[Anonymous]

I know this is the question that everyone asks and the answer is it depends on the person, but I thought a little advice would be nice…

I got my undergrad in 2014 and went immediately into my MAcc degree. I just finished this week and I’m looking to start studying ASAP (I’d like to have two sections, possibly even 3 passed before Thanksgiving). Not to toot my own horn, but I’m a bright student, graduating with honors and a high GPA in undergrad from a great business program, and a 4.0 in my graduate coursework from a not quite so hard MAcc program. However, my only work experience is 2 years in industry from a medium-sized closely held corporation.

My graduate program partnered with Gleim, so I have the 2014 FAR book, 2015 BEC, and 2016 REG and AUD books. I also have the online MCQ for REG and AUD, but my online access expired for FAR and BEC. In order to get my online access back and updated books, it’d be $230 total for both. However, using what I have means I would do complete self-study and would have no practice simulation questions.

On the other hand, I can purchase the full premium review at a discount for only $655 (I say only because it retails for $1400, but that’s still a lot of money for a young adult whose husband is a full time student). This comes with online lectures, videos, extra MCQ, access til you pass, practice simulation questions, among other things. I’m pretty good at learning on my own, but I’m still wondering if some of this would be helpful to me.

Any advice???

[Anonymous]

1. Do you tend to retain info from a class or do you memorize/dump it after an exam?
2. Do you have your textbooks from school?

What you learned in school is much more detailed than what you see on the exams, so if you can manage that, you're in really good shape. Also not much has changed in FAR (I used an old Gleim this past May to take and passed) and the AUD changes are minimal. I kept my books and found Wiley helpful for getting a sense of the material, but I used a lot of school notes to review the nitty gritty.

[Anonymous]

That's some good information. I don't think I have my Audit textbook but other than that I have my other ones from undergrad. I didn't think having a two year old Gleim book would be that big of a deal, but of course Gleim told me otherwise.

Is there a good huge test bank I can buy for a good price? I think I probably learn best from doing practice questions, but I don't have any from Gleim anymore for FAR and BEC and I've already done quite a few of them for AUD for one of my classes. I've looked briefly and it seems a lot of the time in order to get a good size test bank you have to buy a whole package.

[Anonymous]

I haven't personally used it, but the MCQs offered by the guy who started this site – NINJA MCQs – are $47 per exam for 3 months' access and the reviews I've heard are pretty good.

With an offer of full Gleim for $655, though, that's going to be hard to beat. Yes, $655 is a lot of money; however, review materials aren't cheap, unfortunately. 😐 If you end up buying an update book or other materials for the 2 outdated books you have, and new MCQs for all of them you'll end up paying close to that before it's all said and done, so maybe getting the $655 package and not having to worry about timing would be a better plan. I used Wiley books (about $40 each when I bought them) and Wiley test bank (at the time $300 for a year of full access IIRC), but that would still have been $420 for just books and MCQs, and those prices have gone up now.

If you're really just looking for practice questions, I would suggest looking into the NINJA MCQs. Even though I haven't used them, I've heard enough good things to figure they're worth checking out. However, if you end up wanting more materials than just MCQs, then your option for the discounted Gleim package may be the cheapest offer you'll get.

[Anonymous]

Allie530,

*If* you have good study habits, I think choice of review course is mostly a question of cost. And cost is almost never an indicator of quality, despite what most consumers want to believe.

[Anonymous]

Pick the one with the most entertaining forum.

[Author]

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