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Lesson 76
From: Joe
(a) – SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE FOR FAR WILL BE AVAILABLE VERY SOON. As I announced in my previous email, to help us cover the cost of operating this website, in the next few days, we are going to make available a subscription service for the content that we think you need in order to pass the exam. I believe our 2,100 free questions plus our new subscription content will make this the PERFECT CPA review program. We are rolling out FAR first as we work diligently on getting the other three parts ready.
For FAR, we have created over 620 slides that you can view over the Internet that tells you exactly what we believe you need to know—this material covers the basics and gets you ready to make 75 and pass that exam.
For FAR, a subscription will be $15 per month or $30 for three months. What else can you possibly get for $15 per month? That’s 50 cents per day to get over 620 slides explaining the topics covered in the FAR part of the CPA Exam. And they are written by an educator—to help make sure you actually do understand how to answer the questions that you will face.
Of course, our 2,100 free questions will always stay free. If you are interested in subscribing for FAR, watch your email—we will send out information in a very few days that will tell you exactly what you need to know to sign up.
(b) – Last December, I posted a daily study tip on our Facebook page (search for “CPAreviewforFREE”) for over a month. I’m going to do that again for the next several weeks (although I’m not sure I can make it every day because of business travel—but I’ll try to get most days). Just a quick study tip to start off your day. Please feel free to become one of our fans to get these delivered to your wall automatically.
(c) – I’ll be in San Francisco next Tuesday morning for a meeting with the CPA Examiners who will be telling us all about the changes that will take place with the CPA Exam starting in 2011. I’ll keep you informed of anything that I learn of interest.
(d) – A week or two ago, we crossed 14 million page views here at www.CPAreviewforFREE and also had the busiest week in our entire history. The number of visitors that week was 6.4 percent higher than in any previous week of our existence. Thanks for spreading the word about www.CPAreviewforFREE.com. We hope to hit 20,000,000 page views by the end of 2010 and, with your help, we can make it!!!
(e) – Always nice to get notes from the folks who use our site.
From JC: “I just wanted to thank you for setting up this wonderful resource. It has been my primary source used to study for the CPA exam. So far I have taken 3 out of the 4 sections (Audit, BEC, and REG) and have passed them all on the first try. This website has been an invaluable tool. You really cannot be commended enough for setting up this CPA study aid.”
From LL: “I thank God for you and your site. I just found out this afternoon that I passed REG (1st try). I also passed BEC and AUD on my first try back in late February and late April. I'm now studying for FAR. I used XX books and supplemented them with XX lectures and your site. As part of the preparation of each exam, I worked through every single question on CPAreviewforFREE. Similar to some of the earlier feedback you received, I really liked the quality of your MCQs and explanations. In doing your MCQs, I felt more confident about my ability to learn and retain the information. Your regular emails also provide me the needed ongoing inspiration. Thank you!”
From CK: “This is just to pass my sincere gratitude for the great CPA review questions that you have provided for free on the website. I just received the results for my final CPA exam which I took at the end of last month and I passed it. It was AUD and I got an 86 on it. I used your questions for all the four parts. The questions are great at re-enforcing concepts. I am going to unsubscribe soon but I wanted to say THANK YOU VERY MUCH before I leave. I have encouraged a lot of my friends who want to take the CPA exam to use the questions as well. God bless you in a very special way.”
(1) – I was on vacation a few weeks ago. To pass the time in an airport, I was reading a novel. One of the characters was really into exercise and she made a statement: “I like to push myself until I’m absolutely exhausted.”
This got me to thinking about how hard we really do push ourselves each day. Oh yeah, we all talk about being exhausted but are we really? Or, are we just whining? I’m not a big believer in pushing yourself to absolute exhaustion because you have to be able to get up and do it again the next day. However, when you are studying for the CPA Exam, how hard do you really push yourself?
If you were a character in a book talking about studying for the CPA Exam, which line would be you?
--I like to push myself until I get bored.
--I like to push myself until I can think of something more interesting to do.
--I like to push myself until I get sleepy.
--I like to push myself until I can think of any excuse to quit.
Although these are probably pretty common goals, they are hardly the road to success. How much DO you push yourself to accomplish and how much SHOULD you push yourself to accomplish?
One of my problems is that if I say “I’m going to push myself until I’m absolutely exhausted,” I’m probably going to feel absolutely exhausted in about two minutes. The mind loves to play games; the mind loves to play tricks: “I’m tired; I’m bored; I’m absolutely exhausted; I’m starving to death; I don’t want to work.”
So, I prefer to set time goals for myself. For example, I might say: I’m going to study 50 minutes and then take a 10 minute break and then work for another 50 minutes. That is a very objective goal. I can prove whether I did it or not. I place my watch next to my computer. I write down when I start and when I stop and I have evidence (sounds like an auditor) of whether I put in the time. If this were a novel, maybe my character could say: “I like to push myself until I have put in the amount of time that I established as my goal.”
What I usually find is that when I do manage to hit that final time line, then I love to try to push myself for 15 more minutes. I don’t want to exhaust myself because I really do need to study again tomorrow but I want to prove that I can push myself beyond my own expectations.
First, I write down my time goals: 50 minutes, 10-minute break, 50 more minutes. When I get to the end of that stretch, I always ask: “Can’t I do just another 15 minutes—I might be able to add another point or two by answering questions for 15 more minutes.” And, yeah, when you get there, most people really are able to push themselves beyond their goal and add that extra 15 minutes. Somehow the time you put in AFTER you have reached your goal really feels worthwhile. You feel like you are stretching yourself and you are going to be a stronger person as a result.
(2) – As I have mentioned before, my wife and I went to Paris for our vacation. People have asked me what I enjoyed seeing the most. The answer is easy: the Winged Victory at the Louvre.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winged_Victory_of_Samothrace
I love the name.
I love the power.
I love the mystery.
As you stand there in front of that statue, you really feel the strength. Somehow the sculptor captured the power and strength – you understand the majesty of the victory that this character is announcing to the world.
No one knows who created this work but it is hard to look at it without wanting that same feeling: look at what I have been able to accomplish!!!
(3) – If you want to unsubscribe from getting these weekly email lessons, just scroll to the bottom of this lesson and you’ll find an unsubscribe button. Easy as that. Click on it and your name will be removed from our list.
If you have friends who want to receive these free lessons, they can go to www.CPAreviewforFREE.com and register. When they do that, there is a box that asks if they want additional information about the CPA Exam. Make sure that box is checked because that “additional information” is our weekly email lessons.
(4) – I was in a hotel a few days ago in North Carolina having breakfast and several young people walked through the hotel. They apparently were on some type of work trip with their church (which was from Illinois). One of the young people wore a t-shirt with the question on the back: What’s Your Excuse?
I always wonder about what excuses I am using to keep myself from accomplishing things those that I want to do.
--It is easy to see the excuses that other people use.
--It is much more difficult to see the excuses that you use to hold yourself back.
So, if you have a really close friend, just ask them: What excuses do you hear me using that might be keeping me from being as successful as I would like? Do I have a tendency to put up my own personal road blocks that keep me from getting to where I want to be?
People always tell me that they know their own weaknesses, that they are able to assess themselves. I am not sure that is always true. I think it is impossible to see yourself without some type of filter – you may be too hard on yourself or you may be too easy on yourself. But I’m not sure anyone is a perfect judge of themselves.
You have to assure the friend that you will not get upset and that you really only want one piece of information (“you don’t have to tell me about all of my weaknesses”). You want to know what excuses you seem to fall back on. What excuses automatically pop out of your mouth? Excuses can almost become a speech habit that spill out to give you a reason not to move forward.
Find out—ask someone. Regardless of what they tell you, work hard (for a week or two) to avoid that excuse completely. You may well start to see a change in how you approach tasks without your built-in excuse. If you don’t have that road block standing in your way, you may well be surprised by how much you find that you really are able to accomplish.
(5) – PRACTICE TIME – Here are four more free questions to give you more chances to add points—which is really the name of this game.
FAR
The City of Linton has a general fund that reports $500,000 in assets and $200,000 in liabilities. Thus, the balance sheet for this fund shows a fund balance of $300,000 which is divided into five different categories. Which of the following is not one of those five fund balance categories?
A. Fund balance—nonspendable
B. Fund balance—committed
C. Fund balance—assigned
D. Fund balance—unrestricted
Answer is D.
The five fund balance categories are (1) fund balance-nonspendable -- reflects assets such as supplies that cannot be spent and money that has been restricted by an outside party so that it cannot be spent, (2) fund-balance restricted -- reflects money that has been restricted by an outside party for a particular purpose, (3) fund-balance committed -- reflects assets that have been designated for a specific purpose by the highest level of decision-making authority inside of the government, (4) fund-balance assigned -- reflect assets that have been designated for a specific purpose by officials within the government but not at the highest level of decision-making authority, and (5) fund-balance unassigned -- reflects all of the remaining net assets of the fund. “Unrestricted” is a term that is more often used in reporting not-for-profit organizations than it is in governmental accounting.
Auditing
A CPA has been engaged to issue a report of the findings coming from the performance of specific agreed-upon procedures. Which of the following is not true?
A. The CPA must be independent.
B. The CPA and specified parties must have agreed on criteria to be used.
C. The subject matter can be reasonably measured.
D. The report will be issued to the public in general.
Answer is D.
In these types of engagements, it is important that all relevant parties have a clear understanding of what is being done and how evaluations are being made. It is also important that the CPA has some way to make an evaluation that is not pure guesswork. The assumption is that the general public could not possibly be aware of the understanding that exists between the parties involved and, therefore, might be mislead in some way by the nature of the report. They do not possess an adequate understanding. These engagements should be clearly defined by all parties involved but, then, only those parties should receive a copy of the CPA’s report.
BEC
What is the GDP deflator?
A. An index for measuring deflation in a specific industry.
B. A method for measuring price changes in all final goods and services produced by an economy.
C. A method of measuring price changes in general markets in specific locations like New York City or the state of Wisconsin.
D. A means of measuring price changes for the goods that are obtained by consumers.
Answer is B.
According to Wikipedia, “in economics, the GDP deflator (implicit price deflator for GDP) is a measure of the level of prices of all new, domestically produced, final goods and services in an economy.”
Regulation
A company is going through bankruptcy liquidation and has the following four debts (each of which is below any maximum allowed amount): (1) - $10,000 owed to employees for working the two weeks before an order for relief was issued, (2) - $13,000 in government claims for unpaid taxes, (3) - $15,000 in administrative expenses, and (4) - $1,000 for a deposit made by a customer where the product was never delivered. Assuming that adequate money is available, in what order will these claims be paid?
A. 2, 1, 4, 3
B. 1, 3, 2, 4
C. 3, 1, 4, 2
D. 4, 2, 1, 3
Answer is C
Federal bankruptcy laws have been created to organize bankruptcies, especially when liquidation occurs, so that all parties are treated fairly. In addition, everyone should be able to go into the liquidation with some idea as to the chance of receiving payment. Certain unsecured liabilities are deemed to have priority and they are paid before other unsecured liabilities. Furthermore, these liabilities with priority are paid in a legally specified order. For these four debts, that order would be: administrative expenses, debts to employees incurred within the 180 days prior to the filing of a petition for bankruptcy (up to a maximum that is currently $10,950 per individual—any additional amount is a completely unsecured claim), deposits made by customers (up to a maximum that is currently $2,425 per claim—any additional amount is a completely unsecured claim, and government claims for unpaid taxes.
I know it is really hot throughout much of the country right now. So, stay inside and study and add points and get that CPA Exam passed.
Joe Hoyle
Co-Founder
CPA Review for FREE
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