I have first hand knowledge of the test. I took it two months ago and let me start by saying it is not like any test you have taken before. That was not designed to scare you but to let you know this is a seriously thought provoking exam. The questions are worded in a way that if you dont know what they are asking for you will have a very difficult time deducing the correct answer. I'll start from the beginning.
The test is VERY VERY long. I took the first part in about 3 hours and the same for the second part. The first half seemed much more difficult than the second. By then end of the test I was seriously just wanting to be out of that room!
The questions seemed to be either really easy or really hard no real middle ground. I took all of the new education and I guess that helped somewhat but that is not the only factor in doing well on the exam. As you may have read the test is 165 questions with 15 of them not being scrored but used as a guage for possible future test questions. Of course you dont know which ones those are but you will proably be able to figure it out when the question makes your heade spin
Now for what you want to know!
1. Know USPAP -USPAP -USPAP you need to know the obscure stuff in the advisory opinions and the details in the standards. NOT THE CONCEPTS - the details. I Know dumb - but those are the questions.
2. Income problems - DCR, DCF, etc. Not a ton of hard core math questions. Mostly just story problems with multiple computations to get you to the end. If you know your 12c you should do fine. No they don't give you the formulas, but I was able to figure it out. The AQB says that the income approach is 15% of the exam I believe, and it is, but it is not all hard core income math.
3. Some definitions not a ton, lots of questions about PEGS, etc.
4. Cost approach - some depreciation stuff some calculations not that bad
5. Sales comparison - quite a bit- pay attention to the order of operations.
seemed to be quite a few questions invloving the order of operations when doing math -even the simple math- be careful
Study aids - I used all of the them and I hate to say this but none of them had questions that were worded like the exam - NONE
The ones I used:
Compucram
Learnappraising.com
13th Addition and the study guide
Henry Harrisons Guide to passing the General Exam - go to his website
Mckissock has a study class available and I took it.
Bottom line on the study aids they are a good tool but they are not quite there yet. Also do a search on this forum for "cg exam" you can gleen a ton of knowlegde from other people who have taken it. Good Luck
I have a study guide of about 20 questions that I made up that are a lot like the ones you will see on the exam give me your email address and I will send it to you. I have no use for it anymore.:laugh:
