[MasterOfTaxation]

I’m trying to gauge when I should schedule my exam – I’m starting with FAR. The way Becker auto-schedules the study sessions seems off to me. Like I’ll put that I can study 30 hours per week and it sets up two sections per week. According the banner on the top of the page for F1, the average study time is 15 hours. How?

I’m on F1-M4 and the combined time just from the lecture, skills practice, and MCQ’s is around 3.17 hours. I added up all of the modules for this section and here’s the numbers I came up with:

27.17 hours – Total time from lectures, skills practice, MCQ’s for section F1.
15 hours – “average study time”

So just off that information, section F1 should take a minimum of 42.17 hours. Yet when I try to create my schedule and put in that I will study for 30 hours per week, it puts two sections together in the same week. Even assuming there will be fluctuations in the times per section, that still amounts to 60-80 hours per week.

Wtf is going on with this.

 

 

[Anonymous]

I don't think a lecture would actually take you 3 hours to get through…I think an average chapter would take me about 15-20 hours to get through everything, and then I do leave more for review in terms of making notes, and re-reading the book….

[Anonymous]

The Hours for the CPA Exam are grossly underestimated by the AICPA and the Review Courses, so they can suck you in and make money. Unless you have a really solid background in a chapter topic, plan on spending at least 20 hours per chapter. Most chapters will require 20-30 Hours of studying if u really want to understand the material. I have spent 30+ hours on a few of the very difficult chapters. But, I average around 25 hours per chapter. Also, 40+ hours per chapter is overkill and u need to refine your study techniques, but it is easy to get caught up in the minutia of these ridiculous exams.

Goodluck!

[acardone51]

I would say that you only need about 15-20 hours per topic. The schedule I used for FAR was to watch a lecture on Day One, read the chapter Day Two, and try to bang through all the MC on Days 3 and 4. I would then take the 5th day off. Each day seemed to take me around 4 hours per day…so you're looking at about 16 per Chapter.

Some people like to go at a much faster pace than I did…and as you can tell at this rate it will take 50 days. At that point I reviewed for probably another 5 weeks or so, doing Sims (I ignore those initially…you need to nail down the knowledge before attempting that) and the progress tests and Finals that Becker offers.

Anyway, even if you added in the sims, I can't see it taking more than 20 hours per section (if you plan on doing a good review stretch after getting through them all, which I highly recommend.) Just try to get a good foundation down the first time through. There's 10 chapters in FAR, you're going to forget chunks of chapter 1 and 2 by the time you get through the Gov't and NFP…anyway, good luck!

[Author]

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