[jeff]

We have a lot of “I took __ today threads” so to consolidate, here is the official thread.

Please – Not even a hint of exam disclosure per AICPA rules.

Links to other Exam Experience Threads:

AUD

BEC

REG

AUD - 79
BEC - 80
FAR - 76
REG - 92

Jeff Elliott, CPA (KS)
NINJA CPA | NINJA CMA | NINJA CPE | Another71

[Anonymous]

Took FAR this morning and I have no idea how I did, usually I have a read, but not this time. Since I aspired to be a CPA goddess and take and pass all four sections in one window then fell short on BEC by 2 points while studying for FAR I think my confidence is shattered. The mcqs seemed almost easy, except the second testlet was heavy on calculation questions which was very time consuming which left me only about an hour and 20 minutes for the sims. I figured I was doing just fine time wise so I did the first two sims, very calculation heavy too, then looked at the clock, only 50 minutes left for the other 5…OMG. I quickly did the research, pretty sure I got that one right then moved on to the ones that I thought I could finish. Long story short I left the new insane DRS one for last and tried my best to fill in lines correctly then madly put zeros in as time ran out….sooooo actually got knocked out and didn't finish…grrrr. Strangely, I'm not even angry about it and I feel like I should be, all my anger was already released on that darn BEC 73 a few weeks ago. Of course I'm second guessing whether I could have spent less time on the mcq's or just worn some depends and not gone to the restroom twice…decisions. In the end what's done is done and now I get a well deserved week off to see if I have to keep on studying FAR or go back to BEC for my Jan retake.

[mtaylo24]

@cpasomedaymaybe I swear that we are the same person, except I sat for 3 this window not 4. I also missed BEC by 2 and have had a chip on my shoulder ever since. I started restudying today and yeah, I've forgot a lot. Best of luck for next Friday, hoping that we are only left with BEC to smash!

CPA (2017)

REG:  75

BEC:  76

FAR:  77

AUD: 78

 

CMA (2019)

P1: 380

P2: 360

AUD - 1st - 60 (12/12), 61 (2/13), 61 (8/13), 78! (11/15)
REG - 55 (2/16) 69 (5/16) Retake(8/16)
BEC - 71(5/16) Retake (9/16)
FAR - (8/16)

[Anonymous]

Has anyone filled in JE's with 0's and No Entries Required after finishing the rest of the JE? That's how Wiley CPAExcel makes me do sims and I've been so uneasy about whether or not the computer will deduct points for that!

[mtaylo24]

I made sure to do zeros yesterday. I was contemplating doing the “no entry required” for blank spaces, but only did it if no entry was required. I hope it doesnt bite me 🤔

CPA (2017)

REG:  75

BEC:  76

FAR:  77

AUD: 78

 

CMA (2019)

P1: 380

P2: 360

AUD - 1st - 60 (12/12), 61 (2/13), 61 (8/13), 78! (11/15)
REG - 55 (2/16) 69 (5/16) Retake(8/16)
BEC - 71(5/16) Retake (9/16)
FAR - (8/16)

[Anonymous]

@mtaylo24 same here… hope the rest of your exam wasn't too bad?? I realized that my MCQs stayed difficult, hoping its a good sign!

[Biggie62]

I took it yesterday myself.

Testlet 1 was easy, marked maybe 4 questions. The next 2 testlets had trickier questions but nothing that I didn't see in Ninja MCQs. Except 2 questions in testlet 3 were some off the wall questions.

Then got to the sims and holy shit. The research I got, I was able to use the AL for another as it had a picture perfect example. I got lucky as the DRS I had was easy. But now for the other one god. I got the inventory reconciliation like someone mentioned and I had no idea wtf to do. I literally just plugged numbers in. The others I had were all JEs. This is my second time taking FAR and the sims were night and day compared to my first time. While the MCQs the first time around were really tough.

[renma]

I took it about a week and a half ago! The second testlet was hard but the third was easy, so I'm assuming I didn't do well at all on the second. Of the SIMs, two were topics I just didn't prepare for at all and I was down to the last minute. So I walked out thinking that I'd failed for sure, but ended up with an 81, hahaha.

But compared to Becker, MCQ and SIMs both felt shorter; not necessarily easier, because some were on topics I just wasn't prepared for, but definitely not as time consuming. I just milked every possible minute they gave me, hahaha. Good luck to everyone!

[fahadg89]

Took FAR after learning I failed audit and lost my FAR credit. Studied as much as I could within 13 days to take it on Dec 9. Honestly I was about 80% ready to getting a 75 but I know I failed, messed up on a few MCQs but the sims weren't as brutal, I know I got at least 3 correct completely and the other 3 partial. Hopefully the one that's not graded is the one I really messed up on. At least I don't have to wait 4 weeks for the score. And this time compared to my first time taking FAR really made me think that the first time I passed was by pure luck. Gov and non profit MCQs out the ass. Thank you ninja for the MCQs cause Rogers MCQs is pretty weak. But I guess I should just start reviewing AUD and once the fail is official, I'll prepare for both. 😑

[eaglescpa]

I took FAR on the 10th. Here is my experience:

1st Testlet: relatively straightforward questions, I flagged maybe 2-3 questions
2nd testlet: I could tell it was getting harder as there were way more wordy questions, couple questions I was not prepared for, flagged like 5
3rd testlet: couldn't really tell the difference between the 2nd and 3rdflagged probably another 5. there was one question that I probably spent a good 15 minutes trying to figure out. I knew the topic but could not get to any of the answers choices

SIMS: oh man, the sims. left myself about an hour and half. One of them I knew the topic and how to do it but there was one part of the SIM that had no instructions on what I was supposed to put in that column. No drop down box or anything. Filled in zeros. Research wasn’t bad. I think I got one completely right and the rest I had 70% confidence on except for one of them which I am hoping is pretest.

praying for a 75 on the 16th!

If it was easy, everyone would do it.

A - 85 - 1/14/17,67
B - 78 - 8/31/16
F - 79 - 12/10/16
R - 75 - 7/29/16

Licensed 3/22/17

[garnerr2]

I took FAR on the 10th and just realized something from reading these posts.

I use CPAexcel and when answering the practice SIMs, it makes me either fill in blank spaces with 0's/NA or something similar. On the exam, if I was required to do a J/E and had 5 spaces but only used 3, I would enter No Entry Required for the space below.

I think I now realize that the No Entry Required was supposed to only be used if there was really no entry required at all.

I am crossing my fingers that this gets hand graded and I won't lose any points.

AUD - 76
REG - 78
FAR - Aug 2016
BEC - 79

[Travis]

I took a different approach to this exam than most. It ended up working out pretty well for me, so I wanted to let y'all know how I went about it. I studied for FAR for about 6 weeks, for about 1.5-2 hours a day, taking Saturdays, and some Sundays off. Here's the breakdown of the technique I used:

– For the first 2 weeks, I just read the book, and tried to grasp a ‘big picture' understanding of the concepts. I wasn't focused much on the tiny details, and I didn't answer a single MCQ.
– For the next 2 weeks, I went back through the material, this time answering MCQ's in batches of 30, and for each question I missed (over half), I'd write out why I missed it, and try to find it in the book. I only did about 60-90 questions per chapter, and moved on without feeling any sense of having mastered the material.
– For the final 2 weeks, I printed out outlines for the chapters, went through and highlighted the outline, and added information from the book that the outline either left out, or needed a further explanation of. I cleared off a wall in my apartment, and added ‘sticky note' flash cards to the wall for concepts, equations, and every journal entry I came across that didn't seem intuitive (with a brief explanation of the entry). The outline would only take about an hour per chapter, leaving me about an hour per day to review the notes I had written in weeks 3 & 4, as well as to stare at the ‘Wall of FAR' I had been creating over the past few weeks… I took about 3 days to give the material one more, thorough run through, before taking the exam.

Lastly, during the 6 weeks of my FAR study, I'd spend about 5-10 minutes, randomly throughout the day, using the mobile flashcard app. I vowed to take some of the time I usually wasted surfing the internet, checking Facebook or Twitter, and to use it to really comprehend a couple of concepts.

Walking out of the exam, I felt about as I expected to feel, exhausted, but I also felt that I had prepared myself well. I believe this method worked for me because I don't have the greatest memory when it comes to remembering small details and facts. Understanding the concepts as a whole made remembering the smaller details a lot easier. Best of luck everyone!

BEC - 82

REG - 82

FAR - 78

AUD - 71

[Anonymous]

Somehow, I heard this somewhere, US is no longer that crazy to converge with IFRS because things were just too complex for this convergence-fiasco. So then, how do we prepare and study now for IFRS and US GAAP comparison/differentiation?

[Stilgoin]

I studied abroad in London and we met with some of the IASB board. They still want IFRS convergence, but it is not likely because U.S. GAAP is not willing to forego so many of the GAAP rules. We also met with some of the Institute of Chartered Accountants board in London, which is comparable to the AICPA in the U.S. Their accountants have much more leeway in accounting than we do in the U.S. They make professional judgments about everything. We asked them who makes sure the accountants are honest and they laughed at us. The U.S. will never get rid of all our rules, and the Chartered Accountants will never follow our GAAP rules, so they are at an impasse. The few small changes we see every year is the IASB board negotiating something, albeit small, so they still have something working toward convergence. We got the impression that the Chartered Accountants would never change, because they felt they did not need strict rules to follow. It was a little ridiculous to have accountants without rules, but that was just our opinions as accounting students from a U.S. university.

Stilgoin, CPA

There are enough critics. Be an encourager

B | 62, 78
A | 73, 67, 79
R | 82
F | 59, 59, Waiting

Ethics | 93

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
~Winston Churchill

“In a world full of critics, be an encourager."

[SiXiam]

Took FAR today (for the second time).

First testlet was medium, second very hard, and third easy, so I assume I did bad on the hard one.
The very hard section had really long paragraph questions that really ate my time up.
Topics were pretty varied in scope. One thing of note is it did have the 2017 updates with deferred tax being non-current. Didn't help because A through D were all non-current.
One annoying thing is even the easy questions were dual topic. You had to know two separate topics to solve them.

The sims were impossible and I'm convinced I failed it because of them. One research question (which I think I got, but I'm not sure because the topic was so general that it could have been a few of them), three had lots of journal entries (none of these), and the other three were calculate many numbers based on certain circumstances, like revenue for multiple years.

I'm just drained. These 4hr exams plus all the rest of the time, kills me. Looks like I'll be taking it again in April after they change it.

BEC Passed
REG Passed
AUD August results
FAR August results

BEC: 80
REG: 75
FAR: __, ?/2016

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Stilgoin. I appreciate it!

When are you testing for your VERY LAST TEST? It's supposed to be my last test as well. I'm testing on 3/10.

[Author]

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