NJSCPA Exam Cram Blog

Passed bec

Hey,

Absolutely exhausted after this weekend...busy season + one week before last exam = hell in a handbasket...but I got a great letter in the mail from the state board yesterday. One more down.

More to come on this...can't really put a coherent thought together right now, and this deserves one.

I really want this to be over...but I really don't want to have to do this again.

My two roommates (a couple of my best buddies from growing up) left me a note on the mirror this morning telling me to hold the fort while they and five other friends went on a cruise for the week. My girlfriend is in florida with a bunch of friends. Another group is now in aruba. I at present, however, am studying for this ----ing test.

Now, there are several ways that one could look at this: A - My acquaintances have horrible timing, arriving down south just as the first major hurricane of the season decides to appear. B - We've (the collective future CPAs of this country) chosen a career that will require serious sacrifices of us in the arena of our personal and social lives. We should have been art majors (not to put down art kids, their career choice just allows them more flexibility ;-) ). C - I must really just hate the sun, having fun, so on and so forth and finally D - I should have just said sc*ew it and gone on vacation instead of studying.

It's that last one I have the most trouble with. Why couldn't that just be the case? I'd be in the middle of the ocean drinking beers with a bunch of my best friends, no worries except what stupid prank we were going to pull on somebody next and how late we should sleep in tomorrow. Well...it came down to that whole "finishing what you started" thing. Too much time has been spent, too many pencils broken, too many hairs turned prematurely gray to half-a** it now (and sorry for all the profanity...I'm trying to think of synonyms for all of these phrases but can't conjure up anything other than order/bearer sequences for commercial paper at the moment). Suffice to say I really don't want to be studying right now, but even more than that I don't want to have to go through this experience a second time.

I've heard of a lot of people "coasting" through the test once. Perhaps it happened a little more before the advent of the computerized version, but I can't imagine just blowing this thing off knowing that if I do, the whole process would then simply repeat itself in three months. I want to do this seriously, knowing that if I fail a section its not for lack of trying. The proverbial ole' college try and such. Study your butt off for four-six months then never worry about it again. So on and so forth. Just my thought .

Kind of ran out of stuff to say there, but I was fired up and wanted to write that as much to convince myself that it has to be done as to try and motivate you to do it. Hope it helped you a quarter as much as it helped me, I'm off to do another fifty multiple choice...after calling the girlfriend.

finding your happy place...mine has hazelnut.

I've recently come to the conclusion that Panera is just about my favorite place to study in the entire world.  If you add a pair of decent headphones and instrumental music (dont know about you - but I can't study with lyrics) to drown out the noise of other people, its just like the library.  High backed seats lend themselves to privacy, the service is isn't intrusive, and the other members of the clientele are generally friendly and give you your space.  The wireless access is fast and free - starbucks not having the latter.  Sometimes there's even a fireplace, which to this point I've never seen at a library.  Its awesome. Plus, there's always the advantage of -

UNLIMITED FREE REFILLS.

Sorry, I'm not usually a huge fan of caps, but I had to throw that in.  It's really that important. Over the course of my studies for the exams, I've gone to Panera to do video lectures, review questions and simulations, and even to make some attempts at flash cards.  I drink a lot of coffee.  I'd have to say I spend at least three nights a week there, and usually an hour or two on the weekends.  Let's do a rough calculation here on how much this has cost them in lost revenue (or, if we want to retread on a little BEC material - the opportunity cost of offering free refills):

20 (estimated total weeks this cram session is taking) x 4 (study sessions per week) x 2.5 (Hours per session) x 1 (Cups of Coffee per hour) x $1.50 (Price for a cup) =  $300 total that could have been spent

20 (estimated total weeks this cram session is taking) x 4 (study sessions per week) x 1 (Cups of Coffee I buy per trip) x $1.50 (Price for a cup) = $120

By my calculations, thats a $180 dollar donation panera has made to my study fund, so I wanted to give them a plug.  The moral of the story is to find somewhere thats comfortable for you to study, it goes a quite a ways in helping you study for as long as need be. Anyway, regulation  is going well, but its been tough.  I'm better at the tax stuff than the legal issues (which I suppose is good as I work in tax for a living) but, but theres work to do on both fronts.  I'll try to point out some specific issues later in the week.  Thanks for reading.

A small rant about flash cards.

Everybody remembers it from elementary school.  The flash cards.  They were usually for math; with simple problems on one side and the simple answer on the other.  In a few classes we even went so far as to have competitions...idk, like a flash card quick draw/spelling bee/etc.  I always thought that they were a pretty good time because they were one of the few parts of the day I wasn't being lectured about my atrocious handwriting (cursive, especially).

Anyway, one of the cool things about them was that they were quick.  Couple lines on one side, couple lines on the other, that was that.  Show one side, say answer, flip, repeat.  Hence the name "flash" cards, I suppose.

I hold in my hand right now a so-called flash card with a 11-point bulleted list on the back.  Each bullet contains at least one sentence, sometimes two.  I'll spare you the actual text of the question/answer, but it deals with personal taxation.  "This is the way you do this...unless this is the case, or this happens, or its after this date and before this one, etc, etc, etc."  Now,  I understand that this is necessary information for the exam (and that making each bullet into a card would result in a deck taller than Yao Ming), but I have to question the merit of the medium.  My books work great,  lectures help, questions and examples are gold...but at least during my studies flash cards have been garbage.  They're too long, too in-depth, and infinitely more overwhelming than what I've seen on an actual exam.  I haven't come away from a flash card session yet feeling like I've really learned something.  I end up just writing notes on the individual questions, and at that point I'd learn more from the book.

Just a rant.  Perhaps they do help...has anybody had a better experience or could you offer me some advice on how to use them?   

3 down...1 to go

Its now been nearly a week since I sat for the auditing section of the CPA, and I think I'm fully recovered.  Upon first seeing that it was a four and a half hour exam, I was pretty nervous, but after going through all of my test prep materials I didn't think there was any way I'd be at the testing site any longer than three.  I was finishing practice tests that would equate to the length of the business section in under two hours!  Granted, I wasn't writing out full communication responses, but there's no way they could take more than an hour combined, right?

The test began at noon.  I closed the the last testlet at 4:20pm.  It really is that long.

Now don't let that scare you too much.  It was definitely a bear of an exam, but I couldn't say that its actually any harder than either of the two sections I had taken prior.  Its just that questions had to be thought out a little more (as opposed to a practice exam, where by the time I was done I had gone though every becker question what seemed like three times), there's a lot of reading to be done, and most of all the communications can require some serious writing, even if all you're doing is trying to get key points down.

How do I think I did?  I never like to say... I have a really bad track record of projecting my scores (in both directions...I've gotten 65s on tests I thought I aced and vice versa).  I do know, however, that the pass rate on reg is lower than audit, so I'm not wasting any time to getting to that.  That's it though, the end is in sight! 

Its going to be an interesting month.  I forget if I've mentioned this before, but I'm a tax auditor with Deloitte, and our fall busy season coincides perfectly with the crunch time for this last exam.  This should make for some really, really late nights...and possibly a ranting blog or two about work, the test, or both.  Stay tuned and such.

Sorry for this one being so wordy.  Thanks for reading.