[abby10]

Hi everyone,

I am posting this more to just have someone or someplace to talk about this, but if anyone has any advice or suggestions, I would appreciate that as well. I am scheduled to take FAR Friday, Dec 1st, which is about a week away, and I don’t feel prepared for it at all. I am enrolled in Becker and took the live class for it and after that I have studied for about a month, but I don’t feel like I have done enough multiple choice questions or covered some topics enough. I was originally scheduled to take it in October, but that did not work out because I got so busy during the fall tax busy season that I did not have time to study so I rescheduled. Since I already rescheduled once, I really don’t want to again, so I just decided I would go ahead and take it and see what it is like then maybe next time I will have a better idea of it and can be more prepared. At this point, I am just trying to at least get a decent score so it is not too embarrassing, I really don’t expect to pass. I have already failed REG, made a 69, and really did study hard for it. On FAR, I feel like I am struggling most with bonds, contingencies, premiums & warranties, foreign currencies, basically the last sections of the FAR book I feel like I have just not had enough time with that material. There is just so much to FAR that I feel like once I learn something and do understand it, it is easy to forget it because I am trying to learn and remember so much.

Why I am in this situation in the first place:
This past year has been fairly stressful and has made me wonder if accounting is even right for me even though I love the field. Accounting was a career change for me, I used to work in a support role in wealth management administrating customer accounts and handling the trading requests. My bachelor’s degree is in journalism. To make a long story short (or try to), I was considering a career change and wanted to go into accounting because I had worked with some of my firm’s client’s accountants on projects for them and really grew to respect the accountants and their work. I went back to school for a master’s degree in accounting, which I think was my first mistake, looking back, I think another bachelor’s would have made more sense. I don’t feel like there were enough fundamental, leveling courses in my master’s program to really prepare me for the advanced classes and I feel like I just missed a lot of the fundamental information I should have learned and I struggled in the program (ended up with 3.42 GPA). I just graduated back in May of this year. I started off as a tax staff at my firm and have been there about 3 years, I got transitioned this year to a more administrative, project coordinator type of roll because I did not make senior (two other people were let go this year for performance issues/not listening to management) so I feel fortunate to still have a job. I agree with management on my transition because I know I was struggling to handle the advanced work and at least I still do get to do some tax work in my current role. I really do like my firm and my co-workers and management likes me and they love the administrative work I can do and so for now I have decided to just accept the role and keep studying for the CPA exam and trying to improve my accounting and tax skills. I love accounting and want to stay in it, but do sometimes feel less accomplished compared to my co-workers because they have been able to move up. I don’t want to stay in admin forever and would like to move up someday too. All of these things have just made it so hard to focus on the CPA exam and preparing for it and now I have one week to review the last part of the book and try to remember everything I’ve already been over. I do have next week off of work on vacation, so that will likely help a little. If anyone has any tips, I would appreciate it and thanks for listening 🙂

[jenpen]

From everything you’ve said, I’d bet you’re more prepared than you think. I’d say to definitely take it as scheduled next week. Take the week for review and hammer MCQs. That will help reinforce the information you’ve covered. Make sure you know JEs for simulations. Have a good grasp on government and NFP. Beef up on bonds for sure and understand them. I think Roger has a video on YouTube, but either way there should be some out there to help.

For what it’s worth, accounting was a career change for me also. I worked in the legal field until I got my MBA with an accounting concentration to be eligible for the CPA. My firm just hired a girl who finished her accounting degree, and she makes me feel good about where I started. I felt behind the curve also not having done the traditional route, but I’ve picked up a lot at work.

Good luck! Keep pushing on! 😊

AUD - 56 - 68 - 61 - 9/8/16
REG - 75
FAR - 7/15/16
BEC - TBD

Wiley CPAexcel and NINJA 10 Point Combo

[abby10]

Jennifer, thanks so much for your comments. I'm am definitely planning to hit bonds, government & nonprofit and also JEs really hard. That is what I am doing this evening is studying bonds and government/NP. I'm also going back and doing MCQs on other topics as well to just review. Just trying to hit a lot of the MCQs this week and also fit in a few SIMS. Good luck to you as well, I see your comments a lot on other people's posts, it seems like you have been a lot of encouragement to others, so just wanted to say thanks for feedback/comments.

[msquared17]

I’m in a similar situation. I have my bachelors in accounting, but I haven’t done accounting in about 11 years. This year I decided to pursue my CPA goal. I’m scheduled for 12/7 and don’t feel prepared. I really want to reschedule but I keep telling myself that anything is possible if I really focus. Continue with MCQ’s and sims. You got this!

How did you like the live online course? I missed the FAR registration by one day and couldn’t take it. I use Becker self-study but I’m considering the live online format if don’t pass FAR.

[abby10]

Thanks for the encouragement msquared17 and good luck to you too. I thought the live class was good, I took the live class for REG as well. The instructors were all practicing accountants, some with Big 4 or Large corporate accounting backgrounds, so they were very knowledgeable about the subjects they taught. The classes did go pretty fast. At times it was hard to keep up with the homework in between the classes, which is why I still have some MCQs to do. But I thought the classes were great to get a good start on studying and to reinforce what you will likely see on the exam. You also have instructor emails and are allowed to email them with questions, so that was helpful.

[Anonymous]

I'm in the same boat except from what it sounds like you've been able to complete all of the classes and review for a month. I think you will do fine and pass. I have FAR on December 8th, it's my last exam and I was really hoping to pass it before the firm closure in December so I could enjoy life again, but I haven't even finished the book yet. I have to finish chapters 9 and 10 but luckily I took governmental and NFP accounting in college so the concepts are familiar. I started studying in October but it was hard to get through material when the hours were 50+ at work. I also went on vacation for a week and then had three days of feeling sick. In addition, I wasn't confident with some of the materials I was reviewing so I spent extra time learning it before moving on. It's going to be a mad rush this week to cram as much as I can. I'm hoping I can take some lucky guesses and pass 🙂

[CPA2BEE]

In my opinion, I don't think a month is nearly enough time studying for FAR – it took me five months and two attempts to pass FAR. But everyone is different so you may be fine. I'd say go and take the exam on Friday and give it your best shot, but my only real advice for success is simply study more. Study every day no matter what you have going on, even if you only have time to sit through 20 MCQs or something it should be in your head every day. Life and distractions happen for all of us, you just have to find time for it. Good luck and I hope you're able to pull it off!

FAR - 80
AUD - 82
BEC - 80
REG - 85

ETHICS - 90
EXPERIENCE - COMPLETE
Application for California license mailed 8/4/2016

[Sweet<3 soon to be CPA]

@ Abby

I can relate to what you are going through- I have pushed out FAR twice now – as recently as today (scheduled for 12/8). I've taken the other three but FAR is just too much information! I am going to take it this window but if I fail I will be sitting again Q1 2018.

If you feel you can efficiently put the time in can you push it out another week? I know from past experience that 2 weeks of studying can do wonders…

[abby10]

I am just planning on keeping it scheduled this Friday. I know I have not had enough time really but I'm just treating this as a first attempt/seeing what the exam is like kind of thing. Who knows, it may end up helping me pass the next time around, maybe I can pass in two tries. I'm just going to keep taking FAR until I pass it so I can get it out of the way since it is the hardest. I think CPA2BEE is right and I just need to study a lot more and quit getting distracted by life 🙂 Bonds are making a lot more sense just from the MCQs I've been doing over the past few days. I would have had a much better chance this Friday for sure if I would have gotten a lot more studying done.

[Sweet<3 soon to be CPA]

I completely understand and think it was smart to take FAR first rather than last!!

Best of luck and please share your thoughts after the exam!

[abby10]

Well, I took the FAR exam yesterday. I knew and remembered more than I thought I would, but don't know if I did well enough to pass or not. My time management was a lot better on this exam than it was on REG, so I am glad that at least I improved on that. I ran out of time on REG, because of spending too much time on the multiple choice and second guessing myself on those questions and didn't even touch the last two REG SIMS, but this time, I had plenty of time left to review all of the SIMS on FAR. I thought the FAR SIMS were a lot more detailed and harder than REG (but then again, I am in tax, so I have more exposure to REG topics). I struggled with most of the FAR SIMS except for two. I really need to improve on the SIMS and dealing with the amount of information presented on them. That is something I am really going to work on for next time. I get to the last few SIMS and I feel so wiped out by that time that it is hard to remain focused. Good luck to everyone else who has tests coming up soon. A know a lot of us are trying to get in another test before this window closes.

[msquared17]

@abby10 – Thanks for sharing your experience. Fingers crossed that you were able to pull it off. Have you decided which exam to take next or are you holding out for your FAR score?

[abby10]

msquared17, I will probably just keep reviewing/studying for FAR until I find out my score, I think the score release is Dec 19th or around that, so not too long to wait. If I do end up passing FAR, I will retake REG next. Would like to get these two out of the way first since I think they are the hardest.

[jcman240]

@abby10 – similar story here. Career change to accounting after 10+ years in sales/account mgt roles. got my masters few years ago and went into FAR (my 1st test) last December. knew i was not prepared enough and got 67. got back at it and passed 2nd time around. when you pass one your confidence goes way up and you want to get to the next one. Failed AUD 1st time but then passed REG when I thought I failed.

long of the short is, take the test and do your best. you will learn if you fail and there is a decent chance you just may pass.

[msquared17]

@abby10 – how did you do on FAR? I will be retaking it in February. I also switched to the Becker live online format that starts next week.

[Anonymous]

FAR is not one you want to take until you're really ready to do it. The other ones, especially AUD and BEC, at least up until this year, I think a lot of people “winged” and passed. But I don't know if they're that way so much anymore, with the new format.

Having said that – I would not labor too long on FAR. 3 months, maximum, cover all the topics as well as you can and then just do it. But to cut corners and just not study some topics or whatever is not a good option…for any of the sections, but FAR especially.

[Author]

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