How to study BEC Variance

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    Topic
  • #1588353
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I have hit the last chapter of Gleim BEC, which is on Costing Systems and Variance Analysis.
    They give like 20 different complex formulas in the chapter and there is no way in heaven or hell that I could ever memorize them all. Is there a best way to study variances?

    I remember doing many problems in my cost accounting course 4-5 years ago now, with lots of ‘F’ and ‘U’ (Favorable/Unfavorable). But, I don’t remember doing anything very complicated with the calculations.

    I’ve hit a number of topics in BEC that I never studied in school and this seems to be one of them.

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  • #1588374
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Addendum to the above post: I just checked my Roger (2016) textbook – which I have not used for BEC, I'm using Gleim instead – and I can not find any real coverage of variance analysis. Is this topic even covered on the exam anymore? I have heard that Gleim tends to focus on stuff that the exam hasn't tested in many years and is sometimes a bit outdated on some topics. But, I also heard that Roger was very incomplete for BEC and that Gleim was better. Not sure what to think about this!

    #1588394
    Wanna_B_TXCPA2014
    Participant

    This is all I can remember from my notes
    Actual x Actual (Price)
    (Quantity) Actual X Standard (Price)
    (Quantity) Standard x Standard

    #1588421
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Second update – I found the couple pages in Roger that discusses it. I think I will just study those pages instead of trying to memorize Gleim's 20 different equations which I am fairly certain are not going to be on the exam.

    #1588547
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    @crazyleon-The best way I found was to draw it out…I am going to try to find you a link that has it similar to how my cost accounting textbook had it.

    https://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/reader/4402?e=heisinger_1.0-ch10_s08

    Try this-i think when you draw it out, it's much easier to understand and remember!!!! Good luck!

    #1588565
    mtaylo24
    Participant

    Gleim should have the formulas for Variance analysis at the end of that unit. That is definitely something to memorize…

    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)

    #1588586
    rjain
    Participant

    I gave the BEC this week. There were absolutely no questions on Variance !! It was entirely IT and COSO dominated.

    RJAIN
    #1588590
    Anthony
    Participant

    Formulas are nothing more than pure memorization. No real way around it.

    AUD - 82
    BEC - 80
    FAR - 81
    REG - 82
    FAR - 74 first attempt
    #1588632
    Recked
    Participant

    Roger CPA has some youtube videos that may or may not be helpful.
    I also found some old threads on this website discussing the issue via google search, those might help as well.

    Memento Mori - Kingston NY CPA & EA (SUNY Albany 2002)

    FAR-93 11/9/17 (10wks, 250 hrs, Roger 1800+ MCQs, Gleim TB 600+MCQs, SIMs)
    AUD-88 12/7/17 (3 wks, 85 hrs, Roger 1000 MCQs no SIMs hail mary)
    REG-96 1/18/18 (6 wks, 110 hrs, 1400 MCQs, no SIMs)
    BEC-91 2/16/18 (4wks, 90 hrs, 1240 MCQs)

    #1588730
    Williams
    Participant

    I feel gleim focuses on a lot of items that are not going to be on the exam. I find this to be somewhat frustrating as that's the only review system I have. Granted if you know everything in Gleim you are definitely over prepared, which I originally thought was a good thing but now I feel like it's more of a Hindrance.

    AUD - 77
    BEC - 86
    FAR - 76
    REG - NINJA in Training
    AUD-77

    BEC-74,86

    FAR-74,76

    REG-Q3 Score Pending

    #1588854
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I take BEC in exactly 3 weeks. I think I'll just go back and review all the *other* stuff and come back to variances at the end if I have time. I read a comment on here from someone recently that they got like 2-3 MCQ's on variance and that was it, no SIMs on it at all. I may not be so lucky on my exam but I don't want to break my brain for another week trying to master variances when I could be using that valuable time to review all the other stuff. I did watch one Roger video on variances. I was more confused after watching it than I was before. Roger is not good for BEC.

    Gleim's BEC text is great. I like it a lot because it's in outline format and I'm a big fan of that format. I only have the book though, I don't have access to the website. But, it seems the MCQ's in the book are really helpful, and i've learned a lot by doing those. I've heard others comment about Gleim being overkill in the MCQs, SIMs, and in the chapter readings. But, I'd rather be overprepared than underprepared. I've never seen any of Gleim's videos so I don't know what I'm missing there. Probably not much, as I am not generally a video learner unless the video can take a hard topic and boil it way down…very few videos are so good though.

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