Thursday, April 1, 2010

Usual Performance But Expected Better

13 days remaining (adjusted to final test date - saved 9 days over October 2009 estimate)
Mood - slightly annoyed
Study Time – 2.5 hours (368.5 total - FAR: 88.5 - BEC: 74.5 - REG: 118.0 - AUD: 89.5)
Scores:  AUD-94, REG-97, BEC-93

I am somewhat annoyed with my performance tonight.  I got 79%, which is consistent with what I've gotten in other sections.  I am disappointed in the number of minor errors I made.  The good news is that many of the problems I got wrong I had it down to two choices.  I did really well on the not-for-profit questions (84%) and less well on the governmental questions (71%).  The good news is I would do much better on the governmental questions if I sat through them again.  Overall I don't think I'll have too terribly much to worry about on the governmental and not-for-profit topics.  I have some studying to do on it, but it shouldn't be problematic.  
I am annoyed with some of the questions.  In one question "soliciting prospective members" is not classified as fund raising (yet maintaining a donor list is) while in another question soliciting new memberships is a fund raising activity.  These were both AICPA released questions, so hopefully they were released due to poor wording.  In another question you have $8k in interest that is for certain salaries (ie. temporarily restricted amounts).  The fact pattern never tells you they spend the salaries.  One answer has the ending balance as $8k temp restricted and XXX unrestricted and another answer has just the XXX unrestricted.  Since they didn't say they spent it I chose the first one.  The answer solution says it is the second one and assumes the $8k was spent.  Again, hopefully this was released due to being poorly worded.  These are good questions that make me focus on the topics, but are frustrating and annoying since the nuances are really picky and not well written.

I haven't decided if I'll take tomorrow (Friday) as my usual study night off or not.  I could use the break on one hand, but I'm getting down to the last bit on the other.  It has also been a tedious week at work.  We'll see how tomorrow at work goes before I decide.


Slight humor adaption I saw elsewhere:
DR:  CPA Exam Prep (Expense)
CR:                    Life (Asset)

4 comments:

  1. Love this journal entry! It's too good!!

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  2. What is your strategy once you complete all of your classes, or in my case DVD's. I have done all of the minimum questions with each dvd. I just finished my last DVD w/BEC, and am not quite sure what my strategy is now.

    Thanks for your insight.

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  3. My post-class strategy has been very different for each section.

    For AUD I just did 2 progress tests a day until 3 days before, then I did 1 practice final exam per day for 2 days, then the day before exam I did nothing.

    For REG I skimmed the book reading the highlights, notes, and passkeys. I did a a couple of progress tests and the final exams.

    For BEC I was struggling. I never did get to the supplemental questions for two of the sections. Mainly I re-watched BEC-3 & BEC-5 lectures. I would do one topic, then stop and do all the MC questions for that topic before doing the next topic. This took a while, but really did wonders for getting me comfortable with the material. For the OH variances in BEC-5 I worked the problem on my whiteboard a dozen times until I was able to get it and feel comfortable with it. I also did a two page 'cheat sheet' that I used to study and read just before walking into the exam. I've actually scanned that in and you can download it if you'd like. It is http://www.dalesines.com/cpa-exam/BEC.pdf It is scanned in upside down, but download it and you can rotate it around.

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  4. Thanks for the info.

    ReplyDelete