@Lentil Counter The first time through I used Wiley CPAexcel and their test bank only. I didn't study sims because I hated them. When I sat for the exam, there were several questions that I thought to myself, “If only I had reviewed that yesterday, I would know the answer.” Just because something is simple and you remember it all the time is no reason to not write it down because you will forget it when you need it! I didn't study at all for a month after my exam (November 14th) and began studying again December 13th. I used Ninja MCQ only.
I went through sets of 10 of all new questions. Any I got wrong or didn't fully understand, I wrote down. The definitions and explanations at the bottom of each mcq are extremely helpful. I highly suggest utilizing that because it clarified many questions I had. Once I got through all of the questions, I did sets of 10 of questions I got wrong last time. When I started the MCQs, I was averaging around 60-65%. I was 200 questions shy of hitting review stage when I sat for the exam. Like I said, I was averaging 70% and trending 84%, something like that. I also worked on the sims. I hated sims but I knew I needed to work them to understand how they operate. I worked through probably 30 or so sims, mainly 4 or 5 a day for the last couple weeks, but I wasn't doing them every day.
Then, a couple days before I sat for the exam, I thought of anything important that often tripped me up. For me, this was the different types of depreciation, LCM and LCNRV, cost and part method journal entries for treasury, stock, etc. I wrote out a 2 page (1-page front and back) cheat sheet that contained all the important information with examples. I read over this a couple times the day before my exam and before I walked into Prometric that morning. This helped get the FAR juices rolling and my mind in the right place. When I got into the center, I used the time at the beginning of the exam to write down anything I could think of such as cash to accrual and accrual to cash equations and other information on my cheat sheet. Try to give yourself enough times for the SIMS. I averaged 30 minutes on the first two testlets and 45 on the third testlet because the questions were extremely long. I utilized all of my time for the SIMs because I knew I would need them and I suggest you do the same because I don't think anyone believes the sims are ever a walk in the park.
The biggest thing I noticed between my first and second attempt is I truly began to understand the content the second time around. I forced myself to learn the material and connections were being made between different topics. I personally believe this is so vital because if you have a healthy foundation of understanding the material, you can apply your knowledge to any question they throw at you.
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