questions, I feel they are more difficult and definitely give a different angle on the material. They are probably more difficult because i was memorizing answers to Becker questions. It almost makes me feel like i was missing a lot with Becker (I do like Becker by the way…this in no way is a slam on the material). Perhaps i was lucky with my last two exams, but i do like being exposed to these other questions.

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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