Becker Cpa Exam Review Business and Environmental Concepts (Bec)

BEC CPA Examination Guide

The Business Environs and Concepts (BEC) section of the CPA Exam reviews a CPA'due south role within the business surround, and covers topics relating to a variety of business areas, from operations to corporate governance. It's important for CPAs to understand the business organisation environment, whether they work internally within a company or externally for a public accounting business firm.

To help you get more comfortable with the BEC CPA Exam, we've put together everything you lot need to know about BEC, including the exam structure, content, scoring, and best practices.

Learn how you lot tin can laissez passer BEC in less than 3 weeks!

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Construction of BEC

BEC CPA Exam Format

The BEC section format is broken downward into the following:

Pre-Exam:

• Section 1: Welcome and Launch Code
• Section 2: Confidentiality and Section Information

Exam:

• Testlet one: 31 Multiple Choice Questions
• Testlet 2: 31 Multiple-Choice Questions
• Testlet 3: 2 Job-Based Simulations
• Testlet four: 2 Job-Based Simulations
• Testlet five: 3 Written Communication Tasks

BEC CPA Exam Questions

BEC has 2 types of questions within the 5 testlets:

Multiple Choice Questions – These are one judgement to paragraph length questions with four potential answers. Of the full 62 MCQs on the BEC Test, 12 are pretest questions and do not count toward a candidate's score.

Chore-Based Simulations – These are practical questions requiring candidates to type in answers, and may include a inquiry question, journal entries, ratio calculations, or cost accounting questions. Of the 4 task-based simulations, one is a pretest question and does not count toward a candidate's score.

Written Communication Tasks – Clearly and effectively communicating information is essential in the business environment, and these are questions that test a candidate'southward power to communicate through writing. Unlike task-based simulations, written communication tasks require candidates to requite a written response to a question; this might be in the grade of a memo directed at a specific audience. Of the iii written communication tasks, 1 is pretest.

Time Allotment

Each section of the pre-exam takes 5 minutes for a full of 10 minutes before the exam starts.

The actual BEC CPA Test is iv hours long with 1 15-infinitesimal break congenital in between the first and second chore-based simulation testlets. There are also two optional breaks, 1 after the first multiple choice testlet and one later on the 2d multiple choice testlet, although the timer does run during these breaks.

When taking the exam, candidates should go on track of the time in relation to how many questions they have completed and how many they must finish. A proficient way to find how to best allocate your time is to take a few exercise exams and make mental notes on when you demand to motility on from certain sections of the exam in order to stop each part in time.

Candidates do not demand to take the unabridged iv hours on the exam and are not penalized for finishing early.

Content

Like all four parts of the CPA exam, the content of the BEC Examination is unique and covers the business and industry side of the profession.

A High-Level Overview

CPA exam BEC questions are based on four content areas, listed below with related exam content percentages:

• Surface area I: Corporate Governance 17-27%
• Area 2: Economic Concepts and Analysis 17-27%
• Expanse Iii: Financial Direction eleven-21%
• Area 4: Information technology 15-25%
• Area Five: Operations Direction fifteen-25%

Inside these content areas, different skill levels are tested, which are listed below with their exam content allocation percentage:

• Level I: Remembering and Understanding fifteen-25%
• Level 2: Awarding 50-60%
• Level III: Assay 20-30%

Candidates should take a strong understanding of concepts and feel comfy applying them to a diverseness of business organization situations. Candidates will likely confront more than application and analysis inside the task-based simulation and written communication portions of the BEC Exam.

Department Details

To aid you lot better sympathise what specific topics volition be covered within each expanse of BEC, nosotros'll go over the specific content groups within each area.

Area I: Corporate Governance

1. Internal command frameworks
   • Purpose and objectives
   • Components and principles
2. Enterprise risk management (ERM) frameworks
   • Purpose and objectives
   • Components and objectives
3. Other regulatory frameworks and provisions

Area Two: Economic Concepts and Analysis

1. Economic business cycles
2. Market influences on business
3. Financial risk direction
   • Market, interest rate, currency, liquidity, credit, cost and other risks
   • Means for mitigating/controlling fiscal risks

Area 3 – Financial Management

1. Capital construction
2. Working uppercase
   • Fundamentals and fundamental metrics of working capital managements
   • Strategies for managing working capital letter
3. Fiscal valuation methods and decision models

Area Four – Information Technology

1. Data technology (Information technology) governance
   • Vision and strategy
   • Organisation
   • Take chances assessments
2. Role of it is business
3. Data security/availability
   • Protection of data
   • Logical and concrete access controls
   • System disruption/resolution
4. Processing integrity (input/processing/output controls)
5. Systems evolution of maintenance

Expanse V – Operations Direction

1. Financial and non-financial measures of functioning direction
2. Cost bookkeeping
   • Toll measurement concepts, methods and techniques
   • Variance analysis
3. Process management
   • Approaches, techniques, measures, benefits to process-bulldoze direction driven businesses
   • Management philosophies and techniques for functioning improvement
4. Planning techniques
   • Budgeting and analysis
   • Forecasting and projection

CPA Exam Scoring

In the BEC CPA Examination, l% of a candidate's score is derived from multiple choice questions, 35% is derived from job-based simulations, and xv% is derived from written communication tasks. An examination score of 75 or more than is required to pass.

Candidates should keep in listen that there are no penalties for wrong answers. A right answer gains points, no answer gets zero points and a wrong answer gets zero points. Therefore, it is always expert to guess at an reply as opposed to leaving it blank; if yous get information technology right, y'all'll receive points toward a passing score.

Multiple Choice Question Scoring

Each candidate is presented with a multiple choice testlet of 'medium' difficulty start. This difficulty level refers to the difficulty, on average, of the questions in the testlet. Some may be harder, some may be easier, but on average, they are of a medium difficulty.

If a candidate does well on the showtime testlet, the second testlet will, on boilerplate, be more hard. If a candidate does average or not well on the first testlet, the second testlet volition remain at 'medium' difficulty.

Difficult questions are worth more than than medium questions. A candidate who does well on the outset testlet merely struggles with the second testlet with more difficult questions is not penalized since correct answers on this testlet are worth more than. Go on in mind, it is still possible to pass the test if a candidate gets two medium testlets. If a candidate performs well on the second medium testlet, she or he can still laissez passer the exam provided a good score is achieved on the task-based simulations.

Task-Based Simulation Question Scoring

BEC CPA Exam simulations are pre-set and do not change in relation to a candidate's performance. However, candidates can receive partial credit on non-research based task-based simulations by answering part of the question correctly.

Written Communication Question Scoring

BEC CPA Examination written communication tasks are likewise pre-set and do not change in relation to a candidate's performance. Most written communication answers are scored by a reckoner grading program calibrated using human scorers. However, if a candidate'due south score is on the edge of passing, her written communication tasks volition be re-graded by human graders.

BEC CPA Exam Tips

Many of the concepts on BEC you'll encounter on other exams, and vice versa, only information technology does dig much more than into the business side of the profession. If y'all're looking to have BEC soon, bank check out these six tips to help you pass with flying colors.

Tip 1: Brush Up on Your Writing Skills – Since fifteen% of your score is direct related to the written communication tasks, you need to be able to write well. This ways right spelling, grammar, and punctuation, every bit well equally the power to set a business organisation tone and articulate a point. Spend some time on written communication tasks and have friends, family or co-workers wait through them and give you feedback.

Tip ii: Allocate Your Fourth dimension Based on Your Writing Skills – Some people can jot down essays equally chop-chop as they tin can retrieve, and some people similar to have a little more time. Consider what kind of writer you are and take some time to see how long it will accept you to answer three written communication tasks. Since they are at the end of the examination, you want to leave plenty of time to terminate them.

Tip 3: Take Practice Exams – If you want to get meliorate at written advice and job-based simulations, you demand to take practice exams. They'll assistance you ready yourself for business organisation-related questions and apply business concern concepts to sure situations. They'll also aid you go more than comfy with finishing task-based simulations and going right into written advice tasks.

Tip iv: Make Certain Your Report Materials are Up to Date – BEC is updated to reflect new standards within the manufacture, including new regulations created at the federal level. You should have learning materials that update with changes to the CPA Exam brought well-nigh by regulation or standard updates. Surgent'south study materials are updated to reflect whatever updates to the CPA Exam, saving yous the hassle of searching for upward to date study materials.

Tip 5: Use BEC As a Bookend Exam – BEC covers material from all other exams. To make the most of this, you can take BEC at the beginning and know some fabric going into the other exams, or you can have it last and study less since y'all'll have a grasp of a variety of BEC concepts presented on other exams.

Tip vi: Find Study Materials that Help Yous Report More Efficiently – Candidates are often told there is a sure 60 minutes threshold that must be met before an exam tin be passed. However, not everyone learns the same, and candidates often waste time trying to reach a certain number of study hours fifty-fifty if they're completely prepare to sit for the exam. To study more than efficiently, look for a CPA Review grade that is adaptive and tin help you efficiently learn hard topics. Surgent's learning materials characteristic A.S.A.P. Engineering science, which helps students pass in half the time, and ReadySCORE which helps candidates objectively know when they're ready to sit for the CPA Exam.

Cheque out our other popular CPA Exam resources!

• CPA Test Section Guides: Regulation (REG), Financial Bookkeeping and Reporting (FAR), Auditing (AUD)
• 7 CPA Exam Study Tips While Working Full-Time
• CPA Review Adaptive Technology Comparing: Compare Surgent against other CPA Review providers like Becker, Roger CPA Review, Wiley CPAExcel, and Gleim.

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