[AGI]

Wiley Question –

Hi everyone,

I just graduate from college last week and I want to take the CPA exam right away. My plan is to take the FAR first, sometime in September – December. I am struggling to find a start and that’s why I decide to seek help…

Problem 1:

I watched a sample of Roger and Yaeger but I think both of them are hard to understand. I think both of them talked too fast and when they mention something I didn’t have enough time to re-think what they are. I was lost in the video after 5 minute.

My sister tells me I should purchase the Wiley book on my own and read it through to review and catch up on my study. She says if I study hard enough I will be able to make it without any review, since listening to lectures is really not a good choice for me and reading works much better. She says I am just wasting my time if I am listening to lectures without knowing a thing on the test.

If someone can guide me or give me a clue in what to do it will be great. Is it wise to have a cool-down period where I catch up the materials and read on my own? And what should I do afterwards since Yaeger and Roger both cover Wiley.

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Problem 2:
I also work full time, which make the situation worst. I spend 1.5 hour traveling to my work place and spend the same time coming home. Basically from 7:00 am – 7:00 pm I am traveling or on my way to work. I am trying to study on the train and on the bus but it is not working too well (cause I didn’t sleep enough at night.)

My friend suggests me to wake up early (like at 3 or 4 am) to study for 2 hours before going to work, and do a 10 hour study on weekends. Or I can study 2 hours at night with no fun gap at all to study and right into sleep.

I think either plan works for me, probably easier to study at night if I take a nap on the train off work. I also have my medical school sister to study with me all night long starting in July, so that should make me put in additional effort.

Here are my drafted daily schedule, I am slowly picking up to fit myself in. If anyone could give me any suggestions I will be greatly appreciated! My main worry is I only study 2 hours per day M – F and maybe 5-6 hours Sat & Sun will I be able to make it through FAR in Sept – Dec (If I read off Wiley Book) and will I finish all 4 parts in 18 month.

6 AM Wake up / Shower / Cook / Ready to work
7 AM Head out/ Study on Train / Nap
8:30 AM Arrive at Office / Work
12:30 PM Lunch / Study & Re copy my Notes
1:30 PM Lunch Ends & Work
5:30 PM Off work head home / Nap on Train
7 PM Dinner / Break
8:30 PM Do MC Stimulation / Review form last night
9:30 PM Read the book and do more MC
11 PM Sleep

Working far away, trying to pay bills, and study in the same time is hard.
I am not sure if I should take this test at all, or I should just give up and focus on feeding the family.

New York - NYC
Passed CPA Exam (11/2014)
In search for a position in NYC that will fulfills the license requirement.

[Anonymous]

I'm doing FAR with Becker, and having already taken 2 parts of the exams I can tell they give you exactly the material that's going to be on the test. I've done both live lectures and reading on my own, but the video lectures worked best by far as they really break down the concepts and emphasize what you must know vs what to skim. I have t studied with any other courses/books, but if Becker is an option (it's pretty pricy. Sigh.) – I definitely recommend it! Also – listening to lectures I find it a lot easier to tune out the noise when studying than reading the book alone. I

[ImaCPA168]

Stick with your lectures. They will teach you concepts in a deeper level and tell you which areas to focus. I used Becker (BEC/AUD), Yeager (REG), and Roger (FAR). All three were good.

Your schedule doesn't look that bad. You can definitley get your CPA. Have you seen the ELL and NINJA plan on Another 71? I followed them and it really helped me formulate a study plan and schedule that worked with my busy life. I work long hours, have a decently long commute, have a husband to take care of, and am pregnant. If I can do it, you can do it.

Definitely look into and follow Jeff's NINJA and ELL plan. The plans are free on this site. The NINJA plan will help you re-work the current plan you came up with above. The ELL plan is a calendar that will help you schedule times during your day to study. It will help you work in getting 3-4 hours of studying a day and more on weekends. So go get the plans. They will help you. Jeff also explains why the plans are designed the way they are and it makes sense.

While you're at it, I recommend spending a couple extra $$ and get the NINJA notes and audio to supplement your CPA review materials. They saved my life. You can listen to the audio on the train as well.

B - 83 Done
A - 88 Done
R - 81 Done
F - 77 Done

Ethics - Done
Attest Hours - Done

Licensed-May 2013!

[pinkerton7384]

First off, I would say it's a good idea to jump right into studying. I took a 6 month break after I graduated and it was hard to get back into study mode. It's definitely doable for you to pass all 4 exams if you're motivated enough.

If reading is the best way for you to study, I suggest purchasing the Wiley books from Amazon.com. They are wicked cheap compared to anything else and really give you a lot of information, but if you do all the multiple choice questions and take good notes you will be well prepared for the exam. I found the best way for me to study is to skim through the module, then do every mcq and take detailed notes on any question I got wrong or felt that I wasn't confident in answering. Then after doing the whole book, I'd go back and review all the notes I took. I also supplemented a couple with Jeff's NINJA notes and supplemented my last audit attempt with his NINJA audio, which I found incredibly helpful… I could go for a run or commute to work and listen to a chapter or two.

Since you aren't planning to take the exam until the fall, you should try out some different study methods and see what works for you, whether it's before or after work, on lunch, commute, whatever. The important thing is to just stick with something. I've taken 11 exams over the past 2 and a half years… passed, failed, lost credit on one… and I'm still going to beat this thing no matter what. You can do it too!

BEC - 75
AUD - 88
REG - 85
FAR - 75

DONE!!!

[Liss, Master of Coin]

Hi!

@Yellowsugar,

I too hoped I would not need a review course. It was mostly a financial reason, because they are costly.

I bought the Wiley books, as well as the Wiley audios (which is actually the Yeager folks but with the Wiley name on it). About the time I was halfway through the FAR book, I bought access to the Wiley Test Bank (which is great). This made me realize I wasn't really remembering very much from the book because I wasn't testing very well. I now think it's because they overload you on information.

I finally decided to spend the money on a review course. I have since been using Roger, and love it. He ‘cuts the fat' which I needed. My Wiley Test Bank scores have gone up tremendously.

Also, I recently downloaded the free Ninja audios, and I've already listened to these 4 tracks more than I have the Wiley/Yeager audios (I really wish I would have known about Ninja first, but oh well).

For the information overload that the Wiley books gives, as well as you work schedule, you may want to look into other review courses. Hopefully you'll find one that works for you.

CPA (MA, Non-Reporting)

The difference in winning & losing is most often, not quitting - Walt Disney

B - 33, 71, 79!
A - 32, 61, 70, 83!
R - 33, 58, 73, 69, 81!
F - 47, 78! 🙂
After 3 long years, I'm finally DONE!
I could not have done it without NINJA MCQs.

Used: Roger for his Videos, WTB, and NINJA Audio, Notes and Test Bank.

[AGI]

Thanks for all the replies, it's just great to hear from someone who have similar situations as mine.

I decided to give myself a one month vocation to relax myself from college and to handle all kind of post-graduate issue.

I am still reading the book, base on a when-ever-I-want bases.

I run through the first two chapters in FAR in Wiley, that's Module 9 and 10. Most of the MCQ are really simple, and on average I get around 70-80% correct. Long story short, topics that I know I really know them well, topics that I don't get from my accounting class I still don't get. It's turning into a topic focus study..

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Stimulations:

For some reason, the text in Wiley don't touch on the stimulation at all. I am having a hard time following the stimulations. Anyone have good resources for studying stimulations?

**Specially for the one that asks you to research on certain guidelines. Do we get those kind of question on the test? Is there a way to study / memorize it?

Finally, I also bought myself an expansive good-looking dairy to keep track of my CPA review. This way, I will be motivate to process!

Also,

New York - NYC
Passed CPA Exam (11/2014)
In search for a position in NYC that will fulfills the license requirement.

[mla1169]

I know it seems overwhelming but your schedule is a good one, stick to it.

Use that commute time to your advantage and study then.

Yes you will absolutely without a doubt get a research question on your simulations. You will never memorize that much information so you want to become adept at picking out which words are the keywords to search on (matter of trial and error/practice)

FAR- 77
AUD -49, 71, 84
REG -56,75!
BEC -75

Massachusetts CPA (non reporting) since 3/12.

[Anonymous]

Everyone has their own opinion on study material…but I love the Wiley books. I'm like you – listening to lectures is mostly a waste of time. If there was a instructor live and in person to answer questions, that might be useful…but just taped lectures? Shoot me now. 😛

So, I'd agree with your sister – get the Wiley books and see where you can get! If you feel like you're not learning enough from them, then go ahead and get another resource, but why start with the expensive ones when the cheap one looks like a better fit?

And definitely get audio – perfect for driving etc. I love Jeff's NINJA Audio…and I also love Wiley Test Bank, and both can be purchased through this website for a decent price in his 10 Point Combo Pack. I went back and forth on whether to buy the test bank, since it cost much more than the books on their own, but finally sucked it up and I'm glad I did! You can start with a 24-hour free trial to give it a shot, but I'd recommend buying it eventually.

I know that working full-time etc makes studying more difficult. 😐 As much as this might sound backwards, I'd say make sure you sleep enough. Don't lose 2 hours of sleep to study, because you won't study well if you're exhausted! But make the most of the weekends. I count the time to my exam in weekends, rather than days, because the weekend is when I study. I try to use one whole day of the weekend solely for study, and then mix things up a bit on the other day…and through the week, if I manage to study a bit, great, but if not, oh well. Most times, on the weekdays, the audio is all that I use…and I don't strictly pay attention to it, just hope that the repetition helps somewhat! With your commute, you'd be able to listen to the full audio for an exam several times per week (each course is between 2.5 and 4.5 hours), and even if you only consciously hear one out of 10 words, you'd still subconsciously learn a lot that way!

If you capitalize on the time you have available, you *can* make this work! But just a heads-up, you can't test in September or December…so you'll either want to test the end of August, or in Oct or Nov – they don't allow testing in the 3rd month of each quarter, so Sept and Dec are out. And it's stupid, but oh well. 😛

[tarheeljosh]

You can definitely pass FAR, the key is DISCIPLINE and STICKING TO YOUR SCHEDULE. I work full time, have a wife and 2 kids and have been out of school for 6 years and I just passed FAR using Yaeger. They actually do a very good job of presenting a classroom setting and walking through a lot of MCQs with you. They tell you to pay close attention to what they cover and ignore what they don't cover, which made me a little nervous at first, but it worked. I didn't have to read all of the 1,000 page text book and they prepared me well enough to pass.

I got up at 5 a.m. and studied for 2 hours before work and studied during my 1 hour lunch break at work. I used my kids nap time on Saturday and Sunday for 2.5 hours of study time. Here are my study tips:

1. STAY DISCIPLINED!!!! – This is the most important tip I can give you. I'm not a morning person AT ALL, but being a husband and daddy is more important than the CPA exam, so nighttime study had to be VERY limited. I stuck to my schedule and got the material covered.

2. FOCUS ON MATERIAL COVERED, NOT HOURS STUDIED – I hear and read a lot of “I'm putting in 20 hours per week, but I'm so far behind!” When you focus on getting your 3-4 hours in, you tend to procrastinate or spend more time on a specific topic than you need to and use your time poorly. Schedule your study time, but focus on covering as much material as you can during your scheduled time, not just filling in your hours.

3. DON'T BE AFRAID TO PAUSE THE VIDEO – It took me about twice as much time to get through the lectures as the video was long (i.e. 1 hour video took 2 hours to cover). I'd pause VERY frequently to take detailed notes or to figure out how they did a problem.

4. SET BENCHMARKS – Set 2 or 3 benchmark dates to keep yourself on track (i.e. I want to cover chapters 1-5 by July 5th, 6-10 by July 31st and that will give me 2 weeks to review before the test). I found that this was a great way to stay on track ( I just wish I had done it from the beginning).

And P.S. I walked out of the exam feeling like there was NO CHANCE that I passed it. That seems to be a common theme from my friends who are taking it too. Fight the urge to freak out during the exam. Cover the material. Review the material. Make yourself sick of the sheer volume of MCQs you've done. Trust your recall. It works. GOOD LUCK!

And the great adventure begins...

FAR- 82 (5/2013)
REG- 83 (8/2013)
BEC- TBD
AUD- 85 (11/2013)

James 1:2-4
2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

[tarheeljosh]

Research Sims are typically (but not always) a breeze. Look at the question. Find the basic focus of the question. Find the key words related to the basic focus in the question. If you can do a Google search, you can do the research sims.

Yaegar does a good job of assigning and explaining the assigned SIMs from the textbook.

And the great adventure begins...

FAR- 82 (5/2013)
REG- 83 (8/2013)
BEC- TBD
AUD- 85 (11/2013)

James 1:2-4
2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

[Author]

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