[RyonT]

Wiley Question –

Ok. My first exam is on 1/23 (BEC). I’m trying to get through the material by the first couple days of January. That way I have 3 weeks to review. Right now I’m about 65% through the material. To save time I was thinking about only watching videos and taking notes while ignoring. Has anyone ignored the mcqs at the end of each section? Also, any time saving tips would be nice.

[Hurricane]

I think the MCQ's are extremely valuable because they help drill the material into your mind and gets you familiar with the tricks that they throw at you. Honestly, if you absolutely have to cut something out, I recommend not watching the videos and focus more on the text and MCQ's.

AUD - 96
BEC - 88
FAR - 88
REG - TBS

[RyonT]

I still plan on doing a ton of mcqs. I was just thinking about doing them after I'm completely done. I will have about 3 weeks to do as many as possible. Maybe I should just suck it up and do the questions after every section.

[Scared-cpa]

I personally would recommend doing the questions at the end of each section as soon as you get through the material just to see if you understand the material as well as you think (or hope) you do. If you cut out anything, I would cut out lectures. A lot of the lectures in CPAexcel simply skim the chapter reading – there isn't anything in them that's not included in the readings. However, you won't find anything in the videos not mentioned in the text. So unless you're really struggling with a section, I would cut out videos. It saves a lot of time since you're just watching someone tell you about the information you just read. Do the diagnostic tests. This will keep the information fresh in your mind. I didn't do this the first time around for FAR and I regret it as you can see by my score! You really do learn a lot by repeating MCQs over and over. You understand a lot more detail that way and get a better understanding by working the same topics over and over in different ways. I would highly suggest Ninja MCQ if you don't have it. I'm currently using it exclusively for my FAR retake mid-January. I feel like the questions are more similar to the actual exam than CPAexcel or WTB. Although there is nothing wrong with those – use both if you can! But NINJA MCQ explanations are explained in more layman terms. Plus you can click on term definitions related to that question. This is really helpful if you're not 100% clear on what something is. Reading definitions and the related explanations can really help you to thoroughly grasp what the question is asking, why the correct answer is right and why the other ones are wrong, which is key in succeeding in the real exam. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

The main professor with the vest creeps me out!!! LOL I can’t believe he said “hey dudes and dudettes” in one video…

Anyway I only watched a handful of those videos (partly because of that professor), and passed with just one month (while working full time).
But I took FAR before BEC, which really helped and allowed me to skip a good amount of videos.

I certainly do not recommend skipping lesson quizzes until later. I believe the diagnostic quizzes are taken from the lesson review questions, and I skipped those until the end. I would go through the lessons/lesson quizzes first, after I was all done I’d take the diagnostics quiz and then the review quiz. I would always get quite a few wrong in the diagnostics quiz (as a review), meaning I easily forgot some of the material. I think it is better to do MCQs once while the material is still fresh in your memory, at least for me anyway, but I’m sure everyone studies differently.

Also, 1 week for review should be enough. During my review week, I’d just keep on doing MCQs (20-30 at a time, similar to the exam testlet) and take 2 or 3 practice exams. That’s it. Also I highly recommend downloading the app, you can do MCQs even offline on your phone.

[financetx]

I have been reading the slides and doing the diagnostic quiz. Depending on how I do on the diagnostic quiz I then may drill into the more detailed “study guide.” Is this similar to what you all do? Do any of you read the slides and the study guide? I feel like that would be redundant. Perhaps I should ditch the slides and read only the study guide.

[Hurricane]

There is quite a bit of material in the study guide that is missing from the slides. The study text is where you get most of the material that will be covered on the exam. I would absolutely choose reading the study text instead of the slides.

AUD - 96
BEC - 88
FAR - 88
REG - TBS

[sancasuki]

I never did any diagnostic quiz. The slides were pretty much useless for BEC, AUD, & REG. The slides for FAR were a good quick intro/overview to the text.

[RyonT]

I guess it sounds like I was on the right track aside from watching lectures vs reading the text. I'll stick with the end of chapter tests then. Even at the rate I'm going, I'll have plenty of time for review. Thanks for the input dudes and dudettes!

And yes, that professor is a lttile creepy, espcially that preying mantis he uses.

Also, did any of you take Jeff's advice and rewrite your notes?

[garnerr2]

I think you are looking too far into this.

Read the text and do the MCQs. You can forget the rest of the stuff.

CPA excel's BEC section has the least amount of material by far. I finished all of the material with a grand total of 48 hours studied. You can have all of that done with a week left for review and shouldn't have to dedicate too much time daily.

AUD - 76
REG - 78
FAR - Aug 2016
BEC - 79

[Anonymous]

Here was my strategy: View the lectures and take notes from CPAExcel, then do the MCQ and review sims. I read if I needed more clarification. After reviewing all the material, I reviewed my notes and NINJA Notes simultaneously multiple times through as I did the MCQ again. I then pretty much pounded NINJA MCQ as part of my final review and reviewed my CPAExcel notes if I didn't understand a topic. Scores weren't great but I passed 4 straight exams after an initial fail in less than a years time. MCQ are KEY so do not skip them.

[Anonymous]

OK, so here is what I did in detail to study for all 4 parts (I only used Wiley CPAexcel).

If I was watching lectures, I took all my notes in my textbook, and highlighted the text. If I didn’t watch lectures, I would first quickly read through the text and highlight, took the lesson quizzes, reviewed them and went back to the material that I got wrong on (and wrote down more notes). Finally, I wrote my own note cards, basically summarizing the key points from the lesson. Because each lesson is on a topic, it was usually a notecard/topic per lesson. If it was a lot of material in the lesson I’d do a couple of note cards in one lesson. For BEC I did skip writing note cards for maybe half of the lessons? I wrote a TON of note cards for FAR. I had the least amount of note cards for AUD. I’d always take my note cards with me wherever I went so I could go through my note cards whenever I had free time. My strategy worked, passed all exams on my first try.

Can’t stress enough how important MCQs are. Wiley’s test bank is pretty good for reviewing, just keep hammering down unanswered ones so you see all the different questions.

[sancasuki]

Do the MCQs in study mode, not exam mode. You learn more that way.

Link: Current CPAexcel Discount Codes

[Author]

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