[ellejay]

I failed FAR with a 63. It was pretty much expected and I am not shocked. I am ready to dive back in next week (after a much needed vacation first and holiday festivities, though). Some of the information is fresh on my mind, but of course some is changing in 2018. My plan is to study study study and retake in first week or so of February before tax season gets super hectic. That would give me 5-6 weeks.

I noticed Ninja Assault is on sale. If I purchased this and just hammered through with reviewing and MCQs, would that be a solid path to passing next time? Does my plan of 5-6 weeks, since I am familiar with most of the topics (though not master level yet) seem realistic or am I being too ambitious? I do have a busy life outside of studying for CPA exam, most of which I cannot really change, but I do plan to make some changes to get more QUALITY study time in. I can study 2-3 hours per day including weekends, of which I can probably bump that number up to 4-5 hours.

[Anonymous]

I still can't believe I passed FAR today, after failing to even complete the sims. They must've given a lot of partial credit for things like selecting the right account fields on journal entries.

But the exam questions are always so random that I'm starting to think pounding MCQ's isn't the best approach. It's better to know the fundamentals and build on them.

FWIW I only studied for 3 weeks for about 1-2 hours a day, but it was a retake.

[turo9992000]

I think the point of pounding MCQs is to learn the fundamentals.

[TryingtoCPA16]

@ellejay
I think it is doable. Doing the MCQs over and over works only if you are understanding how to get to the correct answer. My study approach for FAR was as follows:

1. Write Ninja Notes (1 week)
2. Watch videos (NINJA Plus) and answered all MCQs by topic (2 weeks)
3. Re-write Ninja notes (1 week)
4. Do random questions and practice exams (the last two weeks).

Also, since my commute to and from work was 35-45 minutes, I listened to NINJA audio traveling to and from work. You have to stay committed to a strict schedule though. But it's enough to pass.
Good luck! I believe you can do it this time.

[Kach]

@TryingtoCPA16: What NINJA package did you purchase?

[taxman]

Agree with Calvinus.
I found out today that I passed FAR on my first try and I felt that it was more important to fully understand the concept, rather than spending all the time on MCQ's.
I used becker and the first few modules took so much time to get through since MCQ's took a long time to calculate and I ran out of the little time I had.
With 3 days left until exam, I was at F5, and had not even started on F6-10. Decided that I had to watch all the lectures at least once before the exam, so I stopped doing MCQ's and just went through all the lectures read pre-annotated text.
During the exam, the questions were very random, yet I hardly got any questions on the topics I really concentrated, and got a bunch of questions on topics I barely covered.
I think I was able to pass without doing any MCQ's because I had pretty good understanding of the concepts and was able to make educated guesses that greatly increased the probability of picking the correct answer.
Good luck.

[ellejay]

Thanks everyone. I did go through lots of MCQs when I was studying and didn't feel like it really helped. Most of what I felt confident about was on topics I have mastered by understanding the concept and not just memorizing, so I agree. I got lucky because a few of the SIMs were on topics I have mastered, and many of the MCQs on the test were as well – unfortunately there were some topics I just didn't spend time on, and I guess I need to go back and master those topics now.

[Author]

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