BEC-- Exam #2

Business Environment & Concepts.

That's what BEC stands for and in my mind it includes a little bit of everything else.  Lots of Cost Accounting, IT, Finance, Formulas, you name it.  Book size wise it's by far the smallest of the books, which makes it fabulously less intimidating, but rest assured this one can get you like no other.  

The ugly thing about this exam is that I started studying for it right after I started my new job, and I took the exam right after we moved into our new house, so while there was a lot of studying going on, there was also a lot of learning, paperwork, packing, moving, and the like.  My mind was not excited about BEC.

In fact, the original test date was the middle of August, and 3 weeks before that date, I had to push it out to October 1st, because I just wasn't ready (No testing in September).  Of course then September was filled with moving and all the little nuances that go along with that...man oh man, it was stressful.  I didn't get nearly the studying in that I wanted to the final 2 weeks before my test, but I probably put in about 120 hours and 1500 multiple choice questions.

Yeager does a really good job with BEC.  She explains cost accounting really well, which is nice since it seems that most people don't have a solid understanding of Cost Accounting.  Are there no good cost accounting teachers out there??  I think the lectures are only 17 hours total (a far cry from FAR...we'll get to that). 

I took this exam on a Saturday morning, my kids were with my parents again (surprise, surprise), but thats mostly because we closed on our house the prior monday, so it was easier to move without a 2 and 3 year old.  I don't remember much about the exam, i didn't think it went great, but i didn't feel horrible either, I can absolutely never tell if the exam is getting harder, which probably means it's staying the same?  One of the written communications I knew nothing about, so that kind of scared me, but I think they grade a lot on memo structure, so I focused on that.  The thing is that my parents were meeting me at the new house and the next day mike was running his marathon, so really I didn't have time to dwell on the test.  I was just happy it was over and I could take my 2 week scheduled break!

Thinking back, it was at this point in my 'exam journey' that i really did start to get a little worn out.  Laughable now, considering how intense i got during the next 9 months, but i really thought i was tough, and i thought i was intense.  I wasn't terrible though because amidst all the craziness that was my life at that moment I managed to pass.  Someone was on my side.

Halfway done!  Little did I know, it was about to get tough.