Kitty is a NINJA CPA Blogger.

Since my previous post, I started working fulltime as a staff accountant the day after I took my last section. Even now, my mind still feels like a jumbled up mess.

I previously wrote that I was planning on taking three sections of the CPA exam in two weeks because my NTS would expire after May 1st. It was like finals week times two.

After only one week of studying 12 hours a day, I felt burnout and wanted to give up and take BEC and REG later. I’m grateful to my professors who kept telling us to take the CPA exam as soon as we graduate.

It would have felt impossible to cram so much information once I wasn’t used to studying for finals, and I wouldn’t have attempted to try to pass all three sections.

AUD

Studying (December-ish – 4/21): Before my public accounting internship this busy season, I thought this would be the most difficult section to study. In college, auditing was my least favorite class. The professor for the class was nice, but the material for the class didn’t seem necessary to know unless you were planning on being an auditor and it was my last semester of college.

I halfheartedly started to for study for the AUD section in December after receiving a passing score in FAR and naively thought I would continue to study while interning. I didn’t understand the material well and even with guessing I would only get 65-70% on the multiple choices for section 1.

I started studying AUD again once busy season was over. Even though the tasks interns do are very different from what’s being tested on the exam, it helped a lot for me. After the internship, I would get 80-90% on the multiple choice questions after skimming through a chapter two or three times.

Unlike the other three sections, I think the multiple-choice testlets for AUD exam is testing recognition of word orders and not comprehension.

AUD Exam (4/23): Ironically, I felt the most prepared for this part on exam day. I finished the first three testlets in under an hour. I wasn’t sure if my answers were right for the TBS, but I had plenty of time so I looked up the answers in authoritative literature (please correct me if I’m wrong, the study material is based on the authoritative literature?). Pretty sure I passed.

BEC

Studying (4/22-4/26): I’m glad I had limited time to study or I would have wasted so much time trying to memorize all the formulas for the multiple choice in the financial section. I was warned that the financial questions are taken from previous CMA exams, but the difference in level of difficulty compared to the actual exam was ridiculous. It’s like the difference between prove that the derivative of sin(x) is cos(x) and add 2+2.

BEC Exam (4/26): I’m hoping it’s a good sign that the steps to solve the problems for the third testlet were a little longer than first testlet, but the concept questions didn’t seem to become more difficult in the second and third testlets. Maybe pass?

REG

Studying (4/27/-5/1): I’m finding some of my REG material difficult to understand. I like how the material is concise, but it was frustrating experience, trying to learn from the tax section. I’m used to my professor who explains why there is this or that rule and his anecdotes as he lectures.

I’m used to my textbook that has examples after each topic. Meh. It is a bad idea to move on when I don’t understand a section, but I found it much easier to skim the entire chapter and do the multiple choices twice than trying to understand the concept without examples.

REG Exam (5/1): I probably, most likely, failed. REG is the section I would least mind studying though.