[Anonymous]

I’ve been visiting on this website for 12 months now, but never posted. I recently just passed the exam and wanted to share my background and study strategy…

Graduated in 2005 with B.S. in Economics. After graduation, I took additional undergrad classes to fulfill 150 hour requirement. I have no audit, no tax, no GL experience, just work as a business manager doing analysis. Started studying for CPA exam in October 2010. I studied approx 12 hours/week for each section while working full time and took no more than 1 exam in the same testing window. Still managed to have a normal life during this time. My strategy has been to move at a steady pace, covering a little bit of material each day, and devote my attention to only 1 section at a time. This has enabled me to pass each section on the 1st attempt. The biggest mistake I feel candidates have is a lack of strategy when it comes to studying. Secondly, they think they’re superman and can take 3 exams in a testing window. Sure, there are plenty of people out there who can pass 2, 3, or even all 4 exams in a testing window, but all I’m saying is that you have to evaluate your ability. I know that I’m not smart and don’t try to be, so I applied a slow, steady, but manageable approach to studying the material.

1/11/11 – BEC 80 (Yaeger HS)

4/18/11 – REG 87 (Yaeger HS + Yaeger CRAM + Wiley test bank)

8/29/11 – FAR 89 (Yaeger HS + Yaeger CRAM + Wiley test bank)

11/30/11 – AUD 85 (Yaeger HS + Wiley test bank + Gleim M/C)

[Anonymous]

Thank you for sharing your experience! Congratulations on passing!

[Anonymous]

I admire your discipline! You did amazing 🙂

That was my initial plan but it turned out that I have too many devils to entertain 😛

I should have finished by now.

[Anonymous]

@clemson

First off — great post and thank you for it. I'm glad you finally decided to come out of the closet (so to speak :P) and give us some insightful information to help out your fellow candidates such as myself.

My exam plan is the same as your's — I plan on taking only 1 exam per test window and hope to pass all of them in 2012. I've tentatively scheduled my exams according to my anticipated difficulty and also my work schedule — FAR at the end of January, AUD in April/May (short book should balance well with Feb-April busy season), REG in August (seems to me REG is relatively difficult for a lot of folks, so I should devote a lot of time to this during the summer when work is slower), and finally BEC in the last testing window (seems to be the easiest for most people and may be something I can study for despite the busy extension deadlines for work).

However, since I'm doing the same thing as you and spreading out the exams over a longer period, could you provide more details as how you were able to retain the information?

You say you only studied about 12 hours a week..did you study for 1-2 chapters and then take progress tests after every few chapters?

Mainly, I'd like to hear about your note/flashcard behavior. Did you take notes at all? If so, how did you take notes — read the book and summarize in your own words, take notes only on missed MCQ's? Please provide input.

I'm currently reading Jeff's FAR NINJA notes on the train commute every day. It's a great rehearsing tool — I just can't believe I waited 2 months before I was finally able to push myself to pulling the NINJA notes out of my backpack and forcing myself to read it on the commute.

[Author]

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