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REG - Exam Experience

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Started 1 year ago by Jeff - another71.com
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Go_Frogs88

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So I took REG for the second try Saturday. I was hoping to knock out all four on the first try but it was not meant to be. I think I failed my first attempt on REG for two reasons. 1) I wasn't entirely prepared. Everyone I knew told me to focus entirely on tax. Well while doing that I scored poorly on the Ethics/Responsibility portion and not great on the Business Entities either. REG, unlike the other exams, requires you to know EVERYTHING from your study material.. and 2) I think i got a really difficult exam. I did awful on my sims. I had no drop down options at all and had to guess completely on 2 sims.

This exam went much smoother. I did all the MCQ's for CPA Excel over again and plenty of Wiley Test Bank questions again. I also read through my Ninja notes about 4-5 times and listened the audio often. I touched up on tax areas but mostly spent time on the sections I did poorly on. It also helped that I think the AICPA felt bad for me and gave me an easier exam. I had two research sims which I am fairly certain I got correct. Another sim was an exact copy of one I had my first exam. And the other three had drop down options! Overall I feel like I did enough to pass but we will have to see on February 5. Hoping to God I am done!

B 8/30/2012 - 83
A 11/29/2012 - 78
R 10/27/2012 - 73 - 1/5/2013 - 81 DONE!!
F 7/1/2012 - 83

CPA Excel, Wiley Test Bank, Ninja Notes & Audio

Posted 4 months ago #
dhruv999

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@Go_Frogs88: you are lucky that you got 3 Sims with drop down menus. The first time i took i only had 1. I am rematching in February. Hopefully, i have some easy stuff. Praying god and studying hard.

Aud- Still to decide
Reg- 63, Feb 2013
Fin- Still to decide
BEC- Still to decide

Posted 4 months ago #
TripleNetAcct

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@ Go_Frogs88 - Pachall coming back next year? Guy is a good quarterback and I hope he can stay on the straight-and-narrow for his sake and for the Frogs. How is the team looking for next year? I only got to go to one game this year (for obvious reasons) but hopefully I will have more time next year to go...and hopefully you will as well!

Go Frogs!!

AUD - 73,77
BEC - 66,71,80
REG - 54 (5/18/13)watiting...
FAR - (8/31/13)

Posted 4 months ago #
2012passtheCPA

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Seems there haven't been many peeps sitting for REG. Either that or they have taken it and went on a 4 day binge because they did so well!!

Know it isn't the former, hoping it's the latter!!

Posted 4 months ago #
js929

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Hey everybody! I sat for REG yesterday (1/10/13) and thought the exam was very difficult. Does anyone else that took REG so far in 2013 feel that alot of the multiple choice questions were on random unnecessary details, and that Becker CPA review did not prepare them for the exam?

FAR- 80 (10/27/12)
REG- 89 (01/10/13)
BEC- 84 (02/28/13)
AUD- 87 (04/12/13)

DONE!!!

Posted 4 months ago #
Keely

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I just wanted to say now that I've taken all four parts of the exam, REG was by far the most difficult, time-consuming, frustrating exam of the four. By far. I have no clue if I passed FAR or not, but at least I knew what the hell was going on. I studied a lot for REG and there was just no preparing for the SIMs. They were god-awful and left me wondering what they were even asking me. I know there must be a huuuge curve on the exam (or I just got lucky with pretest questions), but I still felt REG was a monster. Good luck to you guys who are waiting.

BEC: (4/2012) 88
AUD: (5/2012) 91
REG: (8/2012) 82
FAR: (1/2013) 78 :)

Studied almost every day for an entire year w/ Becker and supplemented w/ NINJA materials.

CPA class of 2013!

Posted 4 months ago #
samdiegoCPA

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Oh Great, I take REG in 4 days and that is not good to hear at all.

AUD: 84
REG: July 1, 2013
BEC: August, 2013
FAR: October, 2013

Posted 4 months ago #
Keely

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@samdiego, sorry to freak you out. I do know that I had a really crappy test, because for the most part, people get at least a SIM or two with a drop down menu. I got zero. Every single one was a calculation. It's probably not very likely you'll end up with the same nightmare test I had. I will tell you, I almost got up and walked out of the exam because I was so frustrated, flustered, and teary-eyed. I thought it was completely hopeless. Thank goodness I struggled through it instead of giving up! My bit of advice is if you don't know the answer on a REG SIM, at least put down a zero. A lot of times in Tax, that may very well be the answer. And it can't hurt to take a stab in the dark if you don't know the answer at all. I definitely remember filling in some zeroes here and there...haha. Good luck.

BEC: (4/2012) 88
AUD: (5/2012) 91
REG: (8/2012) 82
FAR: (1/2013) 78 :)

Studied almost every day for an entire year w/ Becker and supplemented w/ NINJA materials.

CPA class of 2013!

Posted 4 months ago #
nbad311

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@ samdiegoCPA, I think Reg builds nicely on itself. Especially all the tax stuff. Going from tax chapter to tax chapter.. things sort of flow along (if you are actually taking the time to learn it all and not just to "get through" it). Business law is relatively easy memorization. If you are fairly confident in all the tax areas and don't have too many weak b-law areas, you should be ok. My mindset going into the SIMs every time was, I might not know all these 100% but.. there's a lot of points to be gotten in simulations and as long as I gave myself enough time to review them and work them, at least I was getting some points!

REG - 65, 70, 80!
FAR - 65, 73
BEC - 62, 79!
AUD - 5/26

Posted 4 months ago #
sararad

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@js929, I had the same experience on 1/5/2013.

FAR:83(first attempt)
REG:86 (first attempt)
AUD:93 (first attempt)

Posted 4 months ago #
SammyJ

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I took the REG exam on Friday. Boy were the SIMs hard. There were two sims which I felt I may have missed everything since there was no drop down menu options. The research I got instantly. And two other SIMs I atleast stood a chance at. The other one I can't even remember. Luckily the CPA board throws out a SIM, so hopefully they throw out one of the two that I had idea how to do. I did well on T1 and T2 of multiple choice. T3 was difficult. I'm not confident at all with this exam. I only gave myself 1 hour for the REG SIMs and it wasn't enough. I used every last second of it. I'm just praying the multiple choice portions will carry me enough for a 75. I don't have any expectations for this exam anymore. I felt I did only avg on FAR and got a 81. I felt I did exceptionally well on Auditing and I got a 69. And this exam is somewhat curved, so hopefully other test takers ran into the same trouble as I did. I'm praying!

FAR-81!!
AUD-69, Retake: 84!!
REG-86!!
BEC-81!!
Education- Done
Ethics- August 2013
Experience- What I've been doing all this for

Posted 4 months ago #
joeman527

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I took REG this morning and I have to say, after passing FAR and AUD on my first attempt, I don't know what to think....

I'll start with the SIMS, all drop down menus, one research. No love at all. One entire SIM was on such a detailed topic, it had to be the practice one. At least, I hope. The rest were all managable. Research and one other was pretty simple. The other three were challenging but I feel like I got more than 50% of them right.

This is the first exam where I didn't notice an increase in difficulty between any of the testlets. I only marked 7, 4, 4 in each of the testlets, respectively. It was weird, I felt like I was getting the questions right but the questions, especially tax related, never really seemed to increase in difficulty at all. There were alot of short and simple questions on all three testlets. The questions I covered in Wiley and CPAexcel were much more difficult which makes me worried. Any similiar experiences? If so, how were your results?

FAR - 84 (7/21/12)
Audit - 89 (10/8/12)
REG - 81 (1/14/12)
BEC - 4/25/13

Posted 4 months ago #
apple32

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I just got home from my REG retake. Overall, I think I did well but I finished with 45 minutes on the clock (which is a little unnerving).

The first two testlets were comparable in difficulty. My third testlet was, by far, the most difficult. I was surprised by how few calculation questions there were. I had spent a lot of my time studying the difficult tax calculation questions and was prepared more for that than I was for all the wordy business law questions. I was disheartened by how obscure a lot of the business laws questions seemed. There isn't much more I could have done to prepare for the business law questions, aside from memorizing every sentence of the Becker book.

The simulations went very well compared to the first time I took the test. I had one simulation that I couldn't believe how unfamiliar and detailed it every part was. Only one of my simulations included any drop-down menus. Another simulation was identical to a simulation I had before. There were two research questions! I think I got both of those correct. The last simulation seemed more like a financial accounting question but I think I knew the anwers.

@JoeMan - I downloaded the trial of Wiley and worked some of the questions. They were so much harder and nothing like the questions on the actual test. The actual test matched the style of Becker questions perfectly. I'm glad I didn't spend very much time working on the Wiley questions.

Posted 4 months ago #
DeepBreath

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Took my fourth, and hopefully final, exam today. REG was, well it was pretty much what I expected it to be. I felt pretty prepared. MCQ testlets were medium, difficult, and thirdly I'm hoping was a difficult. I had heard going into it "don't ignore biz law, they test on that too!" Well, not so much for this test, I would say the multiple choice was 80-90 percent tax. Nothing that blew my mind, though... Wiley and Gleim prepared me pretty well I feel.

Sims weren't quite the horror I anticipated... although I was very very glad that I saved 1:40 for the sims; I think leaving a lot of time for sims is the best thing you can do for yourself. I'm pretty sure I identified the throwaway, as one of the questions didn't have the actual correct answer (I had the exact part of the IRC pulled up, I wasn't doing it wrong... i.e. I spotted an error, so I'm sure this was the dummy question).

One of the sims was kind of brutal... one of those tax topics that you say "man I hope I don't get a sim on this" haha, of course I did. I at least got half of it right though. The others weren't too too bad...

FAR - 75
AUD - 88
BEC - 88
REG - January 14

"88 is a refactorable number, a primitive semiperfect number and an untouchable number. It is also an hexadecagonal number."

Posted 4 months ago #
surfer4life949

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@Deepbreath good luck to you. I just came out of my last (hopefully) test as well in REG.

First testlet was pretty easy. I only flagged around 3.

Second testlet was harder. Definitely missed a few on that one.

Third testlet seemed comparable with the second (still harder than the first).

Sims were pretty damn tough. Even the research one I had wasn't as easy to find, the search wouldn't give me anything close to what I wanted so I ended up putting the wrong code section (have since found it). Im PRAYING for a pass, I feel terrible that I messed up the research question now though :(

B-85 OCT 2012
A-84 NOV 2012
R-90 JAN 2013
F-89 AUG 2012
Ethics-92 (3rd try)

I am DONE BABY!!!
Used Roger 2012 + Wiley + NINJA Notes

Posted 4 months ago #
joeman527

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Correction to my earlier post - I didn't have any drop down menus on my SIMs. Apparently, I was suffering from "post-REG brain fry" yesterday.

FAR - 84 (7/21/12)
Audit - 89 (10/8/12)
REG - 81 (1/14/12)
BEC - 4/25/13

Posted 4 months ago #
mypetmeatball

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Took REG this afternoon, feeling pretty bad about it.

First testlet was pretty easy; second testlet was hard; third testlet was also hard, but i'm not sure if equally as hard as the second.

I messed up the simulations badly, and I'm disappointed in myself. I got the research question, and I probably got close to 100% on two of the simulations, but the other three are a complete crapshoot. One of the three I really really should have nailed, but I don't think I did, unfortunately.

Since this is my first attempt at an exam, I have no clue whether or not this experience leans towards passing or failing. At least my exam got progressively harder, but who knows about the sims. Roughly how good on the sims do you reckon you need to do in order to get comparable? I assume a lot of people mess up the sims, I just don't know how badly.

I was truly overwhelmed with how LIMITED the scope of this exam was. There were concepts that I pounded hard in my studies that were nowhere to be found. It seemed like 95% of my questions came from the same five concepts -- some major, some minor. Very strange experience overall.

Edit: Also, none of my simulations had drop-down menus.

REG 84
AUD 99
FAR 4/22
BEC 5/31

Posted 4 months ago #
Noct

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@mypetmeatball
It is very difficult to gauge your performance on exam day (a topic thoroughly discussed on these forums). However, if the difficulty went up on the 2nd testlet and stayed difficult through the third, that is a very strong indicator of a good performance. The sims are another animal all together, but from the sound of it, I'd wager you passed.

FAR - 79 - 07/2012
AUD - 65, 78 - 11/2012
BEC - 76 - 11/2012
REG - 78 - 01/2013
ETH - 98 - 01/2013

Material: Wiley books

Posted 4 months ago #
mypetmeatball

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Thanks @Noct

I can't believe I was so fickle to believe that my stress level would drop hard after the exam. I had to know deep down that I would still feel like crap until score release, lol.

REG 84
AUD 99
FAR 4/22
BEC 5/31

Posted 4 months ago #
apple32

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I think you can do poorly on the simulations and still pass. If you did well on at least half of the problems, I think you are okay. It seems like a lot of people say they bombed the sims or didn't know what it was even asking but still end up passing with good MCQ. Good luck!

Posted 4 months ago #
samdiegoCPA

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Ummm... not impressed with that exam.

I felt all my MCQ were relatively easy and I know I got most of them right? I dunno if the testlets were getting harder cus I feel very confident in the answers. Obviously I had to guess on some, but overall I felt good.

Sims, ummm... I recognized all the topics but none of them were ever covered in details in my lectures/book! I tried using AL to get by, and I think I got one of them based on that alone... research, I know I got the section right, maybe subsection. One SIM was about a small paragraph in the entire book and went into great detail.

I had a panic attack around minute 20 of beginning and could NOT remember anything, like what was an itemized deduction?!?! Thankfully that only lasted like 10-15 min then I regained my composure.

Overall, if going by what everyone said about them "not knowing and failing all the SIMS" and still passing, then I think I am close?!

AUD: 84
REG: July 1, 2013
BEC: August, 2013
FAR: October, 2013

Posted 4 months ago #
samdiegoCPA

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Also, I had one questions THREE TIMES... twice, was the same wording, the other time a little different wording but I read it 100 times to make sure I knew what it was asking and even flagged it to come back to.

AUD: 84
REG: July 1, 2013
BEC: August, 2013
FAR: October, 2013

Posted 4 months ago #
apple32

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SamDiego - Happy to hear you're done! I think you almost certainly passed based on how you felt during the exam. I felt the same way about my sim questions. Overall, there isn't really a way you can fully prepare for the exam. You get easy questions on hard topics and super hard questions on easy topics. Weird test...

Posted 4 months ago #
2012passtheCPA

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Hi All! I wanted to let you know of my REG experiences (short experience for the first 2, somewhat long for the one I took this morning).

For my first two unsuccessful tries at REG, 63 and 69, I just used Becker. The first one I was actually in class, but was somewhat distracted because I had just taken AUD and was waiting for my score and basically only studied 3 weeks. It didn't cut it and my score showed.

The second time, I did Becker self-study and I wasn't fully committed to the process during my review. This also showed in my score (I would do progress tests in Becker during my review but wouldn't read the explanations if I got it right or wrong).

This time, I changed my strategy up just a bit. I went through Becker self-study using 2013 materials. Once I was through with all of the lectures and MCQs (when I go through the first time I'll go through the questions once in each section and if I get any wrong, which I usually do, I'll try the ones I got wrong immediately after I have gone through the first time) I purchased the NINJA notes and proceeded to get "mideval on them" (credit from Jeff's NINJA study plan). I cannot stress how important it was re-writing these notes. I feel like it really gave me a grasp of all the tiny details that are necessary to know for REG.

I then proceeded to do 100-150 question progress tests every day. I did roughly 1500 more MCQs using this strategy. This strategy I believe helped me tremendously in being prepared for REG. I'll know in a few weeks if this strategy helped me but I can say I came out of the exam saying "I'm not sure what else I could have done to be more prepared for this exam".

The MCQs on my test were manageable. I have no clue whether the testlets got harder or easier I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but I have never been able to tell in any of my exams.

The SIMs I believe were 100% manageable. I know I got the same sim that I had on my last exam, hopefully I remembered the minute details enough to get the credit for this one.

"Why did you post your study strategy in the REG - Exam Experience?" you might be asking. I feel like the exam experience is directly related to how you studied/study strategy. This is where the value add comes in, putting the two together.

I hope this helps at least one person either wrap their head around studying/their strategy and the exam. Deep down I feel like going into the exam only we truly know how prepared we are for the upcoming exam.

Happy studying to all! May the odds be ever in your favor!

Are scores released yet? HAHA!!

Posted 4 months ago #
wjuchnie

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Just got back from taking REG (my second exam). I have absolutely no idea how I did.

The first testlet was ok but the second and third testlets were both ridiculously hard. I've heard that's a good sign but I don't know. I'm a little annoyed because I feel like there were an excessive number of questions on two particular topics; one of which I am weak in and the other which Becker said wouldn't be very important.

The sims were ok but who knows how I did on them. I did get two research questions and I'm pretty sure I got both of them right, so that's good.

I guess we'll see in a couple weeks...

AUD - 11/30/12 - 89
REG - 1/17/13 - 89
FAR - 5/28/13
BEC - 7/18/13

Posted 4 months ago #
mypetmeatball

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I gotta give myself credit where credit is due -- I've done an EXCELLENT job over the past four days convincing myself that I failed the exam. I would make a great lawyer; I proved my case to myself with eloquence and conviction.

REG 84
AUD 99
FAR 4/22
BEC 5/31

Posted 4 months ago #
Dorothy_17

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@js929 I had exactly same feeling with you. took the exam on Jan 3rd.
after coming back from the exam, I briefly went over the whole becker book, but still could not find materials about several MCQ and one SIM.
I don't know if other three parts have same situations...hope not

REG-Passed
AUD-Passed
BEC-Passed
FAR-Passed
Done!

Posted 4 months ago #
wjuchnie

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@Dorothy_17
Yeah I definitely agree that Becker didn't prepare me for REG as well as I would have hoped. As I and other people have said, I think there was an excessive amount of questions on a few specific topics and absolutely no questions on certain other topics that I spent a lot of time studying. It's very frustrating.

I was much more confident walking into and out of AUD so hopefully this is only true for REG.

AUD - 11/30/12 - 89
REG - 1/17/13 - 89
FAR - 5/28/13
BEC - 7/18/13

Posted 4 months ago #
Noct

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Took REG this morning. I think it went well. First testlet was very easy, then the next two were more challenging/obscure. Finished MCQ in 90 min which allowed me plenty of time to confirm my sims in the authoritative literature. A technique I highly recommended.

FAR - 79 - 07/2012
AUD - 65, 78 - 11/2012
BEC - 76 - 11/2012
REG - 78 - 01/2013
ETH - 98 - 01/2013

Material: Wiley books

Posted 4 months ago #
apple32

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@ Noct - Congrats on being done! You and I are in the same boat for needing REG to be finished. I took REG last week... felt good leaving but now I'm starting to second guess myself. Good luck to you!

Posted 4 months ago #