[heat02]

Well I’ve been reading the forums for a couple of days now and am really confused on where to start studying for the exam. Some experienced advice would by great on what materials to use, study time, first section to take, etc.

[Anonymous]

Are you prepared for 50 different answers? Material is all relative. I use CPAExcel and supplement with ninja mcq. I have 3 tests passed and one to go.

Search for Jeff's tips how to survive the cpa exam. It's on the right on the main page of the forum. Read and follow his guideline.

I took the exam : FAR BEC REG AUD. Would have done AUD second but it was in the middle of tax season and BEC had much less material. 25-30 hours a week for 5-6 weeks per exam except for FAR I studied for 2 months.

[Thrawn]

It all depends on how you learn, and how you do with tests. One thing to remember is as a qualified candidate, most of the material should be something you learned in college, so you ought to have a good base of knowledge, the CPA exam just tests if you can apply that knowledge effectively in a test environment and under the much more difficult constraint of time. 18 months is a long time, but it can go quickly given the amount of material, so strategically you best bet is to maximize your time window to pass all four parts.

For me, this meant studying BEC first, I read the book on my own in a matter of weeks and then started watching lectures, at the same time as I was watching BEC lectures I started reading the REG book. Once I had the BEC lectures finished I started on reg lectures and then went back to BEC and started making notes of things I knew I needed to know and had less familiarity with (formulas, terms etc.) I focused on the areas that Becker recommended as the largest sections of the test and got very familiar with the scoring and format. I took BEC right as I was finishing the REG lectures. I then had a month where I couldn't test so I reviewed for REG and took that. Then I had the busiest time of the year at my job tax return filing and our fiscal year end. So I took April, May and June off from studying and started back up in July with FAR. I started again, by reading the book straight through and then watching the lectures. I knew this would be a big exam so ground through it and was able to sit in November. I got my passing score while traveling overseas for work and I used 20 hours of flying time each way to read the audit book cover to cover. By this point I was incredibly tired of studying to I scheduled my exam for the last day in February and passed.

The key takeaways, I knew my study style involved note-taking and reading to master the concepts, I did very minimal MCQs and no practice tests. During the last week I would use flashcards and I created two piles, flashcards I was familiar with and those I didn't know. This way I focused on having the ability to recall terms on the MCQs I wasn't going for memorization, but rather having a general idea this allowed me to cover more material (at least in my mind) and also remember it as needed on the exam without burning myself out. This is how I have always studied so I figured it would work for me, and it did. I also left myself about 6 months for any retakes if I had needed them, which fortunately I did not.

BEC 87 Feb 14
REG 84 Apr 14
FAR 82 Nov 14
AUD 86 Feb 15

[taxgeek83]

Q: Where to start?

A: At the beginning. 🙂

Seriously though – I had a lot of people telling me what materials to use, what study habits to make, etc. – and that was all before I found this forum (for the record though, they did tell me to look up this forum!).

Try something out! I went for a mid-range price point and bought Yaeger. Did it work? Yes and no. I supplemented with Ninja and ultimately preferred that. Knowing myself, even if the entire Ninja program was out when I first started studying (which it wasn't), I still would have bought a lecture series. In reality? I used it for one section.

Point is, you have to find out what's good for you. Everyone studies differently, and there are a million life situations out there that throw a wrench into even the most seemingly perfect study plan. First and foremost though, be realistic, especially with your study time. 8 hour a day weekends were perfectly attainable for me – in reality, I MAYBE hit two or three marathon weekends over four sections. It's tough, but it's soooo worth it in the end. 🙂

Oh yeah – section to take first? What are you most comfortable with? I had just taken and audit class, so I started with AUD. A lot of folks will say that FAR was the worst, so that's the one they started with to get the clock ticking.

Awesome that you're going after this though – you found the right group of folks to get you through the process. Good luck!! 🙂

[Author]

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