[Anonymous]

After the last score release, it seemed like the only people posting their scores were people passing and passing BIG! That is fantastic to all those who passed but I just wanted to give a shout-out to those of us that are struggling.

In the last few weeks I have been getting personal e-mails from people who don’t post on here and/or are ashamed of their scores. Please don’t be intimidated by all these awesome testers. You are not alone! I felt like a total idiot after I got my FAR score and thought, “Where are the people who didn’t pass?” and “What is wrong with me?”

Please don’t feel this way. If I read “I didn’t finish my simulations and guessed on half the questions and got a 91” again, I will scream. Some people are just great at this. Not that they didn’t work hard and earn it, because I know they did. They deserve it. It does not come easily for me and no matter how much hope I get when I read these comments, I have learned that we are all different when it comes to sections of this exam. I was devasted when I got my scores because of all the people saying they “definitely failed” then scored high. I actually thought I knew enough to pass.

How many times have you overanalyzed your testlet difficulty? Don’t! I have been driving myself crazy with that. Take each section, each question, one at at time and do your best. If that isn’t good enough, try something else. Don’t be ashamed. This forum started because of Jeff’s struggles. If you are having issues, please share them. I have gotten the best advice from people posting on here who failed numerous times and then succeeded. Ewww. I hate the word, “fail”. To quote Trevor’s signature line: “-You did not FAIL, you simply did not pass… failing means you gave up, and giving up is not even an option!”. Love that!

[Jan_in_WI]

CPAWannaBe – What a thoughtful and courageous post. I love your perspective on the situation. You will eventually pass all of the parts for this exam.

I have only taken two parts so far – AUD and FAR, and I'm in Wisconsin, so I'm still waiting on my FAR score from 7/10. I just wanted to share my two cents.

First, these exams are not really easy for anyone, and I do think it is insensitive (intentional or not) for passers to claim they “guessed” their way through an exam to a favorable score. That's probably not what they mean, though, when they say that. What they mean is likely that they worked through a process of elimination and made educated decisions on their answer selections. Statistically, the odds of passing any section of this exam through pure chance are extremely minimal. While some people more quickly are able to pass this exam, with proper preparation, most people will eventually pass.

I would also like to add from my experience as an accounting educator. Over the years, I have worked with students from many backgrounds and ability levels. I can tell you that it is possible for a student to do all of the multiple choice questions, problems, videos, etc., for this exam, and still not have an adequate grasp on the concepts. The important focus of study should be on grasping concepts, theories, and methods so that you can apply them in a variety of situations the exam may present. For example, if the text shows you how to work a problem in a particular situation (i.e. gains), think about how the solution would be adapted for a slightly different scenario (losses). Consider the relevance and purpose of the concepts, and be more concerned with problem solving than rote memorization. The mnemonics are useful, but not an end-all. I particularly found that focusing on general concepts really helped on the AUD section, because auditing is a field that requires significant judgment in a lot of different situations. A thorough understanding will really help when evaluating questions that are unfamiliar to you and deciding between two good answers.

I would like to share with you an alternative to copious note-taking. In working through the study program (Becker), I printed out a good sample of questions as I completed the multiple choice questions and sims. I chose ones that were challenging, but also a bunch of others I thought covered the main points of each unit. Then, on the printouts, at the top of the page, I wrote down the main concept to which the question related, i.e. “Scope Limitation”. On the bottom of the page, I would jot down a little note to myself about the question, i.e. “Inability to obtain audited financial statements of a significant subsidiary = scope limitation = qualified or disclaimer of opinion”. This accomplished two things – (1) Writing something down makes me more likely to remember it, and (2) I then included the printouts in an organized three-ring binder for a very quick and effective review for use the week prior to the exam.

I originally took pages of notes for the FAR section, but soon concluded that it was too time consuming. Instead, I printed out Becker's Class Notes, highlighted certain areas, and wrote a few things in the margins. For example, if I encountered something on a multiple choice question I didn't want to forget, I wrote it on the Becker notes in the relevant area. Next to the compilation definition in Becker's class notes, I wrote “No Assurance”. Again, Becker's class notes (with my added extras) and the printouts of various multiple choice questions with my short notes to myself written on them really helped me use my study time as efficiently and effectively as possible. I found I could review many multiple choice questions much faster by glancing at a sentence or two I wrote on the printouts than reading the entire thing over and all the answers. The objective is to grasp the concept behind the questions. That same concept could appear in a different multiple choice question presented in an alternative way. So, for example, no matter how it might be brought up in any question, I know that compilations provide no assurance, and that the inability to access a significant subsidiary's financials (or other important audit information in a variety of contexts) is a scope limitation.

I don't think it's necessary to take pages of notes to pass this exam, if you have good study materials.

People learn in different ways. Some people are visual learners, some are auditory, and some are kinesthetic. There are other classifications too. Try to determine for yourself how you learn best. If you're an auditory learner, in addition to the value of the videos, you may want to audio tape yourself stating some important concepts and play it back in your car while driving. If you're a kinesthetic learner, maybe you would benefit from taking your flashcards with you while you go for a walk. Visual learners do well with seeing the written word, pictures, and diagrams. Brain mapping is a great technique for visual learners. Trying just a few new things could make the difference in your score.

Anyway, I say all of this with the greatest humility and respect for everyone's efforts in working toward passing this exam.

Eventually, after passing the exam, I would love to use my background in education to help others pass too. I hope this is helpful to you.

Jan

FAR - 94 (7/10)
AUD - 99 (8/20)
REG - 99 (10/15)
BEC - 88 (11/20)

[Anonymous]

I am with you. To me, my progress is huge, in terms of.. studying. I mean, I am into AUD book for a week now, not only that, but I know ch 3 (60%), ch 1 (70%), ch2 (20%), and a little bit on ch 4. It is a huge step that I am taking in 4 yrs, that I am right here studying. If let's say I get a 60 on the AUD, I will still be happy because I am so far …in NOT GIVING UP….which I did so many times….before I found this website…. I know I have to find new strategies, and kill the fact that my study time starts from 10 pm sharp until whatever3 am…I am so tired the second day…and I am really tired. But I need to improve my study strategy overall. So, hey, a 69 on your grade means you need 6 more points….. That basically great …you need 8%….

Another thing that helps me… I keep creating the sticky yellow things with so many notes, and I carry them with me. Also, I have an excel log book which I update it every time i read, the questions, how many and the grade….. It's bad that I cannot invest money in the becker questions, but cpareviewforfree does a great job. :))) I am here, study tonite.

[Sandra]

For me, I wish that I had found this site sooner. I have taken the entire exam a total of 3 times so far. I am currently waiting for my scores on REG (8/14) and FAR (8/30). I'm glad to see that there are those who pass on the first time. I think that's awesome. I realize that everyone learns differently and everyone tests differently too. I suck at taking tests. It a fact of my life that I have learned to try and overcome. I have made a commitment to myself this time around that I am going to pass the exam before the new format takes effect. I would love to see a passing score during this testing window. I started this journey back in 2007 and I'm still not done but I won't give up not yet.

Again I congratulate all those who have passed and one day I will be one of you. For those of us who are still at it, don't give up because you can do it! I know that one day I will. Good luck to everyone!

AUD 58, 59, 61, 70 (8/31/11)
BEC 51, 58, 59, 57 (7/11/11)
FAR 51, 63, 64, 65, 61 (10/31/11)
REG 55, 63, 74, 68, 65, 71, 69 (4/21/11-waiting)

[Anonymous]

CPA WannaBe-

I wanted to give you some words of encouragement. I finally just past the last passed of the exam. I have been at this exam for probably 2.5 years if I had to calculate it. It has been a long and very hard journey for me. I am not a strong test taker at all. I used Becker b/c it was provided by the firm I worked for. The order I took the exams were BEC, REG, AUD, and FAR. I don't know why I even went in that order, looking back I wish I had done it differently.

Well I failed Bec with a 73 and decided to give Reg a try. I failed Reg with a 72. I felt pretty bad, especially watching the message boards and seeing all the high scores. 97…are you kidding me, how is that even possible.

I kept going and took BEC again and some how got a 76. I am pretty sure it was pure luck. So now for the biggest obstacle of my life, REG. I will hate REG until the day I die. I tried it again and got a 62….so I felt like I was going backwards. I decided to give Audit a stab….and studied my butt off. Got a 78….I was happy to pass but still unsure how all that studying I did, didn't result in a 90 score. So I tried reg again for the 3rd TIME. 69!!!!! I wanted to just quit.

My wife called Yeager CPA review while I was at work on a Saturday during busy season. She talked with Phil Yaeger directly for 30 min. She even told me she cried to him on the phone, bc she wanted it to be over with. So stubbornly I decided to buy the REG homestudy. In the mean time I decided to try FAR with my 2008 Becker materials, that was a mistake. I took it and got a 69!!! So I buckled down/ took time off of work and used the Yaeger Review for 2 weeks 12 hour days…..and got my 75!!! Needless to say I did the same for FAR and got my 79!!

None of my scores are impressive and some were farely ‘low' considering the amount of time i put into studying. I may not be the best test taker in the world and “barely” passed the exam, but in the end a 75 is the same as a 97.

I figure I have other worthwhile quailities besides good test taking skills. So don't give up and remember your not alone. I think the majority of us are barely skating by with a 75. And others don't have the courage to admit it like you did.

Best of Luck to you. You can pass this thing!! I think you are smart to buy a new review course.

BEC – 73, 76

REG – 72, 62, 69, 75

AUD – 78

FAR – 69, 79

[Joey J]

Florida_Candidate, you really cried? I mean really, with tears, sniffing, sobbing, etc.? I would have loved to see that. I just don't believe you, did the test freak you out that much? What were you crying about? I saw a lot of people literally crying after parts of the CFA exam as well. Like Al Pacino said in “Scent of A Woman”, if you get all tangled up, just tango on! Words to live by. Well, now that you aced that part even with all the stress, it should give you confidence on the next few parts. You probably knew the materials better than you thought as well. It's always easy to get very critical of oneself afterwards, and relegating it all to guessing, dumb luck, the stars aligning, etc. when in fact there was some serious hard-core method to the madness. Keep it up, but don't cry! If you do, I want to come to that testing center and watch! Just kidding, you know that I am.

[32CPA]

Fellow non-passer here.

Guess what, I had all the things happen that people say they passed with… Did well first testlet, 2nd was harder and 3rd was harder, bombed the sims, and did okay on the written.

Yet, look at my FAR score. I'm hoping I can do well next time. Already learned all the material…really hopeful I can find the recipe for successful review.

CPAwannabe… I am rooting for ya!

BEC - Pass 10/2010
FAR - Pass 10/2010
AUD - Pass 11/2010
REG - Pass 05/2011

[Florida_Candidate]

@ Joey – yes I really did cry, like had-to-take-a-break-to-blow-snot-out-of-my-nose crying… I think it was just such a shock. I usually blow through tests and yet FAR felt like I was walking on a minefield. I wasn't sure of any answer I gave and once I hit a few questions where I didn't even understand the material, it just pushed me over the edge. I've never had a testing experience like that before so it just really freaked me out. Then once I got to the sims I lost all hope because the numbers in the given material didn't even add up. I just lost it. I kept thinking “oh my god I should have studied xxx more…”

granted I studied a ridiculous amount and I WAS very comfortable with the material, it was just the actual test that was horrible. I don't know how people have “okay” experiences with FAR, I really don't :(. AUD felt like a breeze (it'll be interesting to see what I get on that). I finished AUD in an hour and a half and had a smile on my face the entire time. FAR was NOTHING like that….

FAR-91 (7/29)
AUD-99 (8/23)
BEC-90 (10/1)
REG-99 (11/3)

[koliver]

@Florida… you actually finished aud in an hour and a half?!?!? Thats quick!

FAR: 78 BEC: 79 REG: 86 AUD: 74, 83 DONE!!!

[Florida_Candidate]

@koliver – for AUD! Not FAR… FAR I used as much time as I could lol. AUD just seemed… easy. I'm almost worried I didn't read something major or something… we'll see on the 18th or 19th when the scores post 😉

FAR-91 (7/29)
AUD-99 (8/23)
BEC-90 (10/1)
REG-99 (11/3)

[Joey J]

Florida_Candidate,

You seem awfully bright. To pass like that despite having so much stress and consternation is quite admirable. You must have used some fantastic deductive reasoning and rationale in the stressful environment. And hey, maybe you learned something about life in general: even for the real smart people, there can be landmines. Perhaps crying this time will allow you to confront the issues and difficulties of other challenges a little “better”, since you are so used to kicking tail normally. Roadblocks and surprises happen to everyone, and it can take your knees out sometimes. I am not saying crying is not allowed (lol), but that it may not look so great in a Board meeting or due diligence meeting someday if a counterparty calls you on accuracy of a difficult M&A analysis or such. And to blow through AUD like that is extremely impressive. I needed most all of the time in AUD, but did really well. But that's me, I am not Stephen Hawking-level genius, so I need to work at this like most other folks here. More power to you, and for the rest of us we'll need to slog through. By the way, how are you studying? Are you using Yeager, Becker, Wiley, Gleim? A combination? How do you find the system you are using?

[Florida_Candidate]

lol I'm not a genius – I found AUD easy because it's all memorization of facts. I can do that… FAR was more memorizing and then UNDERSTANDING so that when they ‘twist' it on you in the lab you can apply it. I'm not good with twists… and I totally agree with you about how crying is not acceptable in the workplace. It's actually a major downfall of mine. I'm extremely perfectionistic so when things aren't perfect I freak out. I'm really trying to work on it and in fact, my entire class schedule right now is all management courses directed at interpersonal relationship growth! These won't even COUNT toward my masters in accounting, but I need to learn how to handle stressful situations better.

And my study strategy for FAR was the following (with Becker):

1. Watch each lecture (like F1, topic 1)

2. Do the homework for that lecture (F1, topic 1) until I got it down and knew the answers without even reading them (I know a lot of people say don't memorize answers, but I tend to be a memory person… )

3. Repeat until I'm done with an entire section (like F1)

4. Go through the supplemental questions and try to write down my OWN answer BEFORE looking at the multiple choice questions…. and then click the answer, and if my answer that I came up with matched the answer on the page I was good, if not, I tried to understand why or where I went wrong. usually I just didn't understand what they were looking for (like my answer that i came up with had nothing to do with the topic of the answers they gave me)

5. Repeat for each topic until the middle (F5)

6. Once I got to F5 I did a progress test with just F1-F5 and then I found I was weak in F2 and F3, which I then repeated the entire above process for those two… then moved on to F6

7. Repeat process for F6-F9

8. Took another progress test, hit lowest two areas again

9. Took another few progress tests, hit lowest areas again….

10. Took the exam…

Result: Felt awful during exam (I felt I got a lot of “twists” that i didn't know how to apply or questions I didn't feel I knew what they were looking for) but ended up scoring great….

For AUD I studied completely differently because it just seemed so much easier…

1. Watched an entire section (i.e. A1 – all topic) usually about 3 1/2 hours

2. Did flashcards for that section (yes I memorized EVERY SINGLE ONE even the gigantic paragraph ones)

3. Repeat with A2-A5

4. Go back and do all the homework for A1-A5 (I used this as my “review”) but I didn't re-answer the wrong ones again in the same day (like.. if I got a question wrong I didn't just go back and answer it right like I did in FAR, rather I waited until the next day and hit the wrong ones with a fresh mind)

5. Did a progress exam and hit lowest two areas again by going through the homework again and trying to answer it without looking at the answer choices

6. Redid ALL my flashcards the two days before I took the exam…

7. Bought Jeff's notes for AUD and read those in the lobby of the testing center (I read reallllly fast so it only took about 25 min)

8. Took exam…

Results: Felt great! I spent about 10 minutes on the first testlet, I felt like I had seen every question they gave me before, second testlet I spent about 20 minutes on… but I still felt very prepared for it, third testlet was about 20 minutes as well… and then I didn't really pay attention to how many minutes I was spending on each simluation, but they went quick. I left the test with 2.5 hours remaining on the clock… BUT… take that with a grain of salt cause I haven't seen the score yet 🙂

p.s. I just realized Audit was a 4 1/2 hour exam, I was thinking it was only 4, so I guess I took 2 hours, not 1.5… my bad (see, math calculations are NOT my strong point lol!)

hope this helps? feel free to ask anything else

FAR-91 (7/29)
AUD-99 (8/23)
BEC-90 (10/1)
REG-99 (11/3)

[Florida_Candidate]

and on a side note, I went to go edit a post to fix the hours on my post from this morning and there's no edit button? Oh well… hopefully they just read the rest of the thread… I don't want to mislead people with the 1 1/2… I didn't realize Audit for 4 1/2 hours 🙁

FAR-91 (7/29)
AUD-99 (8/23)
BEC-90 (10/1)
REG-99 (11/3)

[Florida_Candidate]

and LAST note (lol I PROMISE), I guess I didn't realize that my experience made people feel worse, I do appreciate that you guys brought this up because I will be more careful about where and what I post. I really thought I was being helpful to people by giving them hope that a disastrous testing experience doesn't always equal a disastrous score, but I see that's not really the case 🙁 I admire you guys that have the courage and willpower to study again after not passing. I'm not sure I would… I think if I didn't already have a job waiting for me, I'd give up and just choose a different career path if I didn't pass :(. You guys are amazing….

plus I should mention the fact I have no obligations in my life right now besides this test, so it also makes it easier on me. I can't believe how some of you do this with families. I haven't seen my family in months, and my friends no longer even call to ask me to go out because I always say no… so there are “other circumstances” in my situation. I'll try to be more empathetic in the future…

FAR-91 (7/29)
AUD-99 (8/23)
BEC-90 (10/1)
REG-99 (11/3)

[Joey J]

Florida_Candidate:

Thanks for the tips. I am also using Becker (but had used Wiley for BEC). I just did REG and am waiting for results. I didn't find it too easy, like other people who scored in 90's on their other parts. But I guess to each his own. I study in the same way: reading all the book materials, going through the lectures, questions, simulations, etc. I did not do the supplemental questions though, my head was about to explode by that time. Maybe this time around I will do it, because I have FAR to take in October. And I don't want to blow that. I want to be well prepared for that as well. This month, I am taking both levels of the CMA designation (managerial accounting). I really enjoy that material, and hope to clear both levels this month so I can be worry free when finishing off (hopefully) the CPA this year.

[Florida_Candidate]

wow you're studying for the CMA AND CPA??? That's freaking crazy, I admire you! And I'm terrified of REG.. I've never been a tax person. I probably shouldn't have left it for last but i was hoping I'd get some confidence from passing other sections first. We'll see how that strategy works 😉

FAR-91 (7/29)
AUD-99 (8/23)
BEC-90 (10/1)
REG-99 (11/3)

[Author]

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