@Spartans92 – sorry to hear you didn't make it! I was feeling totally overwhelmed at the material in FAR until I realized I needed to give my brain some “navigational aids”. I used Becker all the way, but it should work with whatever materials you use, and whatever your note-taking strategy is.
START knowing the outline of the study materials. Becker provides one but I typed it out myself – it took about a half-hour per chapter, but doing it myself made me look at the structure and flow of the material, and notice relationships between chapters.
AS YOU READ/TAKE NOTES – make sure you know at all times where you are in that outline. When going through videos with the text, I added a header with the outline titles to every page as I reviewed it, so I always thought about that set of facts going with leases, or leasebacks, or bonds, etc.
NOTES/NOTE CARDS – I like to use note cards rather than pages of notes, it just works for me. I used those outline headers on the “title” side of every card. If I ran into trouble on an MCQ or SIM, I would add to the note card IN AN ACCENT COLOR so what the problems taught me would be emphasized.
USE HIGHLIGHT COLORS JUDICIOUSLY – I used three colors for three purposes: Yellow for the first run through with the lectures; pink for the second run through; and green to make all IFRS annotations “pop” out of the text. A friend uses every color of the rainbow, and it works for her, but above all be consistent with yourself so the colors help you as you flip through chapters, notes, or note cards.
The last thing, that my biggest cheerleader (thanks again, Mom!!!) kept saying to me: She knew I would pass because I used every available minute to study. If I had a doctor's appointment or event to attend, she would drive and I would run through flash cards or explanations of concepts in the car. If you can explain capital leases to someone else so THEY get it, then you really do understand it! Lunches at work meant MCQs on my tablet, or flash cards. My studying even became part of dinner conversations when I occasionally went out to eat. When everyone got upset about Trump getting away with not paying taxes because of operating losses? That became an opportunity to explain about NOL carry-back (2 years) and Carry-forward (20 years) and the deferred tax assets that are used to track them, and what tax rates apply. Maybe I bored a few people away, but if they stay away it's their loss. I WILL BE A CPA and they won't!
.