Jay is a weekly columnist as a Club 75 Blogger, where he documents his journey through the CPA Exam. He has been a member of Club 75 since April 2010.

Week 32:

I took BEC on Friday afternoon. It wasn’t really what I expected, but I must say it was the most comfortable of the 3 tests I’ve taken to date (FAR, AUD & BEC).

The allotted time was adequate in my opinion. I was able to comfortably go back to review questions that I thought warranted a second look and get my thoughts straight to structure the essays. I took 40 minutes per section on the MCQ’s and left almost a full hour for the SIMS. I was certainly surprised by the content breakdown on the MCQ’s, it wasn’t heavily weighted in areas that I expected. As a matter of fact some of the sections were barely touched.

The calculation based MCQ’s weren’t as long and painful as the Becker and Wiley practice questions, so that was a relief. I definitely didn’t know everything, but thought I was able to make a good educated guess and eliminate at least one answer in most of the ones that I wasn’t sure about.

I am not saying I definitely passed, because I’ve learned the CPA exam can lull you into a false sense of security, but I feel like I did alright.

I spent this whole weekend with my wife and little girls. It was so great. I guess this is what normal people do on the weekends. It feels so foreign to us, but we are so appreciative of the family time together after the last year of studying. My wife and I are going to a Yankee game this week and we are planning a low key Memorial Day Weekend, opening the pool, cleaning the backyard and other chores that have been neglected.

I just ordered my REG self-study guide from Becker on Friday, so expect they’ll it will arrive one day this week. I may do a little lecture listening over Memorial Day weekend, just to get started, but nothing meaningful.
I plan to begin the real hardcore work after Memorial Day and schedule the exam for late August.

I’ve just done a little reading up earlier today on the REG forum of Another71.com and Club 75 and I am afraid, very afraid. I thought FAR was supposed to be the worst section of the CPA exam, but it appears pretty consistent among the posters that everyone who’s taken REG in 2011 has gotten slammed.

That’s also consistent with the pass/fail percentage for REG in Q1’11. Anyway, I didn’t think REG would be a cake walk, but I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be more difficult than FAR. Would appreciate feedback from anyone that’s taken REG in 2011 and doesn’t think it was a beast or has any words of wisdom on how to prepare.

I won’t be posting next week, it’ll be my week off, but will be back first week of June to tell you about my first encounters with REG. Safe and Happy Memorial Day Holiday to all and good luck to last test takers of this cycle.

Jay.O