I’m Running Out of Time!

It hit me earlier this week that I am running out of time to study. I looked at my calendar and saw that August 20^th is next Saturday! I can’t believe the month of August is almost halfway over!

Sometimes while taking the CPA Exam, you get a similar feeling that you are almost out of time but you are only in the middle of the Exam. They always say (and I have learned through experience) that people run out of time the fastest on FAR and REG. However, this can happen on any part when you don’t properly budget your time.

As you know, I am using the Roger CPA Exam Review Cram Course and Roger explains how to budget your time in this video.

You can do this before you sit for the Exam. I like to memorize the breakdown and jot it down on the scrap paper as soon as I start the Exam. This gives me a guideline I can use to pace myself to avoid running out of time.

For example, with FAR, you are given 4 hours (240 minutes). You have 3 sets of 30 multiple choice questions and 7 part task-based simulation questions. For each set of multiple choice questions, you should budget 45 minutes (or 135 minutes total). This leaves you with 105 minutes to complete the task-based simulation questions or 15 minutes for each task-based simulation question.

The breakdown is as follows with the Exam clock:

                4:00 – start
                3:15 – finish mc 1
                2:30 – finish mc 2
                1:45 – finish mc 3
                0:00 – finish TBS

Do you budget your time on the Exam to stay in control of your progress or do you just answer questions and hope you don’t run out of time?

I sat for Audit today

I sincerely apologize to my readers. I finally took Audit today. That's why I have been neglecting everything and everyone this past week. Sorry I haven't posted on my blog or commented on your blogs. I will try to get to everything between tomorrow and Monday. I am just way too tired from staring at that book and then at that screen.

I plan to post something about how my studying went this week and pictures from Easter dinner and the dessert I made (very quick – I made it right before I went to my parents’ house!)

About the Exam – Audit is a 4.5 hour test but I finished it in 3.5 hours with plenty of time to spare for the simulations. I have never taken the computerized version of AUD before (I had passed it as a pen and paper exam), so I wonder if other people had a similar experience (?).
Out of 270 min (4.5 hours), I budgeted an hour for each multiple choice section (2 min per question for a total of 180 min) and 45 min for each simulation. I ended up finishing the multiple choice in a little over an hour without rushing (maybe I was used to answering questions quickly while studying?) and took my sweet time on the simulations. As a result, my communication memos were much more detailed than usual. I always get a "Weak" in writing style with my real-world-style basic memos that answer all the requirements, while a friend always writes comments about taking the client to a steak dinner and he gets "Strong." Since I had more time, I added a cheesy comment like that. We will see how that goes with the graders. Does anyone else find that using more entertaining comments as opposed to (or in addition to) “please feel free to call me with any questions” gives you a “Strong” grade on writing style?