BEC: The “Junk Drawer” of the CPA Exam

Laura is a weekly Another71 Facebook blogger as she documents her journey through the CPA Exam.

It seems this time my studying has started at such a slow pace. Studying for BEC is probably as painful as a root canal for me.

Anytime someone asks me about this particular exam and give me that head turn like a curious dog I usually respond with “It’s the junk drawer of the CPA Exam. They didn’t know where else to put all this stuff so they just jammed it all in one exam known as BEC.”

I think that is why it makes it so difficult for me to study for it. It has a little bit of everything, but it’s really the luck of the draw of what you will get when you actually sit at the computer at Prometric.

Speaking of Prometric, I scheduled my showdown for this exam – November 13th at high noon. There are a couple of reasons why I picked the date I did. First, I’m a little superstitious and believe that the 13th could actually be a lucky number.

It also falls on a Sunday, the day of rest, so maybe the AICPA will feel pity on me for taking an exam on a Sunday. Who am I kidding…I know they love the revenue I’ve generated for them with my multiple attempts!! Oh well, let’s hope the 8th time is a charm!

After I scheduled my exam and got my confirmation email, I did something that I hadn’t done in the past. I forwarded the confirmation to my family members that stated the following:

“My showdown has been scheduled….I will be MIA for the next month…sorry if I miss things because of this exam, but if I miss it this time I won't have to miss it next year….Love you all…Hibernation mode has been set…see you Mid November! Love you all and thanks for the support!”

I did it more for myself so that I didn’t feel guilty about not going to my nephew’s 2nd birthday or my mom’s birthday. We tend to have a lot of family gatherings in the fall because of birthdays, and since we all live somewhat far from each other (probably not far enough sometimes) we usually do them on the weekends.

Of course as you all know this is prime studying time for anyone that works full time during the week. If I were to attend any of these things all I would be doing is hurting my chances at passing. So I put it out there; I only got a response from my husband though that said “See you in Nov.” I was quick to assure him of his good fortune with the response of “You aren’t that lucky sucka!”

Moving on to my studying and this weekend the decisions went something like this: Studying or Longhorn football? I picked football, turns out I should have studied, that game was painful to watch. Then I just couldn’t get into studying after that until about 11 pm last night and I stayed up until 2 am.

Today since the hubby had to work from home, I opted to go to Starbucks, ordered a pumpkin spice latte, put the headphones in and went to work. I think I’ve got corporate governance down again but will be going over MCQs heavily to make sure I nail this approximately 18% of the exam.

These should be easy points to get, as my husband would call this part of the exam “low hanging fruit.” There is no reason I shouldn’t score well on this part other than lack of preparation and odd ball questions that we all know the AICPA tends to throw at us.

Well I guess I should get back to it…hope everyone is moving right along with studying and test taking! Good Luck everyone! And as my dad text messaged me after I told him my last attempt at BEC was a 74, “Never give up…NEVER.”

We all can do this, all it takes is perseverance, confidence, preparation, and ambition!!