CPA Review | CPA Exam Review – Another71.com

Erica is a weekly Club 75 Blogger as she documents her journey through the CPA Exam. She has been a member of Another71.com’s Club 75 since July 2011.

It’s funny how when I think I have everything figured out and I’m in control, life throws me a curve ball. My study plan was going along nicely until late last week when I started to get debilitating headaches.

Normally I would just take some aspirin and move along. However, the medicine wasn’t getting rid of the headaches, so I had a weekend I wanted to be studying wasted. Luckily, I gave myself a few more weeks than the plan on the Roger CPA Review site, so I think I will be okay.

Life couldn’t just throw me one curve ball; it had to throw me two. Yesterday I found out that my husband was offered a position at a company in Vancouver, British Columbia. While it is not in Information Technology, it is an opportunity that doesn’t come along every day, so now we are considering a move from Texas to Washington State and possibly even Canada.

While I will be glad to leave the 100+ degree summers, we have already had almost 43 straight days of 100+ degree weather; it is a little scary for me since the last time I moved out of the Dallas area was about 20 years ago. My husband, however, has lived in almost every state and moved every few years as a child.

Along with the change in scenery comes the change in State Accountancy Boards. Texas has its own set of rules and regulations and figuring out how their rules fit into Washington’s has been a little bit of a challenge. I have started e-mailing the NASBA and their representatives have been really helpful.

With all this going on, I hope I will be able to study tonight as my test date is about three weeks away, Saturday, August 27. There are days that I feel really confident and ready, and there are days where I feel like I am going to fail miserably. I am just trying to keep Roger’s positive thinking of ‘If you put in the time you will pass.’

Good Luck!

Well, I took BEC and have mixed emotions about it. On a solid 20 to 30 percent of the questions I had no preparation through Becker. That said, I felt that my overall business knowledge helped me do relatively well.

To satisfy my obsession with statistics, as well as my score, I keep track of how well I do during the exam, or at least how well I think I am doing. I keep track of my answers of which I am certain of as well as the answers where I eliminate two of the answers, one of the answers and none of the answers (guess).

After calculating my weighted average, I would guess I landed somewhere near a 70% to a 75% correct. Who knows what that means, of course. The written communication was a breeze, and I feel like I will get close to full credit. Now my waiting clock will continue with two sections as BEC and AUD were taken this window.

That was Friday, the 5th and I am now taking a crash course with Becker which started on the 7th. By this Sunday, I will already be through F5 in Becker, which is more than half way through. I’m worried the most about FAR because of the volume of information and the fact that I’ve been studying tax the last couple of years and my financial accounting classes were close to five years ago.

I also only have around one day to process an entire chapter of Becker FAR which leaves me no time to waste the next two weeks. I will do my best to keep up with FAR, but I am NOT going to push FAR into this testing window. I’ll wait until October to tackle it.

Cheers,
Blake

Melanie is a weekly Club 75 Blogger as she documents her journey through the CPA Exam.  She has been a member of Another71.com’s Club 75 since April 2011.

I read once that if you’re happy and everything is going well, are you motivated to change? It’s when things aren’t going well that you start evaluating. Hmm, that didn’t work so well. Maybe I should try something different next time.

The CPA Review is something that I have thought about how I can change my ways. My first round about was rushed looking back. I gave myself a month to study and prepare and then sat for a test. I had taken the “I can do it in under a year” approach.

Ha, did I fail that. I came out of each exam feeling defeated and overwhelmed. I had imagined that after each part I would be relieved but honestly, I was more worried about how I did.

This much I knew: I needed to give myself a chance to actually study and review the material. I wanted the CPA title, and I had to make a change. So here I am, round 2. I am using Roger CPA Review, and I have to say that until now I have never actually been excited to receive CPA review books in the mail. I was like a kid in the toy store, giddy to get started.

So this past week as my daughter prepared for school by buying supplies, I found myself also in the aisles excited to buy highlighters and sticky tabs. This time around I am ready and prepared to be at my desk hours at end with my review and homework books.

Already I feel that this round is going to be better, and I will be prepared. So far Roger has been very user friendly, and I feel that understanding the material and grasping the concepts will not be such a challenge as it was with my last study materials.

So here we go everyone. Ding, ding, ding! Round 2!!

Matt is a weekly Club 75 Blogger as he documents his journey through the CPA Exam. He has been a member of Another71.com’s Club 75 since April 2010.

In my last entry, I was in the final stages of preparing for my Regulation exam. The latter part of the week included rereading my notes countless times and working through hundreds of multiple choice using the Wiley Software test bank that Roger CPA Review provides with their course materials.

I found it really helpful to work MCQs over the various different sections as I studied. This way I would get a good grasp on the materials right after the lectures and then I could continue on.

Every couple of chapters I would stop and create an exam that covered everything I had studied to date. This was helpful in the sense that while I might have been listening to lectures in Reg 3, working MCQs for REG 1, REG 2 & REG 3 would keep me fresh on the prior materials.

Test day arrived and I had the normal anxieties that seemingly most people have on the day of a big test. Upon my arrival to the testing center, I was met with a new security measure as once I was all checked in, the proctor insisted on using a metal detector wand to determine if I had items in my pocket or under my t-shirt. Kind of an odd security measure at a testing site, but maybe they’ve had prior problems.

Once I got started with my exam, I always start out by writing down the various section time limits that Roger made us memorize to help keep us on track. I noticed my MCQs got gradually more difficult between testlets, and by the third testlet I had questions where I was going, “What the heck is this?” Prior experience and knowledge leads me to believe that maybe I was doing well? I’m one of those people who can’t tell and I’ll never tell anybody that I think I did well and passed an exam.

After the MCQs, I left myself plenty of time for the Task based simulations, but after completing the first two real quick, I ran into some trouble with a remaining 4 and found myself looking up concepts in the IRC research tab which ate up part of my time.

Because Roger CPA made a point to have me memorize my time limits and to stay on track with my exam, I was able to look up concepts that I was unsure of. Now I have the long wait before I will receive my score in mid Sept.

I used the weekend to clear my head, catch up with my finance, family and friends and not to mention the DVR I had not touched in a couple of weeks. As the week began, I received my FAR books from Roger CPA in the mail, and I’m quickly back into studying for the FAR exam which is in a few short weeks, 8/25.

This week I’ve gotten through the Introduction sections and FAR #1. Goals for the week include getting through the remaining FAR 1 sections and to start and complete FAR 2 as well as work through some MCQs and review all notes by the beginning of next week.

For now, study hard, stay focused and be safe!

Matt