[slawry44]

Hey fellow ninjas,

This is my first post on the site, but look around quite frequently to see people stories about their past experiences with the exam. A little background on my CPA test experiences so far.

I first past BEC with a 79 on February 29, 2012, after that I took Reg and got a 74 🙁 such a let down. So I thought a little more studying and I should be smooth cruising to pass it the next time, wrong my 2nd Reg score dropped to a 63 this was very disappointing. At this stage I decided to pursue AUD instead and my first test resulted in a 73. I decided to retake AUD again on April 17, 2013 and got a 89 yippee!! Finally some good news. After that I decided to sign up for REG again on May 29th since it was the last day in the testing window. I ran into some personal problems and hadn’t looked at REG material since the second time I took it and got a 63 so I crammed real hard and felt like I did real well on all the multiple choice questions, but once I got to the SIMS was a little dumb founded since I have found that this has been my weakness in the past two tests because they use crazy formats and some of them just do not really make sense. So I believe the score release comes out June 7th (Friday) and am anxiously awaiting my results. I am trying to stay hopeful that I may have slid by but have a bad feeling I fell short a couple points. So when I found out my score Friday and I don’t pass my game plan is to take REG over on july 1st and knock it out. After that I need to pass Far by August 29th at the same time.

Is studying for FAR in 2 months doable? Since BEC expires for me on Sept 7th 2013. Do you guys think it is possible if I don’t pass REG this time around to pass it in the beginning of July most likely the 1st then take all of July and August to study for FAR and take it Aug 29th since this is the last day in that testing window and I need to take it then in hopes that my BEC score doesnt expire. I really don’t want my BEC score to expire and want to get this over with its been such a long journey so far. Then again passing FAR the first time around may be quite difficult. Especially since I work 40 hours a week on top of all this studying. If not my Becker study program expired and was thinking about purchasing the Ninja 10 point combo to supplement it and maybe the Yeager program or cpa excel too (any recommendations? I seem to struggle with SIMS a lot and need multiple SIM study sections).

Just wanted your guys thoughts if you think it’s doable or not. I am going to put the most effort possible to get this done. Any advice would be appreciated on what study material I should use and how to go about it. I really just want this process to be over with and move on from my state job and apply to a public accounting job.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. I was considering trying to find a local tutor, I am in Tallahassee, FL but dont know if there are any actual CPA tutors especially for REG. If anyone knows of any information on private tutors in that area it would really be helpful. Sorry for the long post. But please let me know if you think my game plans is doable and any suggestions would be great.

Regards,

Scott

[Anonymous]

I see so many who post asking hypothetical questions with more ifs than an excel worksheet. I would start studying for FAR immediately after your exam rather than waiting until 6/7 to see your score. That's a whole extra week! Regardless of whether you pass, plan to take FAR in mid/late July. If you don't end up passing REG, you'll easily have 4+ weeks to study and retake REG. Hopefully it wont' take that long to study for REG again? I'm assuming you won't need to sit through all the lectures again, rather you can focus on all the sections you struggled with while also reinforcing those you understand decently. Write out all the relevant mneumonics and lists and bullet points until your hand cramps up, then read these short, condensed notes/bullets once a day for at least 10 days until you have everything on them memorized. Focus here on the most commonly tested information and those things which you are having trouble remembering while you are going through MCQ's.

I Know if the books/lectures it seems like everything is important, but once you get into the MCQ's you'll see that there are certain concepts that are heavily tested and thus crucial for you to understand. Understand these and do your best on the rest.

[ti807910]

Ok, we both started the first quarter of 2012 and my first credit also expires August 2013 so I think we are mostly in the same boat. There is a lot of confusing rambling but I think you have two passed and waiting on a REG score?

To me, it sounds like you didn't maximize your test taking each quarter. If you take an exam on January 1st, you would still have two whole months to take another exam on February 28th. I've been trying to stay on a schedule like that throughout this process, taking as many as I can each quarter. 2 months for FAR is enough.

Most people at work suggest actually just taking the week before the exam off to cram. Yeah, it sucks to use vacation like that but you have to do what you have to do. Do the study approach suggested by Ninja if you don't want to take time off work. I believe you study in morning before work, study on your lunch break, and then study after work for a total of 5 hours a day. Also, get the audio to listen to in the car during commute. That might help too.

You can do this!

FAR: 72, 68, 73, 78 (passed)
REG: 61, 70, 73, 63, 78 (passed)
AUD: 65, 84 (passed)
BEC: 89 (passed)

NASBA gave Doby a passing score, Doby is freeee!!

[Author]

Replies