[kctiger]

Hi All:

I’m a complete rookie to this website, so please be easy on me. In the past three days I have started studing for the CPA exam and the FAR section. I’ve exhausted myself with the threads on here, trying to soak up any any all information I can find that may be useful. This is a truly awesome place for people going through this extremely stressful time. I do have a question, or two, on what may seem to be stupid things (as I said, I’m a rookie to all of this):

1. Becker Homework: first of all, the lectures do not do well in actually preparing me to do the homework. Reading from a book, underlining and highlighting, that doesn’t help me fully grasp the concepts. So the homework, at times, makes me feel like a complete idiot. How do most people do this? I’ve been trying to do the homework without opening my book, but that leads to an average of around 70-75% correct problems. I’ve found that actually taking time to review the critical details in the book while I do the homework is key, but even then I don’t score very well. I’m on F2 right now, by the way.

If you guys could offer your insight to this, I’d be indebted. Do most people do homework closed book, or do you actually use your resources? If I did this all closed book I’d be afraid think what kind of scores I would be getting.

Thanks in advance,

KC

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[mypetmeatball]

I don't open the book when I attempt the homework either. I don't think many people completely understand the concepts immediately when they just finish the readings. I think it's good to “work out the kinks” instead of driving through the problems looking at the material. Making mistakes in the MCQs trains me to read the question properly. I can't speak for you or anybody else, but 99% of the time if I get a MCQ wrong it's not because the material was completely foreign to me. Usually I look at the answer explanation and call myself an idiot for a reading comprehension error or a lack of deductive reasoning. If the question truly was something I did not understand at all, I just use the e-book function and find where it was discussed.

Sometimes Becker sucks and it references you to a page that doesn't mention what you're looking for at all, but that's another story. :/

[make_yourself]

My method is usually to watch the lecture, go back through the book and take detailed notes, and then do the homework without opening the book. My method is a bit tedious and time-consuming, but it has served me well so far.

Going back and taking notes on my own allows me to see everything, even items that Peter and Tim don't cover in the lecture, but are still covered by the homework. However, I think doing MCQs is the most useful part of the process, especially if you thoroughly read the answer explanations, regardless of whether you got the question right or wrong.

For FAR specifically, the MCQs were killer. They made me feel like I knew nothing. But as @mypetmeatball said, most of the time mistakes are made due to skipping a crucial fact, or an error in comprehension.

F2 is a rough section. The supplemental questions are especially bad. Don't let it get you down. Keep powering through it, and then go back and redo the MCQs again. You'll see that when you go through all the questions a second time everything will seem much more clear.

Good luck!

FAR - 81 (07/24/2012)
BEC - 92 (10/06/2012)
AUD - 92 (11/29/2012)
REG - 88 (02/28/2013)

Ethics - 90

California Licensed CPA - 12/2013

[WhoDat15]

I used Becker and my method worked well for me but everyone is different. Personally, during the “lectures”, I just followed along and highlighted/noted whatever they covered on the videos. It moves far too quickly and covers too much depth to try and absorb the info as they cover it. After the lecture, I would go back a re-read the entire chapter. As others have said, it is extremely time consuming but I figured go all out the first time and knock it all out on first attempt. Anyway, once I felt comfortable with the material I would just hammer the MCQ's over and over. Not sure if you have access to the flash cards, but I found those to be the most helpful tool for refreshing older sections as I reviewed; hope this helps and good luck!

REG - 88
BEC - 85
AUD - 83
FAR - 90

[TheCPAman]

I like becker so far. I usually get 40-60%, and sometimes I open book, when I dont have any clue, because lectures dont discuss much. Reading is very important. MCQ are just to give you an idea, how questions will be on exam, but wont present whats exactly tested one exam. Reading covers you for any surprises

I am in review process of FAR exam

[Jobless2CPA]

if you can get 70 – 75 % on the first try without using the book you are in good shape

[kctiger]

First of all, thank you to those who responded. I am truly appreciative of you taking time to do so. It seems my experience is echoed throughout the forum. Right now I am just trying to wrap my head around the sheer volume of information, and like others have stated, the lectures do not cover all of the homework questions.

Just so I'm clear (and I know these are remedial questions), the HW problems they give us are from old tests, correct? I do have the flashcards, and I've been using those as a supplement for prior covered material. For instance, I am studying F2 right now, but every day I do that I review the F1 flashcards for a half hour or so just to keep that somewhat fresh. I've heard of Becker, and other reviews, using the harder MCQ's to really nail down preparation. Is this true?

I'm the type of person who is constantly concerned about being perfect, so I have issues with not knowing exactly how prepared I am, if that makes sense. I have determined that I will give up going out, and pretty much any form of social life, until I get this exam knocked out. My only fear with that is reaching a burnout point. I don't want to exert so much energy on this section that I just exhaust motivation for the other three.

[kctiger]

I also meant to ask, when you do the HW for the first time, are you all trying to complete each question within the 1-2 minute timeframe? There are several times on problems I've found myself exceeding that window. Is that acceptable? I cannot imagine being able to do some of these MCQ's in less than 2 or even 3 minutes. I guess the practice is what counts, huh?

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[Anonymous]

I don't think you need to worry about the timeframe at that stage. After you finished all lectures, you will do 90 MCQs progress test. At that point, set the time per question 1.5 min to see if you can finish all.

One thing I highly recommend is to write down question #s of homework questions on the textbook where it explains about it and highlight. you can see some areas are heavily tested.

[Author]

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