Just thought to add my experience with Reg test.
I also passed the other three sections at first try. Reg is the last section I took and I spent two months preparing for the exam.
Reg is a very hard exam especially for me who has no tax background and I did not even take any tax classes except some advanced class to graduate. I knew that Reg would be a hard test for me, so I bought extra study material besides Becker. I also used Wiley books and Wiley testbank CD.
For the other three sections, I spent 5 weeks for each section, but for reg, I spent whole 8 weeks studying day and night. Every day I probably spent more than 8 hours studying. For the one week before the exam, I did nothing, just study and one day I could study 15 hours a day. I did more than 10 times the multiple choice questions for each chapter and three times the multiple choice questions on the wiley book. I spent a lot of time doing the simulation questions on the wiley books. Even though none of the simulation questions are similar on the real exam for me, at least I grasped the fundamental knowledge of the material and be able to use the knowledge to do the real simulation in the exam.
To write notes is very important to pass this exam. For each chapter, I wrote notes . for every MC questions, when I made a mistake, there are explanations for it and I wrote it down in my notebook. I review the notebook whenever I have time. The notes you wrote down are the tricky questions that can easily fool us, so review it often will help us memorize the rules and why we made the mistake in the first place.
All the materials on the book are equally important to pass the exam. Some people may say tax is the focus, but every little detail of the law part are also important. Just spend as much time as possible in preparing for the exam, you can do it.
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