[Anonymous]

I am posting this in order to help those who are considering postponing their exam because they don’t feel like they’ve studied enough or simply won’t have enough time to study before their exam date. I DO NOT recommend this approach – as it creates a lot of stress in your life. I am simply giving an example of what is possible!

General note:

For all 4 exams, I used Becker. I found the lectures to be rather ineffective as so much of their time was spent listening to jokes or mindlessly repetitive statements. However, if you have the time – watch them. If you don’t, then just use their in-software textbook feature and transfer all of the highlighting and notes into your book. This will help you focus on what is most important.

REG – 7/15/2011

This was my first exam and I had not started working yet, so I was pretty fresh. I budgeted 2 weeks, but the weekend in between I ended up going to the Dave Matthews Band caravan in Chicago (I planned on studying in the mornings, but it didn’t work out). So for REG – my total study time was a little over a week. I read through the entire book, section at a time, then did questions. I tried doing them all, but I skipped most of the supplemental ones. I worked all of the simulations but did not venture into the practice exams.

Here was my approximate schedule:

M – Topic 1 and 2

T – Topic 3 and 4

W – Topic 5 and 6

Th – Topic 7

F-Su – DMB concert

M – Review Topic 1 and 2

T – Review Topic 3 and 4

W – Review Topic 5 and 6

T – Review Topic 7 and final review

F – Exam

After taking REG, I was sure I failed, without a doubt – found out 2 months later that I passed with an 82.

BEC – 7/26/2011

After I took REG on Friday, I allowed myself the weekend to relax, getting into BEC on Monday. I budgeted just over a week for BEC because it was a shorter section and relatively simple. I was still not working at this point. I read the book, did approx. 85% of the questions and reviewed the writing examples. I realized the MCQ get increasingly difficult, so I tried to focus on the last half of the questions more than the first half.

Approx. Schedule:

M – Topic 1

T – Topic 2

W – Topic 3

Th – Topic 4

F – Topic 5

S – Review Topic 1-2

Su – Review Topic 3-4

M – Review Topic 5 and final Review

T – Exam

I was fairly confident I passed this one. The MCQ were tricky at times, but the writing was very, very simple. Got an 85.

AUD – 10/1/2011

I started working (in Audit a Big 4 firm) on 10/3/2011, so I squeezed this one in right before. I had planned to study for 2 weeks on this exam, but unfortunately, was only able to get a week in. As before, I had read the book, and completed most of the questions (about 50% of the supplementary ones), and reviewed the simulations.

Approx. Schedule:

M – Topic 1

T – Topic 2 and 3

W – Topic 4

Th – Topic 5

F – Review all topics

S – Exam

MCQs were pretty easy I thought, the simulations were rather difficult for me though. I wasn’t too confident after taking this one, but still thought it was passable. Got an 88.

FAR – 11/22/2011

FAR is definitely not the exam to take last, especially when working at a CPA firm. I had budgeted over a month to study for FAR – but found it too difficult to get home at 8:30 (Chicago traffic is terrible), and study for an hour before going to bed. I would have studied in the morning, but getting up at 5:45 to leave before 7:00 did not leave much time either. I would attempt to study on weekends, but was usually drained so I just kept putting it off. For FAR, read the whole book, did 27% of the MCQs (per to Becker software performance summary), and reviewed the simulations for each topic.

Study schedule:

S – Topics 2, 4

Su – Topics 3, 5, 6, 7

M – Topics 1, 8, 9

T – Reviewed in morning, exam in afternoon

Totally thought I failed – completely guessed on 2 simulations, had no idea what I was doing on another and pretty unsure about the rest. The MCQs weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be. I figured there was no way I could pass after 3.5 days of studying. Got an 80.

In addition to Becker, I used Jeff’s CPA Ninja guides for AUD and FAR. I read them the morning of the exam. The AUD one helped I thought, the FAR one was so-so. I coupled these with reading the Becker review notes the morning of the exam, as well.

So although this was a terrible way to go about studying for the CPA exam, it proves that it is possible to expedite the studying process. These exams can be passed with <1 week of studying. So as long as you have a few days – do not postpone the exam – just bust your a**!