Let�s talk a little bit about the FAR exam, financial accounting and reporting. Now, with
the FAR exam, as I mentioned, it is a 4 hour exam, 4 hour experience up, a 4 hour tour,
no that�s a 3 hour tour, but anyway here's FAR. With financial accounting, what's included
in there? You've got a whole bunch of area about intermediate accounting, intermediate
one, intermediate two, advanced government non-profit. So it has a variety of areas.
In the front of the book, you'll see the content specification outline where it breaks it out
by percentage. FAR doesn't give you a lot of detail because it�s broken up in like
30, 30, 30 percent type things, but it has things like, we�ll talk about the balance
sheet, receivables, inventory. We'll talk about bonds, leases, deferred taxes, contingent
liabilities, consolidations, partnership equity, foreign currency, translation, remeasurement,
derivative instruments, governmental accounting, non-profit. Governmental accounting and non-profit
are about 12% each, 8 to 12% each, let�s say 10% each. That�s about 20 to 25% government
non-profit. Some of you have never seen it before. That's why I�ll cover it in detail.
It�s toward the end of FAR, so you see it just before the exam, so it's fresh in your
head. As far as what the exam looks like, again, it's a 4 hour exam. Now, you're going
to have testlet number one, testlet two and testlet three. Then you're going to have testlet
four which will be your task based simulations. These three parts together make up 60% of
your score. The task based simulations make up 40% of your score. Now, on FAR, you're
going to have 30 multiple choice, 30 multiple choice and 30 multiple choice, so you�re
going to have 30, 30 and 30 going across, and 30 multiple choice. Now, within those
multiple choice, you�ll click on the box, it opens up, here's a question, here the 4
choices. At the bottom of the page, it's listed one, two, three, four, and five all the way
to 30. What's kind of cool about the new exam, when you put your mouse over that, you'll
see the actual question? So let's say I put a mouse over number 4, the question will pop
up at the bottom. So that way, as I'm going through the questions, if I feel like, you
know what? Some questions you�re going to look at and go, �I know this.� Some questions
you�re going to look at and go, �I'm never going to know this in this lifetime.� That's
fine. Picks something, move on. It's the ones in the middle where you go, �I think it's
either A or it�s C, but I need more time. Let me mark something C, and all mark it here.�
So you want to mark some. Now you don't want to mark them all. You want to have time to
come back, alright, but you want to mark it so that you can come back to it. Now, with
the multiple choice, there's two levels of difficulty: moderate and difficult. The first
30 are moderate, the next 30, if you do well, get difficult, and stay difficult. So you
could have moderate, difficult, difficult, moderate, difficult, moderate, moderate, moderate,
and difficult. As you're moving across, they tend to get more difficult. Now, as far as
the timing, as I said, you need to watch the clock carefully, and in watching the clock
carefully that means that I've got to allow...over here there's going to be...let's see...boom
boom boom...there's going to be 7 task based simulations in FAR, 7. I need about 15 minutes
each, which is 105 minutes, so I've got 105 minutes to get through these. The exam is
4 hours in length. That's 240 minutes. That leaves me with like about 135 minutes, so
that means that I've got, or I'm sorry, about 105 minutes, so what that means is, I've got
basically to get through in about 45 minutes, 45 minutes, 45 minutes I've got to get through
each in these. So that means that as you're setting up your timing, you need to realize
that, for the 30 questions, you've got about 45 minutes. So what is the clock? What should
it look like? And this is what I would suggest you write down on your scratch piece a paper,
because when you go in, they give you a scratch piece of paper and a pencil. So, what do I
want you to write down? I want you to write down the time you expect to finish the first
30. When should you finish the first 30? Your clock should say about 3.25, 3 hours and 25
minutes left. Then the next 30, your clock should say something like 2 hours and 30 minutes
left, and then the next 30 and then your clock should say something like 1.45, and then the
next 4 or 7 are task based simulations, you go down to 0. So it's important to make sure
that that's what your clock is saying because, again, if I'm talking about 105 minutes, right,
which is an hour and 45, so that means that, boom, I've got to make sure that as I get
from 4 hours to 3.25, that�s, I�m sorry, 3.25, is that right? Let�s see, 45 minutes
is 3.15. There we go. That�s better. So 4 hours, 3.15, 2.30, 1.45 and then 0. So,
it's important that as you're working, and you get over here, I've done the first 30,
and I'm going back to check them, I look at the clock. If the clock says 3.18, I'm still
good. If the clock says 3.04, guess what? I'm going a little bit slow, I need to pick
up the pace. Otherwise I'm going to run out of time here. And the two exams people tend
to run out of time are FAR and REG. FAR and REG, so you really have to watch the clock
carefully for those two parts. So I go through these then, boom, then it'll say, when I'm
here, �Are you done with it?� �Yes.� �Do you want to take a break?� �No.�
You never want to take a break. Why not? The clock keeps ticking. So, you want to take
a break? No. Then you go to the next. Now, it's kind of like life and a bad relationship.
Once you leave the first group, you can never go back. Leave it, never go back and so on.
So, you want to make sure that when you're done with the first set, you're moving on
to the next, moving on to the next. Then you get over here to the task the simulations.
They're going to be 7 of them. Of the 7, one is not graded, it's pre-tested only. You don't
know which one is or is not being pre-tested, so you have to do a good job on all of them.
One of them is also a research type question. So what does that mean? One of them is on
research, so that means that they're going to basically have you go through and do some
research, and I will talk about that in the course as far as how to prepare and how to
do the research. So you're going have 7 of these, of the 7, 6 are graded, one is pre-tested.
One of them is on research. On the research here, it could be like accounting standard
codification, so the researcher is on a variety of different topics, and in the intro section
I have a several pages set up where I talk in detail about the research component and
what you need to look at as far as preparing for it. But with the research, you'll see
there it talks about how we're looking, how we're setting it up, what needs to be done
as far as getting through that part. So definitely plan to look at that in your notes, so that
you can read it over and be comfortable doing research. I've also included that with your
software, so as you go through that, you can practice as well. So, again, you�ve got
7 of these, of the task based simulations. When you click on that, basically it opens
up a window, and you could have a couple of different tabs within it. Also, one of them
is a calculator. They do give you a calculator, an on-screen calculator, but it only does
basic functions...addition, subtraction, multiplication, division...it does keep a running tape now,
so if you want to go back and see, did I include that number or not, that is included in there
as well. But again, this is the format of the exam. It'll be exactly like the software
that I'm giving you. Also, go to the website AICPA dot O-R-G, and you'll see more information
on how to practice with, again, the functionality of the multiple choice, the functionality
of the software as far as the task based simulations, as far as also practicing with the research
question. So, again, realize what it's about. The main thing is watching the clock carefully
to make sure you do not run out of time. Alright? So very important, the most important thing
now is me teaching you the material so that you focus, you study, you do all the homework
2 to thr3ee times, and you too are going to get through this exam. Alright, study hard!
See you soon.