[Barney]

Hi everyone! I’ve been studying for the CPA exam off and on since September of 2015. I accepted my job offer for a regional firm the summer of 2015 and thought it would be easy studying while in school. Needless to say I wasted about 8 months of my Becker license because I never made enough time to study.

I now work in PA and passed BEC a year ago today (October 30, 2016). Since then I’ve taken REG 3 times (74,72,74) and AUD once (70). I’ll say I studied hard but could have focused a lot better and worked harder.

Given my results I decided to order Wiley Silver course in September of this year. I started studying for FAR September 24th and have my exam scheduled for November 24th. It seems as though I’m always behind though. Currently I’m about 30 assignments behind because each day I have about 8 assignments. I also have REG scheduled for January 6th and AUD for February 10th in hope that I can finish them before busy season gets bad and before April when I lose my BEC exam. How do you think I should handle this? Reschedule and plan on losing BEC? Or any advice on how to get caught up? I’m currently off from work today but in 8 hours I get through about 7-8 assignments depending on how long lectures are. Any help would be much appreciated!

[CoachEmUp]

My advice may not be useful because we're in opposite situations, but I'll give you my 2 cents. I study full time and am on my last exam BEC, taking it in 3 weeks.

I took 2 months to study for FAR. While it seems like a lot, and I was definitely over-prepared, I put in about 4.5-5 hours a day studying 6 times a week. So add that up and it's ~220 hours. I found that anything more than 5 hours a day and there were diminishing returns.

AUD could be done in probably 3 weeks, although I did it in 4.5 weeks. REG could be done in ~40 days, but I took 45 and probably needed each day. BEC so far feels random, but I've scheduled 40 days and probably would've only needed 30 if it wasn't my last part and I'm trying not to rush it.

So TLDR: If you study 5 hours a day I would allot 2 months for FAR, 1 month for the rest of the tests. Generally I've had 2 weeks to review each section and have found pounding away at the MCQ's have been a recipe for success.

[kdawg22]

I had a similar problem when i was studying for FAR using Wiley. They don't give enough time to complete all the assignments. I had 2 1/2 months to study in which i used the 2 months to get through all the lessons and then the last 2 weeks for a review. You may want push FAR back until Dec. 10th (if any center still has availability)

How confident are you with the REG material since you would only have 26 days to re-study if you still did the retake on Jan 6th? I personally think it is doable. I rushed to re-take AUD and BEC in Q1 2017 before the exam changes and i only had 20 days for BEC (failed with a 74) and 33 days for AUD (passed with a 77.) As long as you have good notes to refer back to and go through the NINJA MCQ you should have a fighting chance.

[Barney]

Are you working too? I don’t see how it’s possible to put in 5 hours a day while working.

[Barney]

I might bump it back to January 6th as December doesn’t have any spots open. Then I’ll take REG at the end of January and AUD at the end of February. Thoughts?

[Author]

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