[GreekPrincezz]

This is my first time studying with Becker and I started with FAR which is the one I’m the most afraid of. I feel so overwhelmed by the amount of material and the exceptions to the exceptions to the exceptions.

I have been doing the following:

1. Listen to lectures and take notes

2. Skimming through the book and spending more time and reviewing the example problems

3. Doing the homework and sims

Is anyone doing things in different order? or skipping a step? Just trying to compare what works because if I can be more effective in learning the materials and/or spend less time on each chapter before I get it that would be great.

I’m not sure if I’m just not getting it, or if I’m trying to remember way too much (instead of just the general or most important parts of each chapter).

Any advice would be appreciated.

[evesocal]

Unless you're going for the Becker Promise you don't need to do ALL the homework questions, particularly in the sections where there are hundreds of them. Do enough MCQ's to get 20 or 30 right and move on. You can go back to them later when you're reviewing. I never finished one of those giant chapters of questions.

Not saying more isn't better, actually I think more IS better but there's only so much time. For me, doing more than that on one subject at one time was enough. If I kept going I'd feel stressed about not covering enough topics.

The volume of material is overwhelming but this test has to be curved like crazy or I never would've passed.

B: 75
R: 80
A: 77
F: 81
Ethics: 84, 92 and done!
Licensed in California

[evesocal]

Unless you're going for the Becker Promise you don't need to do ALL the homework questions, particularly in the sections where there are hundreds of them. Do enough MCQ's to get 20 or 30 right and move on. You can go back to them later when you're reviewing. I never finished one of those giant chapters of questions.

Not saying more isn't better, actually I think more IS better but there's only so much time. For me, doing more than that on one subject at one time was enough. If I kept going I'd feel stressed about not covering enough topics.

The volume of material is overwhelming but this test has to be curved like crazy or I never would've passed.

B: 75
R: 80
A: 77
F: 81
Ethics: 84, 92 and done!
Licensed in California

[Anonymous]

Hi evesocal,

thanks for the advice. I have the problem of trying to get all the questions done for each chapter, but i always end up short of time. did you actually spend more time in the lecture and reading the book then? so how did that work for you without answering all the questions in becker and pass? I am just trying to find out how to study and stay on my schedule. A lot of my friends do all the questions and passed. But I really want to stay on my schedule as well. Thanks in advance for your advice!

[Anonymous]

Hi evesocal,

thanks for the advice. I have the problem of trying to get all the questions done for each chapter, but i always end up short of time. did you actually spend more time in the lecture and reading the book then? so how did that work for you without answering all the questions in becker and pass? I am just trying to find out how to study and stay on my schedule. A lot of my friends do all the questions and passed. But I really want to stay on my schedule as well. Thanks in advance for your advice!

[evesocal]

I did not read the book alone, I read it as I listened to lectures and read it to find answers to the questions.

I have to mention that I took live classes too. The live classes move very fast and I work full time so I could not possibly keep up with all of the homework for each chapter. But I'd do a portion of the questions and read the book /listen to lectures to help me do my portions of homework questions.

After the class ended (shortly before Thanksgiving of 2012) I continued to study, doing my portions of questions. I had a system where I'd do questions until I got 10 right and then go to next topic. I did this until I took the exam the first week of January, 2013 so about 6 weeks of studying after the live class ended.

The best advice I got for studying was just keep working the questions, over and over and over. For me, this had to be done in small portions because of my time constraints. And also, to tell you the truth, because I needed to switch gears often. I also wrote my own notes and formulas for things, like for calculating the pension contributions, and kept doing those problems until I could get them (mostly) right. And I took notes on the “notepad” or whatever it's called within the Becker software, particularly when I got MCQs wrong.

You'll figure out what works best for you. Good luck and don't worry about answering all those hundreds of questions as a goal in itself.

B: 75
R: 80
A: 77
F: 81
Ethics: 84, 92 and done!
Licensed in California

[evesocal]

I did not read the book alone, I read it as I listened to lectures and read it to find answers to the questions.

I have to mention that I took live classes too. The live classes move very fast and I work full time so I could not possibly keep up with all of the homework for each chapter. But I'd do a portion of the questions and read the book /listen to lectures to help me do my portions of homework questions.

After the class ended (shortly before Thanksgiving of 2012) I continued to study, doing my portions of questions. I had a system where I'd do questions until I got 10 right and then go to next topic. I did this until I took the exam the first week of January, 2013 so about 6 weeks of studying after the live class ended.

The best advice I got for studying was just keep working the questions, over and over and over. For me, this had to be done in small portions because of my time constraints. And also, to tell you the truth, because I needed to switch gears often. I also wrote my own notes and formulas for things, like for calculating the pension contributions, and kept doing those problems until I could get them (mostly) right. And I took notes on the “notepad” or whatever it's called within the Becker software, particularly when I got MCQs wrong.

You'll figure out what works best for you. Good luck and don't worry about answering all those hundreds of questions as a goal in itself.

B: 75
R: 80
A: 77
F: 81
Ethics: 84, 92 and done!
Licensed in California

[futureCPA12]

Here is how I use Becker for self-study:

1) Watch lecture for each chapter.

2) Do all the homework problems except the optional questions after I watch a lecture.

3) Do Sims/Writing Content review.

4) Go back and redo the homework problems including the optional questions so I expose myself to knew questions as well.

5) Write the answers to the questions I get wrong onto notecards to re-enforce those concepts.

6) Do Sims/Writing Content review again.

7) Do progress tests, creating either 24 or 30-question testlets depending on which exam it is for and I time myself appropriately so it helps me budget a bit.

I rarely look through the book after doing the lectures, although I do like to do a last minute skim the few days leading up to the exam just to make sure I know the concepts fairly well. The most important thing for you to do is work MCQ and for FAR specifically I'd also focus on knowing journal entries for the SIMs. Those could really come up and surprise you! If you have any questions for me, let me know!

Good luck!

[futureCPA12]

Here is how I use Becker for self-study:

1) Watch lecture for each chapter.

2) Do all the homework problems except the optional questions after I watch a lecture.

3) Do Sims/Writing Content review.

4) Go back and redo the homework problems including the optional questions so I expose myself to knew questions as well.

5) Write the answers to the questions I get wrong onto notecards to re-enforce those concepts.

6) Do Sims/Writing Content review again.

7) Do progress tests, creating either 24 or 30-question testlets depending on which exam it is for and I time myself appropriately so it helps me budget a bit.

I rarely look through the book after doing the lectures, although I do like to do a last minute skim the few days leading up to the exam just to make sure I know the concepts fairly well. The most important thing for you to do is work MCQ and for FAR specifically I'd also focus on knowing journal entries for the SIMs. Those could really come up and surprise you! If you have any questions for me, let me know!

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Hi thanks to both of you. I took FARE and failed for 54 because i was really into detail and run out of time after 2 times postpone the tests and then i didnt finish cup 10 as i supposed to. didnt even do the review either. so thats why i asked this question. but i know doing tons of questions is the best. However, i would stuck in some questions forever, and tried so hard to understand it… have you guys run into some (well, for me a few for each chapter. at least 4 questions i dont understand why becker answer those that way) questions you dont understand the explanation? what did you guys do? ask people in A71 for every single question you dont understand or just skip those and come back to it? or just skip those totally?

[Anonymous]

Hi thanks to both of you. I took FARE and failed for 54 because i was really into detail and run out of time after 2 times postpone the tests and then i didnt finish cup 10 as i supposed to. didnt even do the review either. so thats why i asked this question. but i know doing tons of questions is the best. However, i would stuck in some questions forever, and tried so hard to understand it… have you guys run into some (well, for me a few for each chapter. at least 4 questions i dont understand why becker answer those that way) questions you dont understand the explanation? what did you guys do? ask people in A71 for every single question you dont understand or just skip those and come back to it? or just skip those totally?

[evesocal]

If you ran out of time on the test then maybe you are overthinking questions. If you are “stuck in a question forever” – do you mean on the actual exam? You don't have time for that. If after one minute of thinking about it you have no idea how to proceed then pick an answer and keep going. On FAR I spent maybe 30 seconds on a lot of questions because I had no idea, and knew thinking about them further would not help me.

If you're stuck while doing practice with Becker – that's a harder call. There will be some questions you won't get in Becker. I didn't know about A71 until I was waiting for my last score (FAR). Sometimes I gave up on a Becker question and moved on to a different one on the same topic. (If I'd had more time I'd have given up on less questions.) But asking on A71 or discussing it in person with a friend or coworker or anyone who'll listen is helpful. When you have to speak (or write) to someone else it sort of forces you to focus in a different way than just studying.

For some topics in Becker that I had a hard time with, I'd re-watch the portions of the lectures that dealt with them. That was helpful to me.

If you're only stuck on 4 questions per chapter – IMO that is nothing, I wouldn't worry about it. Others might disagree. Try to put things in your own words and get the concepts down.

With computational questions on the actual exam, if I didn't know right away how to compute the answer I just started plugging in the choices until one was right. If I didn't get it that way I'd guess and move on. While studying, I made more of an effort to figure it out but if I couldn't, I'd look at the answer and try to write up the formula in my own words.

You'll get there!

B: 75
R: 80
A: 77
F: 81
Ethics: 84, 92 and done!
Licensed in California

[evesocal]

If you ran out of time on the test then maybe you are overthinking questions. If you are “stuck in a question forever” – do you mean on the actual exam? You don't have time for that. If after one minute of thinking about it you have no idea how to proceed then pick an answer and keep going. On FAR I spent maybe 30 seconds on a lot of questions because I had no idea, and knew thinking about them further would not help me.

If you're stuck while doing practice with Becker – that's a harder call. There will be some questions you won't get in Becker. I didn't know about A71 until I was waiting for my last score (FAR). Sometimes I gave up on a Becker question and moved on to a different one on the same topic. (If I'd had more time I'd have given up on less questions.) But asking on A71 or discussing it in person with a friend or coworker or anyone who'll listen is helpful. When you have to speak (or write) to someone else it sort of forces you to focus in a different way than just studying.

For some topics in Becker that I had a hard time with, I'd re-watch the portions of the lectures that dealt with them. That was helpful to me.

If you're only stuck on 4 questions per chapter – IMO that is nothing, I wouldn't worry about it. Others might disagree. Try to put things in your own words and get the concepts down.

With computational questions on the actual exam, if I didn't know right away how to compute the answer I just started plugging in the choices until one was right. If I didn't get it that way I'd guess and move on. While studying, I made more of an effort to figure it out but if I couldn't, I'd look at the answer and try to write up the formula in my own words.

You'll get there!

B: 75
R: 80
A: 77
F: 81
Ethics: 84, 92 and done!
Licensed in California

[Anonymous]

Hey Evasocal, thanks so much for your advice! yes, i stuck in the becker questions during my practice and not being able to understand those few questions was kinda of discouraging me. but you are right, i think if i try for a while and not being able to get it, i have to move on and come back to those as i do the review. thanks so much for helping me to get a new study strategy. best of luck for your study too! well, happy study! mm.. yeah, happy studying right?! lol

[Anonymous]

Hey Evasocal, thanks so much for your advice! yes, i stuck in the becker questions during my practice and not being able to understand those few questions was kinda of discouraging me. but you are right, i think if i try for a while and not being able to get it, i have to move on and come back to those as i do the review. thanks so much for helping me to get a new study strategy. best of luck for your study too! well, happy study! mm.. yeah, happy studying right?! lol

[Author]

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