[Barney]

Hi all! I work in public accounting and primarily audit October through mid February where I’m working about 45-60 hours. After mid February I go into helping out with taxes and typically go up to 70-80 hours a week from March until April 15th.

I’m currently sitting with NTS’ for REG, AUD and FAR, all of which expire during busy season and BEC expires at the end of April. I took REG and AUD already and missed both by a few points, but have not taken FAR yet. I’m currently studying for FAR and am about 50% of the way through the material and hope to take it January 6th. Then I have REG scheduled for February 3rd and AUD on March 3rd. Do you have any pointers on how to pull this off? Letting the NTS’ go to waste isn’t in the cards so I’m shooting to do whatever I can to get these done. Thanks!

[Small4]

Ive somewhat been in your position (expiring NTS pressure) but since you are in a crunch, i say for all exams, try your best to focus on maybe 100 questions (on concepts, really know them since these are the “easy” points) and maybe another 100 question on calculations. What i mean is, what i used to do is have 200 or so questions per se of questions and i treated them like HW/topic summarizer. So for intance, if you have a question on BEC basic questions (that are easily forgettable and hard), i would print those and study them like an actual book…

As for the AUD, i would print out those template opinions and just memorize and understand those more than anything. I feel like alot of AUD is just knowing the ins and outs of those opinion letters.

REG, this is where it could be spent more on not just concepts, but some on the calc piece. Do alot of studying the hw or even print out SIM answers and just study those like a bible. Then go back as your exam gets closer to do just a bunch of multiple choices at the end without losing sight of big picture concepts.

70-80 hrs (i forget how normal that is in public accounting….i recall when i was in public, my colleague sleeping in his car at 2am and waking up at 6am to go to a client). Just know all your efforts are for a bigger prize so good luck and you can do it!

BEC - 68,70,72,75 5/15
AUD - 78(expired), 77 8/15
REG - 29,58,65,77 1/16
FAR - 56,68,73 - retake October hopefully (last shot)

Been doing this since 2007 on and off...

[Barney]

@Small4 Thanks for the response! I definitely feel like it would be a miracle if I passed all three, but it’s worth the gamble/effort if I don’t have to retake BEC. I’m off the week between Christmas an New Years so I can just co crazy that week with studying.

[Barney]

Well in 2 days I got through 1 FAR chapter while working 12 hour days at work. I'm off between Christmas and New Years so I'm curious if I should buy NINJA MCQ for FAR, REG and AUD. Or will Becker be enough? Thoughts?

[Alex]

I would really focus on pounding MCQ as they are the most efficient way to study. Passing on the videos will save you some more time.

I would use the book just to get familiar with the material and to clear up any trouble areas but the MCQ should be your bread and butter.

[Cards18]

If you're doing 80 hours a week from February on…Honestly, my advice would be prepare to retake the one you passed and let 2 of those NTS's expire. You should take one in January before it gets crazy and call it good.

80 hours a week of working is too much to plan on going home and studying and taking an exam, it isn't a recipe for success. Chances are good you'd fail the exam and your work would suffer

[Barney]

@Cards18 I agree. Basically as of right now I'm taking FAR 1/6, AUD 2/3 and REG 3/3. REG is going to be a rough one, but I think doing 1-2 70 hour weeks and taking an exam should be ok. I've taken REG two times and got a 74 the first time without studying, then 72 after studying. Not sure if I was just having an off day or what.

All of this sounds like hell, but I'm willing to put myself through it if I can get even 2 of the exams done. I then can take one more right before my BEC NTS expires. This week for example I worked 60 hours and studied 12 hours yesterday and about 10 in total between Wednesday and Friday. I was off of coffee for 6 months and just started back up so I'm going HAM on everything that's in my path lol.

[Barney]

I did buy NINJA MCQ for FAR, AUD and REG too. How would you recommend I integrate that with my becker under these time constraints?

[Cards18]

Hammer the Becker videos, all the way through, no homework or stopping for notes, just focus in on listening to them speak. Then do Becker's “progress tests” (which contain all the homework questions) for the entire course, all at once. Do the first 200-300 MCQ's as fast as possible, and then do another 200-300 where you begin writing down the solutions to the answer and the relevant material from the Ebook. As you get to 600-800 questions into Becker, you'll start seeing questions repeated through the progress tests…thats when you want to fire up Ninja.

Don't worry about doing sims, just get through as many MCQ's as possible. When you're a week out, do a final exam practice out of Becker, and you should also have an idea which chapters you're continually struggling with based on the progress tests, rewatch the Becker videos for those sections only.

Ninja was a great supplement, but a word of caution for REG, both Ninja and Becker have alot of Blaw questions, (I think somewhere around 40% of total MCQ's), but blaw is only about 20% of the exam, and most of that 20% contain some relatively straight forward questions if you paid attention to Becker's videos. Do a couple hundred blaw questions, and then try to filter out those chapters so you aren't wasting extra time.

Ninja's software was recently a bit janky for REG, where it wouldn't let me filter out chapters, so beware of that. When the detailed report feature is working (it wasn't for me, for REG), it's pretty handy as well.

[Anonymous]

If you pull this off that is Insane! I’d focus on 1 or 2 exams instead.

Goodluck!!

[Barney]

After attempting to get through as much FAR material as possible in the past week, I've decided to just let my FAR NTS go. My firm paid for it and basically if I have to pay them back I'm only out half the cost. Now my plan is to restudy for REG and take it January 20th, then restudy for AUD and take it March 3rd. I have Becker and NINJA for both sections.

I emailed my state board trying to get an extension on my BEC exam that expires April 30th and it's still under review. If I don't get an extension I think I'll just let BEC go. What are your thoughts? Thanks all!

[mzwacct]

Hi Blue Collar Nerd. I noticed that I got the same score as your first regulation attempt. I plan to retake it 🙁 next month. Would you mind sharing with me what did you do differently the second time to bump up the score?

Thank you!!

[Author]

Replies