-insiyah24 and all fellow soon to be CPA's:
Here is my two cents about studying for the tests. To give you some background info, I graduated in 2004 with a 2.95 GPA and kept putting this darn exam off till 2012. I worked in a small firm for 3 years, left to be a controller for 3.5 years (felt seriously under qualified for that job), came back to public accounting (working for my older-CPA-sister) and hence my serious attempts at the CPA exam.
Most of these study guides are about the same. They all get their material from previously released CPA questions so to use so many different guides, I think, can be confusing and overwhelming. I only used Becker and passed FAR, BEC & REG on my first try with scores of 84-88. In my opinion, BEC multiple questions were the hardest ones, written comunication was not bad at all (becker's topics were much much harder). Also, I really didn't get the feeling that the exam was trying to be tricky. They only test on the basic concepts and on the surface of the subject.
Which brings me to my study tip handed down from old classmates and sister…They all told me to go through the Becker material 3 TIMES. As mundane and AWFUL as this sounds, it really helped glue the material in my brain. First, I watched the video's and did the highlighting, note taking, etc for each section, then went back and read each section and did the homework & simulations (made many mistakes) and continued on to the next chapter till I reached the end; then I rinsed and repeated (except watching the vidoe's…frankly, if I hear Tim Gearty say “again” once more, I will shoot myself!)
The 3rd time, I only read/glanced at the highlighted material and worked the homework questions I had gotten wrong before and then did the Final exam test. I got many of those wrong too but used the answer explanations to grasp and understand the concepts.
I hope this helps. There is no easy way to study for this exam and as you know this is not an exam you can just “wing.”
I hope this will be helpful….Good luck to all of you!
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