[SteelCPA]

Becker Question –

I have been trying to sit down and do FAR for the past week or so and I just am getting destroyed. Most of these multiple choice problems take me at least 4-5 minutes each, some up to 10 and I have been getting most of them wrong. The text does not even go over how to do the vast majority of them. I am becoming increasingly frustrated and it is making it hard to study. Does it get better? Or can I be expecting to get 40% on my MC the rest of the way. I am being extremely inefficient with my time this far. My exam is May 31st and I already feel so far behind. On F1.

 

 

AUD: 50, 69, 71, 77

BEC: 80

FAR: 79

REG: 74, 79

[krstnam]

That was my biggest problem with FAR – especially the first time I went through the materials. Everything was taking so long for me to understand then by the time I would go back for review, I had forgotten everything. The 20 hour study estimates per week that had would take me 2-3x as much 🙁 I was discouraged and frustrated especially with the clock ticking. It took me 3 months to get through the materials. My first try I failed miserably 🙁

Did it get better for me? yes it did. When I went in for my 2nd retake, the 2nd round through the materials was a lot better. I also started out with chapters 3/4 because those were the most difficult for me before going back into the first chapters. I went over bonds, liabilities and business combinations before moving to NFP and Government then I did the first two chapters last. Didn't pass but came pretty close.

Hang in there – it's a lot of information but it gets better.

I'm going to be the person who says "I finished even though..." not the person who says "I didn't finish because..."

B - 77, 76

A - 57, 64, 72, 76!

R - 78, 72, 78!!! DONE

F - 54, 73, 71, 64, 69, 76!

[VDP]

I felt overwhelmed by the MCQs in Becker in general…waaaaaayyyy too much information. I was shocked when I took my first exam and the questions were much more straight-forward than I was expecting since I had only used Becker MCQs.

You might consider purchasing the NINJA MCQs for more streamlined questions and easy-to-understand explanations. You probably know more than you think and are just getting bogged down by the unnecessary complexities Becker throws in.

[lou]

Just keep pounding away MCQS and review your notes for areas you cant remember – the first time through all the mcqs when doing the lectures I likely hovered around 50-55% sometimes better sometimes worse. Once I knew how to solve the problem it got easier.

I sit for my first time Monday for Far – The last 2 weeks has been note review/200 MCQS per day and the mock exams – I average 75% on mcqs day in and day out and its always different areas – sometimes its computational and other times its theory – sometime pensions and government, sometime leases and non-monetary exchanges.

I've come to the realization that I've studied at least 25 hours per week for 10 weeks, and at least 40 hours the last 4 weeks per week – At this point I'm just ready to take the test and go with my gut on questions – I know the material and i'll either get it right or wrong – I've found if I overthink an “easy question” – I getit wrong.

For my review period – I did 50 mcqs for each F1-f10 first – then started doing 33 question blocks for all of f1-f10 combined – averaging two 33 question blocks togeather… I've improved on areas I'm weak on – it just takes time is all!

[RockLobster]

Yes, it gets better. F1 was rough and F2 was horrible, but those are the hardest sections. You have a ton of time until your test, take all the time you need on sections you struggle with. Some of the material is a foundation for later chapters, so it's important that you understand F1 and F2 especially. The text does go over how to do the vast majority of them, and if the text doesn't cover a specific question well enough, the explanation to the question does 99% of the time.

I got a C- in intermediate accounting 2 and struggled in all my FAR-related classes. Read the questions explanations. Understand why the three incorrect responses are incorrect and why the correct answer is correct. Don't just blast through 4,000 multiple choice questions in a day.

AUD - 89
BEC - 81
FAR - 80
REG - 78

Free af

Ethics - 90

[Sir Ivalis]

Steel, when I got to FAR using Becker (with no accounting background), I was starting out on those MCQ sessions getting like 20% correct. The first time through, I spent probably close to 4 months studying, though actual hours spent were less than you might think because I was working full-time and hated FAR. I ran into the same issue as you where it took me forever to get through each chapter and even in review sets I was lucky to get 50% correct.

What I eventually settled on as I started to run out of time is this: 1) go through the chapter and learn as best as you can without agonizing over any particular section; 2) spend max like 3 minutes per question – if you can't get it in that time, it means you don't know the formula or principle well enough so go ahead and get it wrong and read the explanations so you know how to solve it quickly next time; 3) related to point 2 – just straight memorize the common formulas and their alegebraic variations. A lot of points can be grabbed by recognizing the the relevant amounts and plugging them into a calc you have stored in memory; 4) I bought supplements. Becker isn't designed to teach someone like me from scratch on a lot of this stuff. I liked the Ninja Plus videos for FAR and I did the Roger Cram which I also liked. I also did Ninja MCQs on random sets for review at the end to try to mimic test conditions.

Oh, and another point on #2 above: Becker has these questions thrown in that they created which try to test you on multiple principles all at one time and can take several minutes. I took it in the previous Becker format, so I don't know if they've left them in for the 2017 version, but I just skipped on past them because I found them more demoralizing than helpful and definitely not true to real exam questions.

It took me twice, but I did pass. I just let myself fail as I learned instead of staring at a difficult question for too long and killing all my study time.

REG - 81
FAR - April 13th (73), TBD
AUD - July 6th
BEC - TBD

[Anonymous]

When Becker re-formatted to 2017, I think they changed the purpose of MCQs. It used to be that you would do the learning phase: watch the lectures and read the material, and then test how well you learned with MCQs. Now, I think MCQs are no longer part of the “test your knowledge” phase, but its now part of the learning phase.

They cut material out of the lecture and book and give you a shorter, more summarized version. Then, when you do the MCQs, they get into depth with the topics. In the MCQ you see things for the first time, for example, in this situation, you follow these rules. That wasn't in the lecture and it wasn't in the book and you were not supposed to know it. You were supposed to get that question wrong and then learn from the explanation. Its part of the learning phase.

If you look at the MCQs as an indicator of how well you will do on the exam, you'll probably feel defeated and frustrated. But you're not doing anything wrong. Its normal.

The “test your knowledge” phase is in the progress tests at the end of the chapters. And it helps remind you of previous chapters to keep all the information current. This is a better indicator of how you will do on the exam.

I went through F1-F4 and did pretty bad on the MCQs. Maybe 40% on the ones I actually bothered to do because its so time consuming. But then I took a progress test on F1-F4 and got 90%.

[Anonymous]

Man alive, I am so happy I read this explanation from @chynablue. For a second I was wondering if the CPA path was the right one for me. I have a year of time remaining on AUD and I thought I would need it all just to complete F-1. I'm glad I'm not alone.

[Author]

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