[kevinmalone]

I. Hate. FAR.

I took FAR today right before the holiday tomorrow. I had studied for three months and felt great going into the exam. I felt good about the first testlet. The second testlet was harder but I still feel like I only had to guess on only 5 of them which I feel like was decent. Then I got to the SIMS…..

Every single one of my sims was straight from Satan himself. Every single one had multiple tabs of supporting documentation and they were extremely involved. I got two sims in the third testlet, three in the fourth, and three in the fifth. Out of the eight sims I feel like I only really nailed the research one and another short one. The rest of them were so involved and full of convoluted nonsense out of left field I’m pretty sure I am fu****

The odd part is I have felt like I have failed every other section I have taken but I ended up passing them. FAR was different though. I genuinely feel like I failed and am already preparing my mind to reschedule and take it in November.

I’m just wondering if anyone else had a similar experience? Unfortunately nobody knows if they have passed the new FAR exam yet so even if I were looking for some consolation….. Not going to be able to find it!

[benboccio]

I feel for you man, but like you said, you felt the same way last time too. The new SIMS with supporting documents are harder than the old style. Splitting them up into different sections where you can't go back also makes the time management harder. I had two of those on my last exam (Q1 AUD) and they were hard. I spent 45 minutes on one of them, even though I was pretty sure it was a test question since I knew that format wasn't going into effect until Q2.

AUD - 90
BEC - 83
FAR - 87
REG - 87

NINJA 4EVER

[Anonymous]

“Every single one of my sims was straight from Satan himself.”, best description ever hahaha ..
I will have the exam July 25. I will try my best, but according to the comments, try to not get crazy if not do so well.

All the best,

[JAStansel]

@kevinmalone I hope you have the same success as you did previously and passed even when you feel that you failed. What study materials did you use? Were any of the SIMS you practiced at all comparable?

AUD - NINJA in Training
BEC - NINJA in Training
FAR - 72
REG - 78

Accountants like getting fiscal!

[abanhiqbal]

I took it yesterday. I'm confident I passed, but I overstudied. I still wasn't 100% on all of the SIMs and got 3/4 of the research one right. They literally came out of nowhere but luckily I studied most everything in the Becker book

[Wannafree]

congratulations in advance .Most of the folks who took FAR in new format struggled and you are the first who seems did excellent in FAR.Do you mind sharing your experience how you managed the long questions with 4-5 tabs and so many information ? Many folks felt they (including me ) were well prepared but couldn't show their knowledge in exam and got overwhelmed by so many tabs.
You would do great help to this forum by sharing your knowledge experience suggestions for SIMs.
I look forward to your reply.

WannaB

[Wannafree]

“Every single one of my sims was straight from Satan himself.” ultimate.I can relate this statement as I have appeared in Q2.

WannaB

[visnjadd1]

I agree with previous comments about the Sims questions. I took FAR first time and this is my first part. The sims were definitely very challenging. they were not kidding when they said they are tasting higher skill sets with 2017 tests.

[abanhiqbal]

@wannaFree people were honestly overhyping how much information was included… Becker did a sufficient job in preparing candidates for multiple emails/FS to go through. The challenging part was there were just multiple variables that affected each je/account balance etc. I finished 45 minutes early so I can't really speak on behalf of time management. What annoyed me about Becker was that they did not give advice for which information to ignore/include in a SIMs.

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[Wannafree]

@Iqbal@hotmail I think you are the best candidate to talk about time management as you finished 45 minutes before otherwise most of the folks are asking for 45 minutes more.
As it is clear that 4-5 emails type question is not a big deals for you why not you give some tips or rather how to solve that type of SIM ?
It would be great if you can let us know how much time you took for MCQ testlet 1 and 2 ? I my self took too much time for MCQ and love to hear more from you .

WannaB

[kevinmalone]

45 minutes to spare? Yeah either you did amazing or you failed….. hopefully the former! I'm just banking on hopefully the possibility that everyone else bombed the sims (even if they thought they did well) so I can have a fighting chance.

I'm soooooooooo ready for this to be over

[kevinmalone]

@JAStansel

I used Becker and I finished all the sims. Honestly no, none of the sims in Becker were comparable to the ones on the exam. Maybe one of them but it wasn't a DRS so it wasn't that bad. Just like everyone else I feel like my knowledge of the material was not properly tested on the exam. Just a lot of garbage from left field as far as the SIMS went.

MCQ's were fine. I would leave at least 2 hours for the final two testlets.

[abanhiqbal]

I'm pretty sure I did quite well. I finished the 2 MC testlets in a total of 1 hour and 15 mins. I also had time to go through all of the questions a second time and spending another minute on a question I flagged. I even found 2 mistakes and corrected the mcq's. Testlet 3 took about 45 minutes for me. I used 1 hour each for the last SIMs.

The emails weren't very difficult to me, I can't disclose disclose much more info to assist you. I advise you to view everything single email as a sequence of events, see where it fits in the puzzle, and identify when an accounting entry takes place.

[abanhiqbal]

Actually I totally did that timing wrong. Testlet 3 for 30 mins and the last 2 testlets about 45 min each. To be quite honest I only paid attention to the time I finished the mcq and the last testlet.

[Wannafree]

Good job @hotmail. I don't want you to disclose the question as I am not interested in specific exam question, I am interested to know approach.Since you solved 2 SIM testlet in 45 minutes ,I can now see this as possible.So far I was thinking just trial and error but you are clearly showing us the possible path.You saved 45 minutes that's incredible.

WannaB

[Cruzer]

Sounds like you had a good test experience and scored well into the 90'S based on your Mock scores. I feel like I managed the SIMs very well like you however you had more time on the clock then me. I finished with about 9 mins to spare was it. I was trending right around the 70% mark going into the test so also not as good as your scores. 6 more weeks till I know if I am a CPA!

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“There is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs.” -Anonymous

• AUD - PASSED (Q1 2017)
• BEC - PASSED (Q3 2016)
• FAR - PASSED (Q2 2017)
• REG - PASSED (Q4 2015)

 

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