Having used Becker to prepare for my BEC exam today, I want to encourage all of you preparing for the upcoming window that you will be more than adequately prepared! 

In my scenario, I was extremely prepared for chapter's 1 and 2, very prepared for chapter 3 winged chapter 4 and was unprepared for chapter 5. 

What I mean by this is that I studied my brains out for chapter's 1 & 2 and was scoring in 95% on MCQ. 

For chapter 3, I rushed it last week and scored 75% my first time through and was taking more than 2 minutes for each question.  After I reread the chapter and reworked the problems, I scored a weighted average of 89% and was working my problems within the minute and a half necessary to sucessfully complete the exam.  But, even with this performance, I didn't feel like I had MASTERED chapter 3 - I merely was sufficient in it.

For chapter 4, I watched the lecture one time and immediately answered all of the MCQ.  Then, this morning before the exam, I rewatched the lecture in its entirety.  I did not rework the MCQ for lack of time.  This strategy for chapter 4 was sufficient to cover everything I need to know.  I guess if you know absolutely nothing about computers you may need to put more into it, but if you have a basic understanding already, then this all you need to do.

Chapter 5 I was completely unprepared for.  I ran out of time.  Because of this, I was going to postpone.  I decided, instead, to take a leap of faith and test today.  The only prep I did for chapter 5 was to watch the video about 10 days ago which did very little for me because I was sitting in a doctor's office most of the day doing it.  Yesterday, I picked up the book and was able to read the first 1/3 of the chapter and and answer the MCQ and understood everything.  When I got past this, I was burned out and too tired to really learn more.  I took a break, came back and skimmed the middle of the chapter ... took a few attempt at questions ... and then dove into the variances section focusing on pure dads.  I skimmed the remaining chapter and that was it.

I thought I would probably be unable to answer many questions on today's exam, but there wasn't a single question I didn't know the answer too.  We will see when I get my final score in a couple of weeks just how well I did, but I am convinced I passed. 

I just wanted to enourage all of you out there using Becker that you will be more than adequately prepared.  Don't be discouraged if you think Becker MCQ is whipping you.  Learn the basic concepts and know how to apply them, and I promise you will do fine on the exam!  Try to learn the details, but don't get worried or bogged down in them.

Hello Passfirsttime,

Thanks for your post!

I gave FARE in early May. My simulations were too tough. I simply answered them because I did not want to leave them blank.I did OK with on MCQs.

When you say , you left SIMS blank, did you mean to say completely blank or you took care of written communication? How were your MCQs , were they easy or hard? I heard that if you get hard MCQs, there are more chances you will pass the exam.

Please reply this and help me. I am praying for my results.

Thanks,

canson16 wrote: Hey thanks ! that was encouraging ,I was planning on starting to studying for BEC today ,I plan to take the exam in July , just wanted to ask you if it would be a good idea to start from chapter 5 and go backwards ?considering that it is supposed to be most time consuming and difficult, but was wondering if each chp was independent of each other and it would not matter what order I studied the chapters ???

Knowing what I know now, I would recommend beginning with chapter 5, then chapter 3, then chapter 2, then chapter 1 and finish with chapter 4.  Basically, I'm ordering the chapters in terms of what I felt the level of difficulty was - from hardest to easiest. 

Yes, the chapters are independent of one another, so you can easily do this.  The only negative aspect to this approach would be the time that would pass from when you first looked at chapters 5 & 3, which are the most important on the exam, to the time of your test date.  But, if you really learn the chapters well in the beginning, and then follow up with the strategy of taking a review day for each chapter right before the exam to read and rework the mcq, then everything will be really fresh in your mind for the exam.

Chapter 2 is tested the least on the exam, but it seemed to me that you had to have somewhat of a deep understanding for the basic econ topics to answer the questions.  They aren't hard at all if you really get the main concepts in chapter 2, but I found that it took some time to really get through chapter 2 and learn them.  Of course, I haven't had an econ class in over 10 years, so that could be the reason for that for me!

Don't be intimidated by all of the information in BEC.  Just focus on the basic concepts and try to get a solid understanding of them in terms of theory and applying them to MCQ, and you will do just fine come exam day!  Good luck!