[spade13]

I haven’t taken any exams yet. I just read an Audit college textbook the last three weeks. Picked 100 random questions from girlfriend’s old Whiley book and got 81 correct but I really took my time thinking before answering lol. Not sure what study program to get. I have 10 more college credits to complete but can’t start until spring. In my state I can start exams within 160 days of credit completion. I figure this will give me plenty of time to study AUD. I struggled with this class in school but it makes sense now for some reason.

Anyways…

Right now I’m reading rules and conduct and legal liability, one of the two chapters I skipped. Is this tested heavily on the exam? Or am I wasting time? I’m really bored with it!!!

[Anonymous]

Reading a college textbook can be a great way to learn, if you can stomach them. Given that you seem to learn well from reading, I would advise a curriculum based on that rather than based on lectures. The only one that I'm aware of that's textbook-based is Wiley, though I'm half-tempted to say you can get the Gleim books and test bank without lectures, so they may be an option as well. I learn well from reading, so used Wiley myself and it was awesome. Basically you get a textbook for each exam, read through it as you did with the Audit book, and then take the exam.

To verify your schedule though… You have 10 credits to complete, but can't start till spring; you can start your exams 160 days before you finish your credits. Do you mean you will be completing the 10 credits in the spring semester which is starting in the next couple/few weeks? If so, then they'll be completed within 160 days, so when would you be planning to start your CPA exams? If you meant for some reason that it'd be spring of the 15-16 school year before you do your last 10 credits, then I assume that would mean it would be at least September before you start your exams, which is way too long to study for AUD if you started now; however, if you could theoretically test any time, then I'd see if you could get your paperwork processed in time to test the end of this month or start of next before the semester gets heavily underway, given that you're already scoring pretty well. No need to study for a long time if you're understanding well in a short time.

Edited cause I realized I didn't answer your actual question. 🙂 Each exam varies widely, so if you've checked the official breakdown to how much that's tested, that's probably your best bet. Beyond that, I might have twice as many questions on it as you do, but either one of us would get in trouble for saying exactly how many. 😐

[spade13]

Thank you for the reply. I like the textbooks because it gives real world examples of issues and internet assignments. This where it all sinks in for me. I need to have documentation proving I will have my 225 qtr credits completed within 160 days after starting the exams. That's my understanding of it anyway. I can't register for classes for about two months and the classes will start in April and finish in june. I'm hoping the workload of school won't make the exam difficult. I'd hate to fail it and then forget material while I focus on school.

I was thinking Whiley too. Everything seems to be online now. So does anybody know if the books are just study material and questions are online test bank you register with the book? I'd like to get used books since I'm on a budget. The one I used was 2009 and had all the questions in the book with answer keys.

[Anonymous]

I used the 2013 books and they were like you say with the 2009 book; using the Look Inside feature on Amazon for the 2015, it looks very similar to my 2013: https://www.amazon.com/Wiley-CPAexcel-Review-Study-January/dp/1118917669/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1420246980&sr=8-3&keywords=wiley+cpa So I would say that the 2015 is probably similar to the 2009 too in that regard.

As far as using used books, towards the end of the year the 2015 books will be a little cheaper, but for now the 2013 and 2014 books are cheap(ish) and for most exams should be mostly good enough. Just read around to get the news on changes in the exams to know which ones and what content to watch for changes in. (For example, when I took AUD, one chapter of material had changed drastically…so, a prior year book would have been outdated for that one chapter, but if you know that, you can supplement for the material online.) REG has some changes every year, but you could probably pass with an old book and just reviewing a couple numbers that changed; the others seem to change more rarely, but knowing which ones and what changed is useful. I'm not up-to-date on it, but want to say FAR and some changes recently, perhaps?

Test bank is optional to be fully honest. The book has LOTS of problems in it so should be self-sufficient. The test bank will more closely emulate the test experience, but the problems are the same both places, if not harder (and thus more useful) in the book. So, on a budget, you could skip the test bank. I was somewhat on a budget and did get the test bank, but I have a hard time paying attention with the book questions and not “accidentally” seeing the answer for #13 while checking the answer for #12. 😛 For someone with better self-control, the book questions would be sufficient.

[jeff]

The ninja books are designed so that you don't need lectures and they only include what's exam-relevant.

Free demo downloads: https://www.another71.com/cpa-exam-study-plan/

[Author]

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