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Hello everyone,
I wanted to tell you my story along with provide you with a few suggestions that I felt helped me through this process.
First, let me start off by saying that I don’t view myself as being an incredibly intelligent person. All through high school and college I received average grades. I received my degree in finance almost 8 years ago and the past 5 to 6 years I have been taking courses to meet the CPA requirements. Starting in mid May of this year I began studying for the CPA exam using Becker. My plan was to have all 4 parts done by mid November, because I was expecting the birth of my daughter around this time. I was able to successfully pass all 4 parts in a 6 month period while working a very demanding job in public accounting and having a pregnant wife. I did not supplement Becker with anything and I tried to follow Becker’s schedule as best as possible. Basically I found the following to be most helpful for me.
1. Try not to spend more than 4 to 7 weeks on each section. Obviously everyone’s situation is different, but I personally felt that cramming the material in a short amount of time was very effective.
2. Set a good schedule. For me I would wake up every morning at 5:30 and study until 8:00 on the weekdays. During the weekend I would wake up at 6:00 and try to study until 11 or 12. My goal each week was to get 20 hours of studying. By studying in the morning I was able to enjoy my day and not worry about studying at night.
3. My approach with Becker was to first watch the lecture then immediately jump into the homework. I wouldn’t even read or review the text before I started the homework. Once I finished the questions for the entire chapter I would go back and read the chapter. I found this helpful because I was able to really focus on the topics that were heavily discussed in the multiple choice questions. Plus I became familiar with the topics by doing the multiple choice questions, which made it easier to comprehend the reading.
4. Know the key terms. I found with a lot of my questions I could chose an answer based solely on key terms that were used in the becker multiple choice questions.
5. Finally, don’t let this exam consume your life. I personally felt like I was not able to study if I knew I was missing an important event. So instead of not having a social life I would plan accordingly by waking up earlier and getting things done beforehand. By doing this I was basically able to still travel and have a social life.
Please keep in mind that not everyone has the same circumstances at home that I did, but I felt these few things really helped me pass all 4 parts.
In closing I would like to thank Jeff and Another71 for all your support and tips. I feel really bad that I reaped so many benefits from this web-site without contributing a dime to Jeff. I am not sure how I can repay you Jeff? I was even thinking about setting up a NINJA scholarship in my name where I pay for a future candidate’s ninja notes…
And a Baba Booey to all…
FAR - 90
AUD - 82
REG - 93
BEC - 80
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